The word "twitter", mostly employed by delicate English septuagenarians, has been reclaimed by local artist and cinematographer Jeanne Stern. She presents her work at The Opera House this Friday with the show Twitter Box: Spatial Illusions Of All Kinds.

"A 'twitter box' is a moving microcosm," Stern explained to us. "It could be a film, performance, or diorama, or a drawing that is suggestive of motion." The boxes will accompany mechanical ballets and hanging gardens. "I use the [phrase] 'mechanical ballet' to mean puppetry that is controlled by mechanical means," continued Stern, "and 'hanging garden' to describe a layered paper diorama."

Don't be fooled by the seeming 6th grade ease of Stern's craft; her top-notch quirk recently attracted the attention of Jim Henson's daughter, Heather Henson, who included a feature of Stern's in Handmade Puppet Dreams, a traveling puppet film festival. Henson understood the conceptual richness behind Stern's simple forms. The artist waxed poetic about them (to our delight):

I've always enjoyed making objects and worlds. I like the challenge of working with minimal elements because it forces me to be more creative. I studied studio art at Connecticut College. I mostly did paintings and drawings, but also was involved in computer science, music, and writing. I got tired of the flat static image, and started exploring kinetics and space as a way of combining my different ideas. I work primarily with paper because I like creating illusions- in particular the illusion of making a 3D space out of 2D layers. I prefer old things, things with a lot off texture, I don't want my paper to be too flat. I've found that old book covers are good for texture. My goal is to create organic objects and worlds, ones that look like they happened almost as if by accident.

Don't you just want to meet her? Also, her art will be swaying gently to the strains of Phillip Glass as interpreted by accordionist Joe Egnot. Only in Austin...

Twitter Box: Spatial Illusions Of All Kinds--The Art of Jeanne Stern
The Opera House
Friday, June 1
7-10pm (opening reception)
2209K South 1st Street

Strawberries and chocolate. California and Schwarzenegger. Spiderman 3 and Xanax. All classic pairings that destiny and the Austin Museum of Art have been working to outstrip this week, with the presentation of two new exhibits: The Target Collection of American Photography: A Century in Pictures and 24 Summers at Barton Springs Pool: Photographs by Will van Overbeek. Both shows open this Saturday.

A Century in Pictures presents nearly ninety photographs taken by men and women who can properly be called American masters: Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz, Richard Avedon ... the list goes on. In luminous black and white, their pictures document the 20th century, variously capturing the immigrant influx of the early 1900s, Depression-era travails, and triumphs of the American space program. They also easily trace the medium's stylistic movements; while the older photographs tend to speak candid "truth" about social and political realities, the newer prints lend more focus to highly staged environments. (To see continued evidence of this trend, just flip through any recent issue of Vogue.)

The large inkjet panels of 24 Summers at Barton Springs Pool: Photographs by Will van Overbeek offer fluid and colorful counterpoint. But just how did they arrive at AMoA? The story goes that Overbeek was commissioned by Rolling Stone magazine in 1983 to photograph the 68-degree wet heart of this city, and the short-term assignment turned into long-lived personal commitment. His donated works not only reflect the richness of human interaction and nature, but also celebrate the sweet hues that modern photography can lend to each. Swimmers, divers, lovers, water, sky—to paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, they return to the Austin resident with an alienated majesty.

A Century in Pictures and 24 Summers at Barton Springs Pool
AMoA Downtown [map]
Gallery Tour: Saturday, May 19th, 3pm
Exhibit Dates: May 19 - August 12, 2007
$5 (members free)

Photo courtesy of AMoA. Arthur Fellig, Untitled (Kissing at the Movies), 1952. For Jae.

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Opening May 19th, 2007: A Century in Pictures and 24 Summers at Barton Springs Pool.

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