BY GEOFF EDGERS
IN CLEVELANDImagine discovering the Beatles for
the first time.
You walk into a dark room and see the
four of them, blown up on a giant screen.
They’re playing a blistering live set. It is a
gig, in rock circles, that has been ac-
knowledged as one of the most famous
musical performances on film. But you
never knew it existed. In that space, in
that moment, you luxuriate in an experi-
ence that’s completely new.
Which is exactly why Anabel Martinez,
37, was smiling as she sat in a dark,
circular-shaped gallery at the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame on a recent Sunday
morning.
She came to Cleveland for a business
trip and paid $35 for a general admission
ticket to the museum not knowing about
the special Beatles exhibit, “Get Back to
Let It Be.” Launched in March, it’s a show
meant to complement the acclaimed,
SEE BEATLES ON E12
KLMNO
Arts&Style
SUNDAY, MAY 15 , 2022. SECTION E EZ EE
INSIDE
Donatello changed art forever E4
MOVIES: How “Spider-Man” altered writer’s career path E2
A push to
repatriate
Nigeria’s
looted art
Returning Benin artifacts isn’t
straightforward for museumsERIK GOULD/FORMER GIFT OF MISS LUCY T. ALDRICH/RISD MUSEUM NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON
BY PEGGY MCGLONE
IN PHILADELPHIAO
ne of the first displays in the
Penn Museum’s Africa galler-
ies features a red panel with
the heading “The Oba’s Palace: Roy-
al Objects Taken by Force.” Inside the
glass case, an 18th-century carved
ivory armlet sits next to a 100-year-
old letter written by the brother of a
member of the British forces that
attacked the palace in 1897, in what
is now Nigeria. The letter offers to
sell to the museum some of the
objects looted in the violent siege. ¶
Added when the decades-old exhibit
was updated in 2019, the archival
letter is essential to the new interpre-
tation of the galleries, according to
lead curator Tukufu Zuberi. ¶ “We
wanted to show that the archive was
as important as the objects,” Zuberi
said. “It is in the archive that we can
document the history of the object
from its maker in Africa to the Penn
Museum. This letter clearly shows
the story of several objects that were
stolen from the Benin palace during
the British pillage.” SEE BENIN ON E10B ELOW: “Fowl,” an 18th-century brass
sculpture f rom the Royal Court of Benin.
LEFT: The bronze head of a king (oba),
thought to date to the 1700s in Nigeria.“It’s wonderful. I mean, I’m so grateful
to have had this experience at all,” says
Lovett, 64, his warm, gravelly drawl beam-
ing from the other end of the line. His
parents were less than half his age when
they had him, but at the same point in his
own life, Lovett poured everything into
getting his music career off the ground. “I
always imagined having children,” he
i nsists. “But I had absolutely no idea how
much I would enjoy it.”
That joy is stamped on the cover of
Lovett’s new album out Friday, “12th of
June,” which takes its title from his chil-
dren’s birthday. It’s his first collection of
songs since 2012, when his longtime con-
tract that he first signed with Curb Rec-
ords in the 1980s came to an end. “I always
SEE LOVETT ON E5BY JEFF GAGELyle Lovett needs some extra time be-
fore his interview — for good reason.
Something more important came up: a
chance to take a call with the elementary
school he and his wife, April, are trying to
get their twin children into. “You got
bumped for a kindergarten interview,”
Lovett says with a chuckle, when he finally
calls from his home in Klein, Tex., outside
Houston.
Until about five years ago, this wasn’t
the way the singer, actor and songwriting
legend was accustomed to spending his
Monday mornings. Then again, Lovett
never expected to become a first-time
father when he was nearly 60 years old,
with a daughter and son born in June 2017.Lyle Lovett explores the joysof fatherhood, family, fame‘Get Back’ footage shines on at museumThe Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opens a Beatles exhibit based on the recent docuseriesAPPLE CORPS
John Lennon and George Harrison at Apple Studios in January 1969. The
exhibit includes Lennon’s Epiphone Casino guitar and glasses.