Law and Order: Phillips Edition

Posted on June 30, 2011 by Brooke Rosenblatt

Ever been to a dinner party in Washington, D.C. and not met an attorney or someone who went to law school? Wonder what happens when people leave law school behind in favor of artistic vocations?

CakeLove’s Warren Brown stopped practicing law in 2002 to start a bakery, and the Pink Line Project’s Chief Creative Contrarian Philippa Hughes also worked as a lawyer and lobbyist until 2003. I’m sure there are scores of other creatives who’ve joined the ex-lawyer club.

Washington, D.C. takes the legal cake in this map of U.S. career concentration by city from Richard Florida's 2008 book "Who's Your City."

Several artists included in The Phillips Collection initially set out to become lawyers. Here are a few notables; I think art history is glad they changed career paths! Continue reading →

My First Play, Again

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Experiment Station

Alan Paul, associate director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company, guest blogs about the July 7 staged reading of John Guare’s award-winning play Six Degrees of Separation, which he’s directing for the Phillips.

(left) Wassily Kandinsky, Sketch I for Painting with White Border (Moscow), 1913, 39 1/2 x 30 7/8 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. © 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. (right) Last summer, Alan Paul directed a staged reading of Yasmina Reza's "Art" at the Phillips. This summer, he's back with "Six Degrees of Separation."

It’s hard to believe we started brainstorming a list of plays over a year ago that would complement upcoming exhibitions at the Phillips. But, here we are just a week away, and I am hard at work on Six Degrees. When I saw Kandinsky on the list of upcoming exhibitions a year ago, I knew we had to do a reading of Six Degrees . As you’ll see, a double-sided Kandinsky plays a prominent role in the play.

I fell in love with the play as an undergraduate in college, and it was in fact the first play I ever directed. Ever. I did it at Northwestern University with a company of actors under 20 years old. To say it was a profound experience for me would be an understatement—this play changed my life and made me realize that directing would be my chosen field.

I’m so excited to tackle this play again with some pretty significant D.C. actors. The hardest parts are Flan and Ouisa, and I’m really lucky to have two amazing actors in those roles, Rick Foucheux and Naomi Jacobson. Rick, Naomi, and I worked together when I was an assistant director on the premiere production of Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone at Woolly Mammoth, one of the first shows I ever worked on in D.C. So, it’s a thrill to have them in this. And, we’ve got a mix of some of my other favorites from Larry Redmond to Julie-Ann Elliot. There are also a slew of younger actors in the company, many of whom I met this winter when I directed Man of La Mancha at Catholic University. It’s a great team, and I’m glad to re-visit this play with actors I really admire.

Hope to see you all in T-8 days.

Phillips Petting Zoo: Franz Marc

Posted on June 17, 2011 by Brooke Rosenblatt

Franz Marc, Deer in the Forest I, 1913. Oil on canvas. 39 3/4 x 41 1/4 in. The Phillips Collection

I’ve always been curious about artists and their pets, and Franz Marc may be one of the biggest animal lovers represented in The Phillips Collection. Marc often depicted horses, deer, and dogs as innocent creatures. With his paintings, he aimed to express animals’ feelings and encourage viewers to empathize with the natural world. The deer seen in Deer in Forest I (1913) have been associated with innocence, vulnerability, and gentleness.

Marc didn’t just paint animals; he also lived with them. As a boy he was inseparable from his dog, and he had many pets, including Schlick and Hanni, a male and female deer he owned at the end of his life (my colleague Klaus explained to me that it used to be fairly common to keep deer as pets in Germany-at least before Lyme disease became a concern). Artist Wassily Kandinsky visited Marc’s home and met Schlick and Hanni. Kandinsky noted that Marc loved his animals as though they were his own children.

Interestingly, Marc isn’t the only artist to have kept deer as pets. Frida Kahlo had a fawn named Granizo. Actress Audrey Hepburn had a deer named Pippin. They even went to the grocery store together!