Hear the name George Gershwin, and it likely summons the ragtime-inflected piano riffs of the composer’s 1924 classic. But George Gershwin and Modern Art: A Rhapsody in Blue, which accompanies an exhibition at the Baker Museum, draws attention to other measures of Gershwin’s multihyphenate life: photographer, muse, collector (of Picasso, Rouault, Weber, and more), and painter. “Of course I can paint,” Gershwin once boasted. “If you have talent, you can do anything. I have a lot of talent.”
‘George Gershwin and Modern Art: A Rhapsody in Blue’ by Olivia Mattis
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‘Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind’
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Across the pond, another survey blending the aural and visual greets visitors to the Tate Modern’s “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind,” which runs through September 1 and features scores, film, installations, and prompts (such as to attach a photograph to the My Mommy Is Beautiful redux, first realized in 2004) from the artist’s seven- decade career. In the rich catalog by the same name, Ono’s feminism, anti-war activism, and environmentalist ideals serve as another invitation: to read, to wish, to act. Even to listen.
On And Off Stage
Incisive explorations of public persona and what lies beneath.
‘Me and Mr. Jones’ by Suzi Ronson
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‘The Swans of Harlem’ by Karen Valby
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‘Mean Boys’ by Geoffrey Mak
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