The artist Jeanne-Claude, who, with her husband, Christo, was responsible for creating some of the grandest environmental installation pieces in contemporary art, died Wednesday of complications from a brain aneurysm. She was 74.

Jeanne-Claude and Christo’s best-known recent work was 2005’s The Gates, for which the artists installed more than 7,000 saffron-covered fabric panels along 23 miles of pathways in New York’s Central Park. The installation was as ephemeral as it was grand—within two weeks, The Gates was gone. Other notable projects have included wrapping the Reichstag in Berlin, the Pont-Neuf in Paris, and several small islands off the coast of Miami. Despite the massive amount of resources needed for each project, they financed each installation independently, never dulling their ambition.

The last time the artists were seen in Washington, it was for their show one year ago at the Phillips Collection, Over the River: A Work in Progress. The exhibition detailed their plans for their next large-scale installation—this time, draping six miles of fabric over a stretch of the Arkansas River in Colorado. Neither Blake Gopnik nor Jeffry Cudlin considered the Phillips’ show a success.

Said Cudlin:
“If ultimately none of the drawings or collages in Over the River have the impact of great works of art—or even compose a successful series when viewed together—they nonetheless testify to extraordinary will, persistence, and fiercely independent thought on behalf of the artists. However utopian their projects sound, Christo and Jeanne-Claude are relentless careerists.”

And Gopnik:
“This whole exhibition feels more like a publicity campaign for a product than like a considered investigation of an important aesthetic event.”

So what will become of “Over the River” now that the famed art duo has been halved? According to the AFP, the show will go on. Christo vowed “to honor the promise they made to each other many years ago: the art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude will continue.” “Over the River” is expected in 2013.

Photo of Jeanne-Claude and Christo by Martin Dürrschnabel/Creative Commons license

Also, this video for “Everything Touches Everything,” directed by former Let’s French guitarist Max Sorensen, slipped through the cracks. Find it after the jump:

William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe: What compelled the titular lawyer to defend alleged killers, terrorists, and rapists? This doc by Kunstler’s daughters gives mini-history lessons but not a satisfying answer.

The Blind Side: Despite its cliche- and bad-accent-ridden trailer, this true story about the Baltimore Ravens’ Michael Oher has gotten solid reviews and earned praise for Sandra Bullock. Miracles do happen!

Planet 51: An animated sci-fi feature from New Line Cinema. Which is not Pixar, Disney, or DreamWorks, so why bother?

That’s about it, folks. Oh wait, I seem to remember there’s one more…. Oh yeah, a little film called

The Twilight Saga: New Moon: Team Edward. Team Jacob. Chaste love triangle! Let’s be realistic — no one really cares what critics think.

Morning, y’all! Last night, I discovered the trailer for the new Jeff Bridges movie Crazy Heart. As far as trailers go, this one looks promising. Bridges, playing an alcoholic country star, has the Bocephus thing nailed down tight; Maggie Gyllenhaal, as the reporter who helps Bridges turn his life around, looks smart and womanly; christ, it’s got Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall, too. But then I thought back to the trailer for Men Who Stare at Goats, a Bridges vehicle if ever there was one, and the pile of broken dreams that movie turned out to be. Will it happen again with Crazy Heart?

Anne Thompson at Indie Wire thinks no. According to Thompson, Fox Searchlight initially intended to roll out Crazy Heart in spring 2010, but with Amelia looking less and less likely to pick up an Oscar nomination, Crazy Heart will now have a limited release next month. Thompson has seen a rough cut of the movie, and says it’s a contender. I’ll take that.

More arts shit after the jump.

- RIP Daul Kim: According to the Daily Mail, the international model was found hanged–”an apparent suicide”–in her Paris apartment.

- Gibson Guitars–maker of the Les Paul, the Flying V, the Thunderbird and the Firebird–hosted a federal raid at its Nashville plant this week. According to the Tennessean, “Federal officials declined to say whether anything was removed from Gibson’s plant or what specifically the agents were trying to find. But some exotic hardwoods traditionally used in making premium guitars, such as rosewood from the rain forests of Madagascar and Brazil, have been banned from commercial trade because of environmental concerns under a recently revised federal law.”

- The Guardian has a great piece on rockstars writing film scores. “Although there’s next to no money to be made in writing for film, and all along the line the musician’s vision is subordinate to that of directors, editors and producers, the chance to be a mere cog in a much larger machine seems to offer welcome relief from the essentially solipsistic nature of songwriting. All that autonomy, freedom of expression and relentless self-analysis can be burdensome,” writes Graeme Thomson. Much to my disappointment, I found no mention in Thomson’s article of Jonny Greenwood’s stellar work on There Will Be Blood.

OK folks, go seize that day!

“The band basically mutinied on me, so I shut it down,” Wilson explained during a set break. “The bottom line? Money fucks up everything. The gigs just weren’t there. But I also felt like the discipline just wasn’t there with a lot of people. They didn’t get the hard work and rehearsals that come with a big band, and they weren’t into the ensemble work either. It was more an attitude of ‘Hey! I can solo in this band!’”

The ensemble, variously billed as the Thad Wilson Jazz Orchestra or the Ugetzu Big Band, had been a staple of the Washington scene since January 1998. It had become something of a required course for D.C. jazz musicians, with players from Nasar Abadey and Reginald Cyntje to Bowie and Jamal passing through its ranks over the years.
“That’s disappointing,” says Dustin Mollick, until recently a tenor saxophonist in the big band (and the only recent member available for comment today), of the breakup. “I haven’t been in the band for 3-4 months now…but I hadn’t heard about it from anyone.”

Mollick does suggest that there had for some time been dissension in the ranks. “Lots of people in the band had problems with the way Thad ran the band and rehearsals,” he says. “Especially the fact that we played the same charts so many times when we had a great opportunity with that group to play new music.”

Wilson intends to rebuild the band from the ground up. “I will always be doing something with the big band configuration,” he says. “I have some of my core players who are still willing to work with me. And I’m looking at bringing down some cats from New York.” He adds, however, that this version of the band will gig much less frequently than its famous weekly gigs at Bohemian Caverns: “I think part of the problem was that I overexposed us. You see us all the time, it’s less interesting.”

No word on the fate of the band’s long-delayed second CD, Movin’ On (for which your humble correspondent wrote liner notes).

In the meantime, Wilson—who also teaches music at GWU—promises to remain active in smaller group configuration. He also announced from the stage last night that his Movie Nights (i.e., playing the score of a film as it is screened) will now be a monthly feature at HR-57.

Thanks to Ted Scheinman for covering last week.

Nov. 20
Local trumpeter Kenny Rittenhouse has a  straightahead, hard-bop approach, but always produces a probing, thoughtful sound—almost like a flugelhorn—that distinguishes him in the U.S. Army Blues, the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, and his own trios, quartets, and quintets that gig around town. Those pretty notes, to paraphrase Louis Armstrong, go right through you. Hear how quickly they sink in when Rittenhouse performs with his quintet at Bohemian Caverns, 2001 11th Street NW. $20.

Nov. 21
They call him a “cofounder” of cool jazz. That doesn’t do justice to the music of Lee Konitz. For over 60 years, the legendary alto saxophonist has pursued a deeply cerebral brand of improvisation, pushing through frontier after new frontier of sounds via the feathery, yet aggressive voice of his instrument. Konitz’s latest partners in his extremely prolific career are the trio Minsarah, an exploratory, vaguely avant-garde piano combo that features D.C. native Jeff Denson on bass. Together they make a sound that for Konitz is unique all over again. Konitz and Minsarah peform at the Kennedy Center, 2700 F Street NW, at 7:30 and 9:30 pm. $35.

Nov. 23
The daughter of the great João Gilberto, and niece of the great Chico Buarque, it’s surely fair to call Bebel Gilberto the crown princess of Bossa Nova. The scion of Brazil’s greatest songwriters (the nation’s other titan, Antonio Carlos Jobim, was a close family friend) claims her place on the cutting edge of bossa nova through her fusion of the traditional sounds to DJ’d samples and electronic beats. The highly original treatments have also let her establish herself, outside the shadow of the Brazilian musical legacy that follows wherever she goes; even when she covers her father (as on her newest album, All in One), Gilberto sounds only like herself. Her brilliant fusion of bossa nova’s danceability with club rhythms has garnered a huge international following – likely it’ll be a packed house at the 9:30 Club (815 V Street NW). Go anyway. It’s an early show, 6pm doors. $35.

Directed by Chris Weitz

Twilight backlash has proved a force as fierce as Twilight love. Except unlike the adoration, with its Teams This vs. That, the hate has been more equal-opportunity: Bella’s boring! Stephenie Meyer is a terrible writer! Kristen Stewart acts with her hair, Taylor Lautner isn’t tall or buff enough, and, for the love of Bram Stoker, the vampires sparkle!

In New Moon, however — the second film adaptation of Meyer’s four-book series now dubbed The Twilight Saga — glitter is the least of the lead bloodsucker’s problems. Because even the harshest critics of the tween-scream franchise have got to admit that being cast as Edward, the Hawtest Vampire of Them All, has, ironically, done star Robert Pattinson no favors. His main job in the first film was to brood, crush on, and brood some more, acting like he’s the sexiest, most pretentious being un-alive.

In the follow-up, he’s onscreen half as much but looks twice as ridiculous: The story has the sullen Cullen dumping his true-but-mortal love, Bella (Stewart), after she suffers a paper cut at a birthday party thrown by his family. Even though the Cullens are “vegetarian” vamps, the trickle of blood sends even the most well-intentioned of them into a feral tizzy. Edward, being the controlling 109-year-old ass that he is, decides that it’s too dangerous for them to be together. He and the fam abruptly leave town, giving Bella no further explanation than “You’re no good for me.”

So Pattinson is not a huge presence in New Moon, but when he is — oof. The opportunity has obviously made him a megastar and boosted him onto that golden road out of obscurity, but director Chris Weitz (taking the reins from the first film’s Catherine Hardwicke) and scripter Melissa Rosenberg make the actor look like a fool. He mumbles gag-me lines such as, “You give me everything just by breathing.” (Hope that you get lucky and land in a theater with a good sound system, because his persistent monotone is kinda difficult to decipher.) He moves in slow-motion. (The better to emphasize his perfectness, since Meyer can’t plaster the description onscreen like she does on every other page of her books.) And, worst, a relatively clever concept in the novel — Bella hears Edward’s voice whenever she’s in danger — is rendered by showing his disembodied head and/or torso floating around Bella. If Pattinson’s got talent, New Moon has ensured that it’s been shrouded, stomped, and snuffed.

Slightly less cheesy is the film’s big special effect, courtesy of what keeps Bella from perpetually clutching her stomach in first-love heartbreak: Jacob Black (Lautner), a Native American who becomes her best friend, discovers he’s a werewolf, and is therefore Edward’s natural enemy. Growling, posturing, and awful-looking transformations ensue, though mostly Jacob and the rest of his pack just hang around with their shirts off. It’s probably safe to assume that Lautner’s role in future films is now secure, but it’s a good thing he’s cut — when the actor opens his mouth, well, let’s just say his award chances are MTV-level at best.

Despite its weaknesses, however, New Moon is a slight improvement over the first Twilight, whose action was composed mostly of yearning and then dull requited love. Stewart’s perfectly adequate as the introspective and insecure Bella; even when she petulantly spits out lines such as, “If this is my soul, take it, I don’t want it!” you have to keep in mind that one can only do so much when the writing is trite to begin with. A pervasive indie soundtrack blaring at odd times is an occasional distraction, but it’s still just a drop in a bucket of bad.

On the plus side: Dakota Fanning makes a compellingly vicious vampire in a tiny part, and it’s interesting to see Michael Sheen, a werewolf in the Underworld films, play for the other team. Weitz’s most triumphant moment, though, is his perfect ending — it’s actually a smart snip of the book’s final chapter, not just a celebratory moment because the credits are about to roll.

Afternoon, y’all! I keep forgetting how self-righteous music critics can be when it comes to the term “indie,” which was coined as shorthand for “independent music,” or music that is made and released independently of the Big 4.

But as with other words–”gay” no longer means thrilled to be alive, and “damn” will no longer send one straight to hell–the meaning of indie has changed to connote, as often as not, an aesthetic.

No one really agrees with me on this, besides Carles, who agrees ironically. But I firmly believe that this word, if it still exists in five years, will no longer mean what the tofu-eating, burlap-wearing, coke-snorting Amero-Zapatistas  had in mind when they coined it in 1812 1968 the late 1970s.

Remember when CNN had that special report called “Inside the Indie Scene”? Yeah. That actually happened. In a 2006 article, CNN wrote, “According to critics, indie is now nothing more than a branding tool: a highly commercial and money-driven movement, more concerned with marketing a particular image instead of culture with a truly independent nature and passion for its art.”

When was indie *not* concerned with paying the bills? When has indie never been about selling shit? Did all these people play every show for free? Give out all their merch for free? Give away their music for free? If they did, and if that was how we defined indie–an extreme allergy to sustaining yourself financially–isn’t it a good thing that’s come to connote a profitable aesthetic?

I was hoping that some of the people who responded to the  Monitor Mix survey question, “What does ‘indie’ mean to you?” would agree with me on this. Or, at least agree somewhat that cultural evolution is OK.

But no. The dinosaurs all share a hatred for Kidz Theze Dayz and their insistence on using “indie” to describe the way music sounds or the way people dress or anything other than Fighting the Power.

My own survey question would be: Isn’t it a good thing that a bunch of stodgy critterpoos have absolutely no control over how Kidz Theze Dayz uze wordz?

• “An Artist drawn to Foul Play: Koen Vanmechelen’s Chicken Art is Nothing to Squawk At.”

Monica Hesse’s article goes for the obvious pun, and it’s a real eye-roller. Adding insult to injury, at the end of the article, she pretends to have tried to extract a quotation from the gallery’s resident Jersey Giants. Weak. D

• “Ain’t nobody here but us chickens.”

Not a pun, but a reference: Baltimore artist and blogger Cara Ober cites a Louis Jordan song. Here, it’s sung by some Muppets. B+

• “They, and the article are finger lickin’ good.”

That’s the blog Marlow Maunders on both the exhibit and the Post feature about it. He’s probably right on the first point, but we’ll never know for sure, as these guys won’t be ending up in a KFC Double Down anytime soon. C-

• “The week’s events were launched with a cluck rather than a bang at Monday’s opening.”

Huh? Wait a second, Art Newspaper. What does T.S. Eliot have to do with this? Oh, whatever. D

• “And the beak shall inherit the earth.”

The Guardian is kinda cheesy, kinda bad, and kinda clever here. Sort of like that KFC Double Down. B-

• “Okay enough about cocks, let’s get to Fixation.”

This one’s from ReadySetDC, which segued from a description of Conner’s show to the FotoWeek exhibit Fixations above it, with this one-liner. Double entendres are made funnier when they unintentionally insult an international artist. Let’s just hope that ReadySetDC does not encounter an artist who works with cats. C

SVETOSLAV ILCHIV AND UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN

Washington City Paper: What’s your name?
Svetoslav Ilchiv: Svetoslav Ilchiv.

How old are you?
26.

Have you heard of Marion Barry, the former mayor of Washington, D.C.?
Never. Is it a man or a woman?

He is very much a man.
I do not know him.

Well, ok. [Here, your correspondent explains Mr. Barry's repeated run-ins with the law---his drug arrest, fall from grace, redemption campaign, etc.] So, what do you think of that?
I think he’s corrupted.

But do you think he’s good or bad?
Does he do a good job? [Your correspondent, contemplating Mr. Barry's strange legacy---civil rights leader, tax evader, Ward 8 icon, womanizer---does not know the answer to the question, and so does not reply.] Possibly it’s bad…Is he a rehabilitated? If he is, that’s kind of good. When you put it that way.

What do you think about when you think of Washington?
A big city. International. Cosmopolitan. Dirty, probably.

When I say “Washington, D.C.,” what is the image in your mind?
The Pentagon. The White House. The great monument to the President on the $5 bill.

Lincoln? You know about Lincoln?
A little bit. He did the Civil War. He’s from the North. He won the war. He ended slavery.

Do you think that’s good or bad?
It was about time.

ALSO OF INTEREST IN PLOVDIV, BULGARIA…

I quote from Lonely Planet Eastern Europe, 10th edition (Sept. 2009), Mara Vorhees, ed., p. 164:

“Another new cult character popular these days is the bearded ‘Stefchu Avtografa,’ who is trying to get into the Guinness Book of World Records for most autographs. Don’t be surprised if he finds you. To quote one local: ‘He’s not exactly normal, but we love him.’”

N.B.: Mr. Avtografa did indeed find your correspondent and now has his autograph.