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20th Century Limited
On NJN’s State of the Arts
Friday, February 15 at 8:30 pm; Wednesday, February 20 at 11:30 pm
STATEWIDE – State of the Arts gets on board the 20th Century Limited for a look back at some of the music, photographs, and politics that made the 20th century so compelling. Included are music from the big band of Vince Giordano and his Nighthawks, vintage snapshots now on the walls of The Newark Museum, and artists under the influence of Castro at the Hunterdon Museum of Art. 20th Century Limited airs on Friday, February 15 at 8:30 pm, with a rebroadcast on Wednesday, February 20 at 11:30 pm. State of the Arts, NJN’s long running series, has earned 28 Regional Emmy Awards, including New York Emmy Awards in 2007 and 2005, and a 2006 Mid-Atlantic Emmy.
• Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks
Vince Giordano is more than a musician, movie actor, scholar, and renowned bandleader of the Nighthawks. He is also the owner of one of the largest private collections of hot jazz music, instruments, recordings, and memorabilia in the world. Giordano is unique — as was demonstrated at a recent concert at the South Orange Performing Arts Center, sponsored by Seton Hall University, where his 11-piece Nighthawks band thrilled the crowd with their authentic performances of 1920s and 1930s classics. But these performances are only part of a multi-tasking life. State of the Arts Producer Amber Edwards visits Giordano at home in Brooklyn to see what it takes to organize and run a band, do film work, and maintain a collection of rare musical instruments and close to 30,000 band arrangements, which Giordano plans to eventually leave to the Jazz Institute at Rutgers. Vince Giordano’s Classic Jazz Quartet, which includes the bandleader, will be at Shanghai Jazz in Madison, New Jersey on February 28, 2008.
• Now is Then: Snapshots from the Maresca Collection
Some say that the golden age of snapshot photography was from the 1920s to the 1960s. More than 600 snapshots from this period were given to The Newark Museum by Frank Maresca, a leading expert on vernacular art. “Now is Then: Snapshots from the Maresca Collection,” an exhibit of images from this collection, is on display from February 13 through May 11, 2008. State of the Arts producer Susan Wallner talks to Maresca at his home in Manhattan and to Marvin Heiferman, the guest curator who selected the images, about the aesthetics of “found” photographs and what these amateur images can tell us about the people and places they portray. “Snapshots are powerful little pictures,” writes Heiferman in the exhibition’s catalog. “With the press of a button, a picture is taken, and in an instant, now becomes then.”
• Cuba! Artists Experience Their Country
Cuba comes to Clinton, New Jersey, in the Hunterdon Museum of Art’s new exhibition, “Cuba! Artists Experience Their Country,” running through March 30, 2008. This exhibit celebrates the moral bravery and creative strength of Cuban artists who continue to find ways to express their deepest concerns under difficult circumstances. The exhibit includes work created by more than two dozen artists under the Castro regime. With a focus on the past 30 years, Cuban and Cuban-expatriate artists confront the social, cultural and political forces, which reflect their experiences of their homeland. State of the Arts producer Christopher Benincasa visits The Hunterdon Museum of Art and speaks with featured artist Alejandro Lopez and to curator Kristen Accola, whose trip to Cuba in March 2006 inspired the exhibit. “I instantly felt the warmth, kindness and generosity of spirit from the Cuban artists and could not resist bringing this unique and powerful work to the museum.” The exhibit marks the first time a collection of contemporary art from Cuba has been presented in New Jersey and one of the few times in the United States at all. Comprised exclusively of paintings done by artists while living in Cuba, many of these pieces will be seen by the general public for the first time.
State of the Arts, the award-winning, half-hour arts magazine, airs every Friday at 8:30 pm, followed by an encore presentation each Wednesday at 11:30 pm.
The current episode of State of the Arts can be viewed online at www.njn.net. Individual stories will be available to view following their broadcast by visiting the program online at State of the Arts.
Funding for State of the Arts is provided by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The series producer is Susan Wallner and the executive producer is Nila Aronow.
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Additionally, the program is repeated on NJN’s JerseyVision available on Comcast Digital Cable in New Jersey.
(Check http://www.njn.net/digital/schedule.html for detailed listings.)
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