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The KPAC Blog features classical music news, reviews, and analysis from South Texas and around the world.

Slide Show: Modernists at the McNay, Part Two

The curtain rises on Modernists at The McNay, Part Two with another perspective on the large canvas which greets visitors to the McNay's current headline show, Miro: The Experience of Seeing. Rene Barilleaux, Chief Curator at the McNay, describes what he sees in Miro's Homage to Picasso. We then follow Rene into the next room, coming face-to-face with Woman and Bird in the Night. The question raised here is whether by a simple charcoal inscription of the word "orange" the viewer will "see" a color which isn't really there.

Miro: The Experience of Seeing is about a 50/50 mix of sculpture and canvas. The orientation of the exhibit is such that works complement each other. Perhaps an element in one of the sculptures, maybe one of those famous found objects which Miro so often used in his assemblages, will find a reflection in a nearby painting. Sometimes the works, whether sculpture or painting, will flip the memory of the gallery-goer to an image not even present in the current exhibition. Thus, when I see the architectural sculpture Woman at the Square in a Cemetery, my mind sees the Maquette for Le Tricorne (The Three Cornered Hat), a part of the Tobin Collection of Theatre Art.

Manuel de Falla's The Three Cornered Hat seems entirely appropriate music for both the work of Miro and Picasso, just as the final musical number on Part Two of Modernists at The McNay, Erik Satie's Parade, is a perfect reminder that art rarely stands alone. It is often better understood and appreciated when one recognizes the relationships between the visual, the theatrical, and the musical.

James first introduced himself to KPAC listeners at midnight on April 8, 1993, presenting Dvorak's 7th Symphony played by the Cleveland Orchestra. Soon after, he became the regular overnight announcer on KPAC.