Astrid Hiemer
Bio:
A cultural critic and writer, Astrid grew up after WW II in Hamburg, Germany, and emigrated to the United States in the 1960s. She was formerly the assistant director (Administrative Officer) of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT under Otto Piene, with whom she has worked in the past several years editing, translating, and researching for a major book about his life and career. While at The Center she knew and worked with many multi-media artists. In addition to professional work as an editor and translator she is also a poet, and writer of fiction. Most of her written work is accompanied by her own photographs.
Recent Articles:
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Major Otto Piene Donation to Harvard Front Page
70 Artist Sketchbooks
By: - Apr 16th, 2019Elizabeth Goldring, the widow of internationally renowned artist Otto Piene, recently donated 70 of his sketchbooks to the Harvard Art Museums and Archives. Piene sketched what he saw and what concerned and motivated him throughout his life. Now, researchers and the public can have access to this trove of drawings and ideas by contacting Harvard Archives.
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Otto Piene at Fitchburg Art Museum Front Page
Fire and Light: Otto Piene in Groton, 1983-2014
By: - Apr 14th, 2019The current Otto Piene exhibition at the Fitchburg Art Museum in Massachusetts will close on June 2nd with a conversation titled: 'Fire, Light and Protest.' Photographs by Joe Landry, 'The Summer of 1969' are also on view at FAM. The photographer and curator Lisa Crossman on the work of Piene will be in conversation. First, however, the museum is inviting the public to participate in an outdoor Sky Art Event on April 27 near the museum. Art that flies!
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La Boheme at Komische Oper Berlin Front Page
Opera by Giacomo Puccini
By: - Feb 05th, 2019When it comes to culture, Berlin is always worth a trip. And a great trip it was, to experience the opening night of Barrie Kosky's interpretation of La Bohème, by Giacomo Puccini, on Sunday, January 27 at the Komische Oper (Comic Opera) in Berlin.
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100 Years Bauhaus Front Page
Opening Ceremonies in Berlin
By: - Jan 26th, 2019Angelika Jansen was lucky enough to experience many aspects of the '100 jahre bauhaus' (100 Years of Bauhaus) celebrations, from January 16-24, as she writes in her following article. Architecture and culture in the 20th Century were greatly influenced by works and activities of many members of an 'institution' that only lasted 24 years - and the Bauhaus impact lives on.
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Whitney Biennial Word
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Capitol Improvements Word
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Shakespeare & Company Mourns Dennis Krausnick Front Page
A Founder of the Lenox Company
By: - Nov 29th, 2018Dennis Krausnick was a leader of Shakespeare & Compan, in Lenox, since its inception. In 1976 he was awarded an M.F.A. in Acting from New York University. It was at N.Y.U. where he met Tina Packer. They married in 1998. In 1978 Dennis helped found Shakespeare & Company with Tina and Kristin Linklater.
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The Revolutionists by Lauren Gunderson Front Page
Liberté, égalité, sororité at Strawdog Theatre
By: - Nov 29th, 2018Lauren M. Gunderson has been the most produced playwright in America for the last two years, and her work has won several awards, including the Steinberg/American Theatre Critics New Play Award for I and You. Gunderson’s conceit about four women ready for revolution is clever, and in act one, a bit too mannered, even coyly cute. But act two becomes more serious.
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Elaine May in Waverly Gallery Front Page
Back on Broadway
By: - Nov 29th, 2018In Kenneth Lonergan’s The Waverly Gallery, Gladys is the center of the story as her grandson, her daughter and son-in-law and a young artist she has befriended deal with this decline over a two year period. Elaine May is making a rare stage appearance.
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Understudy by Theresa Rebeck Front Page
At Coyote StageWorks
By: - Nov 29th, 2018Chuck Yates is one of the finest actors in the Coachella Valley winning many Desert Theatre League (DTL) Award trophies for excellence in theatre. In Rebeck's masterful The Understudy we have two male actor-candidates and one avenging female stage manager from Hell named Roxanne. She puts two male actors Harry and Jake auditioning for the role of the ‘understudy’ through their paces before giving them the okay to join the performing cast.
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Brian Dennehy at LA's Geffen Playhouse Front Page
Masterful One Acts by O'Neill and Beckett
By: - Nov 29th, 2018Actor Brian Dennehy is currently presenting a Master Class in acting with his one-man presentation of two One Acts: Eugene O’Neill’s “Hughie” and Samuel Beckett’s obtuse “Krapp’s Last Tape”.
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American Son by Christopher Demos-Brown Front Page
Kerry Washington and Steve Pasquale Star
By: - Nov 25th, 2018American Son by Christopher Demos-Brown won Berkies for its premiere at Barrington Stage Company. It has transferred to Broadway starring Kerry Washington and Steve Pasquale. Kenny Leon, credited with many August Wilson plays, has done a fine job directing this.
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Disney's Frozen Front Page
Magical Winter Wonderland
By: - Nov 24th, 2018Despite some critical pans, Frozen has a strong enough pre-sale to guarantee many weeks on Broadway’s turf. Thanks are due to all the little girls who can’t get enough of the tale of Elsa and Anna, two Scandinavian sisters who yearn to be close despite mysterious magic separating them.
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Lane's Cove Word
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Detroit Wineries Front Page
Not Just Cars from Motown
By: - Sep 29th, 2018Most folks have no idea of Detroit’s winemaking history. In 1702, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac wrote about the vineyards he planted along the Detroit River (some of the first in North America). Prior to Prohibition, Kownacki notes, several Michigan wineries existed. One of these became known as St. Julian Wine Company, which today produces more than 50 different kinds of wine.
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Jay Jaroslav at Gloucester's Trident Gallery Front Page
Finding Art Through Covert Operations
By: - Sep 28th, 2018In 1978, at Boston's Atlantic Gallery, Jay Jaroslav displayed large, photo realist facsimiles of appropriated birth certificates. The certificates of infants roughly the artist's age had died within a week of birth. He used them to obtain social security, passports and driver's licenses to create 31 purloined identities. The current exhibition at Trident Gallery, his first solo in three decades, further explores documents and process as conceptual art.
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My Movie Word
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A Classic Play by Ntozake Shange Front Page
African-American Shakespeare Company
By: - Sep 27th, 2018Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf is a work of great moment that gave black women a platform, in some ways a pedestal, from which to denounce their double indignity of racial and gender discrimination and announce their worth and beauty.
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Braciole Word
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Bess Wohl’s Make Believe Front Page
World Premiere at Hartford Stage
By: - Sep 25th, 2018Make Believe has potential but it isn’t ready for prime time. When people start taking peeks at their watches during a 90 minute play, it’s a clear sign that something isn’t working.
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Debra Jo Rupp Romps in The Cake Front Page
Geffen Playhouse Bakes Hilarous Comedy
By: - Sep 25th, 2018The Barrington Stage Company production of The Cake has gone West young man to LA's Geffen Playhouse. Now another coast shares the delicious comedy of Debra Jo Rupp. This is a run don't walk production.
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Komische Oper, Berlin, Germany Front Page
Opening of the Season 2018/19
By: - Sep 25th, 2018Berlin's Komische Oper (Comic Opera) opened its 2018/19 season with some of the most successful productions of the previous season. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 'Zauberflöte' (Magic Flute) and Jerry Bock's 'Anatevka' which is better known as Fiddler On The Roof.
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The Untranslatable Secrets of Nikki Corona Front Page
World Premiere at Geffen Playhouse
By: - Sep 19th, 2018Under the aegis of new artistic director Matt Shakman, The Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, premieres playwright Jose Rivera’s mystical new work “The Untranslatable Secrets of Nikki Corona,” directed by acclaimed, award-winning director Jo Bonney,
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Joseph D. Ketner II (1955 - 2018) Front Page
Renowned Curator of Contemporary Art
By: - Sep 19th, 2018Joe Ketner had been the Lois and Henry Foster Chair in Contemporary Art Theory and Practice and Distinguished Curator-in-Residence at Emerson since 2008. In this dual role, he worked tirelessly both to give his students a sense of the social dynamism that art enables, as well as cement Emerson’s place as a source of that dynamism through its galleries and public art installations.
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The Abduction from the Seraglio Front Page
Opera San Jose
By: - Sep 19th, 2018On opera’s dramatic measuring rod, any production of Abduction would fall on the comedic rather than the tragic end, but Opera San José pushes the comic meter to the point that opera detractors might even appreciate it as a stage comedy with music.
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