This exhibition highlights the nearly fifty-year career of ceramicist Edward Lycett (American, 1833–1910), creative director of the Faience Manufacturing Company from 1884 to 1890. The range of works illustrates Lycett’s talent and adaptability to stylistic changes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as his vision for Faience, a company based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, that earned acclaim for producing ornamental wares that introduced a new standard of excellence in American ceramics. These bold and eclectic pieces synthesized Japanese, Chinese, and Islamic influences characteristic of the Aesthetic movement and were sold in the United States’ foremost art ware emporiums, including Tiffany & Company.

Among the ceramics on view are 39 Faience pieces, including a number of large-scale vases. Also on view are Lycett’s formula books, family photographs, and other ephemera; rare examples of ceramic works by his three sons; and other Brooklyn-made ceramics from the Museum’s collection.

In the 1970s, Anatsui began to manipulate broken ceramic fragments. With their allusions to ancient Nok terracotta sculptures, West African myths about the earth and cultural references to the use of clay, the ceramic works piece together shattered ideas and histories to form a new whole. In the same decade, he also made sculptures that brought together signs and symbols from various cultures and languages, created by chopping, carving, burning and etching wood.

In the 1990s, Anatsui made a crucial shift from working with hand tools to carving with a power saw, which enabled him to cut through blocks of wood, leaving a jagged surface that he likened to the scars left by European colonial encounters with Africa.

In his most recent metal wall sculptures, Anatsui assembles thousands of West African liquor-bottle tops into moving patterns of stunning visual impact, transforming this simple material into large shimmering forms. When I Last Wrote to You about Africa includes the largest compilation of Anatsui’s works ever assembled, including massive wall pieces and large-scale floor installations. "I think of myself as an artist," Anatsui said in an interview with Agence-France-Presse. "And I'm an African." 

For three decades BAM’s DanceAfrica festival has been a Memorial Day Weekend tradition in Brooklyn. A lively and diverse blend of African and African-American dance, music, film, and art devoted to preserving traditions and educating new generations, DanceAfrica’s spirit is personified by Founding Elder and Artistic Director Baba Chuck Davis.

For the Memorial Day weekend performance, DanceAfrica 2013 welcomes Umkhathi Theatre Works from Zimbabwe, Giwayen Mata from Atlanta, and Harambee Dance Company from New York, plus Brooklyn’s own BAM/Restoration DanceAfrica Ensemble.

Rhythms of Africa / Giya Africa / Mandingindira e Africa
Artistic Director Chuck Davis

Umkhathi Theatre Works (Zimbabwe)
Giwayen Mata (Atlanta, Georgia)
Harambee Dance Company (Bronx, New York)
BAM/Restoration DanceAfrica Ensemble

Henrik Ibsen: The Master Builder
Translated by David Edgar
Directed by Andrei Belgrader
Produced by BAM

Ruthless and revered architect Halvard Solness (John Turturro) is obsessively driven—until a young woman from his past stops him in his tracks. Hilde (Wrenn Schmidt, Boardwalk Empire), a force of unbridled sexual energy coupled with childlike willfulness, enters the master builder’s home and head, trailing mysterious talk of past promises. As she urges the megalomaniacal Solness to ever greater and less sustainable heights, his tragedy-haunted wife Aline (Katherine Borowitz) watches from the sidelines, an unwilling participant in an off-kilter love triangle.


Cast:

Katherine Borowitz (Aline Solness)
Ken Cheeseman (Dr. Herdal)
Julian Gamble (Knut Brovik)
Kelly Hutchinson (Kaja Fosli)
Max Gordon Moore (Ragnar Brovik)
Wrenn Schmidt (Hilde Wangel)
John Turturro (Halvard Solness)

Costume design by Marco Piemontese
Lighting design by James F. Ingalls
Sound design by Ryan Rumery

BAM Harvey Theater
30 Lafayette Avenue
Brooklyn, NY

Another year, another scandal at the Cannes Film Festival. Contemporary filmmakers take heart—among the directors who have felt the wrath of the French festival’s fickle audiences are titans like Antonioni, Bresson, Truffaut, and Fellini. Many of their works, now heralded as masterpieces, were first met with incomprehension, disdain, and deafening jeers.

In this series, BAMcinématek gathers some of the most notorious films maudits, many of which are now revered as masterpieces. Two notable American examples are Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) and David Lynch's Wild at Heart (1990).