The New York Times - USA (2020-07-31)

FRIDAY, JULY 31, 2020 C1

Y

NEWS CRITICISM

7 FILM

Winning moves

behind a camera

and on the court.

BY MANOHLA DARGIS

8-9 FOR KIDS

Blasting off

to Mars on

a journey

of discovery.

12 ART

America

portrayed

through statues.

BY JILLIAN STEINHAUER

About 10 years ago, the artist Kerry James

Marshall caught a crow with his bare hands.

The bird was cornered awkwardly near

Mr. Marshall’s home on the South Side of

Chicago, and curiosity got the better of him.

“I’ve always been impressed by that kind of

bird,” he recalled the other day.

Mr. Marshall, widely acknowledged as

one of the best painters working today,

wanted to photograph and take video of the

crow, since he often used such documenta-

tion for his work. (He prefers props now.) So

he grabbed it and took it home.

“At first he screamed like he was being

murdered,” Mr. Marshall said. “The minute

I put him by my side, he got quiet.”

On his deck, Mr. Marshall tied a cord to

the crow’s leg, and provided a meal of mul-

berries “so he wouldn’t starve.” He docu-

mented the bird as planned, and the next

day, he let it go.

Some days later, he saw the crow being

menaced by a cat. He recalled: “So I picked

up a rock and threw it at the cat. And I swear

to God, that same bird, he stood there just

looking at me. And I said, ‘You better keep

your butt off the ground because I’m not go-

ing to be around to save you the next time.’ ”

The crow meeting, which started out as

research, edged into a metaphysical en-

counter with deeper meanings, and it now

informs his newest series of paintings. His

Kerry James Marshall, left, and his

“Black and part Black Birds in America:

(Crow, Goldfinch),” above, part of an

online show at David Zwirner Gallery.

KERRY JAMES MARSHALL AND DAVID ZWIRNER

ANDRES GONZALEZ

Black Birds Fly

In a Moment

To Arise

Kerry James Marshall, inspired by

Audubon and an encounter with a crow,

explores the narratives of racial

distinctions and the Black experience. CONTINUED ON PAGE C11

By TED LOOS

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN/GETTY IMAGES

Tokyo’s Transformation

The 1964 Olympics were to be a showcase

of New Japan. By Jason Farago, Page 10.

A FEW FRIDAYS AGO, just before what I had

come to think of as “showtime,” I lined my

eyes, stepped into my costume, readied a

prop and adjusted the lighting, which

mostly meant fiddling with a bedside lamp.

Then I logged into a Zoom meeting.

That meeting, an online recital for friends

and colleagues, capped a brief and frantic

curriculum of voice, movement, scene

study, stage combat and some dubious dia-

lect work. After the spring closure of the-

aters and studios, nearly every training in-

stitution adopted a remote learning model.

Artists, suddenly unemployed, could adver-

tise their services on new online agorae,

like Arena Stage’s Theater Artists Market-

place and Hire Artists. Which means that

theater training, at a variety of price points,

has never been more available or accessi-

ble.

Screen-to-screen classes don’t exactly

parallel in-person ones. They are shorter

and often smaller — three-hour classes

have shrunk to 80 minutes, and breakout

groups are the new norm — with altered

methodology. “Zoom has its own vocabu-

lary,” said Laurence Maslon, associate chair

of New York University’s graduate acting

program. “It isn’t live. It isn’t in the room.

That doesn’t mean you can’t achieve some-

thing.”

I wasn’t sure. As an undergraduate 20

years ago, I had majored in theater and

back then, our training was exclusively and

incontrovertibly face to face. Good acting

ALEXIS SOLOSKI CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

Give My Regards to Zoom!

Singing, dancing, knife skills:

What our reporter learned in

her online acting classes.

MARLY GALLARDO CONTINUED ON PAGE C4

BD