(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., June 8, 2000)The strangest things find their way into the artwork of Barbieo Barros Gizzi. A kind of post-modern scavenger, the Lenox-based collage artist scours magazine fashion ads for lipstick tubes, perfume bottles, and other unlikely images, and recontextualizes them in strikingly new, surrealistic and provocative ways. Alternately witty, sexy, and socially trenchant, Gizzi’s collages send up popular culture while gleefully participating in it, in the tradition of Andy Warhol, Keith Waldrop and Hannah Hoch, just a few of her key influences. The Providence, R.I.-born graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design was until recently a curator at the Front St. Gallery in Housatonic. She has had solo exhibitions of her artwork at the Onset Gallery in Onset, Lingo Gallery in West Stockbridge, Madison Gallery in Great Barrington and Salon d’Afrique in New York. Her work has also appeared in group shows at the Rhode Island Historical Society, the Boston Center for the Arts, and the Black Heritage Society in Providence. She has also exhibited internationally at the National Museum of Beaux Art in Havana, Espace Carpeaux in Courbevoie, France, and Galeria BWA in Piotrkow Trybualski, Poland. A favorite of musicians and poets, Gizzi’s work is in the private collections of singer Bobby McFerrin and poets John Ashbery, Michael Palmer, Anne Waldman and Clark Coolidge. Her work was also published in the Nobel Prize edition of Toni Morrison’s novel, “Jazz.” A selection of new work by Gizzi is now on exhibit at Berkshire Artisans, 28 Renne Ave., Pittsfield, through July 1. An opening reception for the exhibition, “Barbieo Barros Gizzi: Collage,” will take place at Berkshire Artisans on Friday, June 9, at 8 p.m. JoAnne Redding: Country comeback JoAnne Redding kicks off her new CD, “The Running Kind,” with the hard-rocking title track, a radio-ready, mainstream roots-rocker worthy of heartland performers like Melissa Etheridge or John Mellencamp. Throughout the next nine songs, Redding’s rootsy versatility is felt through the comic western-swing novelty of “Forty-Something Female” (“Still got that jiggle but it’s lower/Than it ever used to be”), the classic country balladry of “On the Outside Looking In,” the sassy, sexy blues-rock strut of “I Want Everything,” and the teasingly naughty “Pink Slip Blues.” With a version of Lee Roy Parnell’s bluesy, swinging “You’re Taking Too Long,” featuring Berkshire’s Bobby Sweet, who co-produced the album with Redding, on slide guitar, and the gospel-rock strains of “Thy Will Be Done,” Redding comes across as nothing less than the Berkshires’ answer to Bonnie Raitt, or perhaps the female answer to Lyle Lovett. In addition to Sweet, Redding’s album, recorded at Derek Studios in Dalton, features instrumental help from a cast of Berkshire all-stars including Fran Mandeville, Rick Leab, Jody Lampro, and a guest appearance from folk-rock star John Sebastian on harmonica. Redding recorded her first CD, “Run with It,” in Nashville in 1993. Albany’s Metroland weekly named her best regional country artist the next year. She went on to share stages with national acts including the Mavericks, Asleep at the Wheel, Hank Williams Jr., Neal McCoy, and Parnell, who invited her to join him on stage to sing his number-one hit, “Heart’s Desire.” In 1995, Redding began a hiatus from performing and recording to work in radio. With “The Running Kind,” Redding makes a solid comeback as a performer. Redding begins a busy summer of appearances with a CD release party this Sunday, June 11, at 2 p.m. at the Seven Hills Inn in Lenox. You can also catch her in upcoming weeks with her trio, featuring Fran Mandeville and Bobby Sweet, at the Lion’s Den in Stockbridge (July 1 and Aug. 4), the Dream Away Lodge in Becket (July 8), the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington (July 29), and Uncommon Grounds in Great Barrington (Aug. 26). For a complete tour schedule consult her website at www.JoAnneRedding.com. Bernice Lewis: Spiritually seeking As the title indicates, Bernice Lewis’s new album, “Religion and Release” (Sanctuary), captures the singer-songwriter in a philosophical frame of mind. If there’s a theme running through the albums 15 songs - all but one a Lewis original - it’s the search for spiritual solace. It’s not an entirely new topic from the Berkshire-based songwriter, who previously gave us such tunes as “Moses and Me” and “Isle of Spirit,” but never before has she so systematically explored questions of being and existence from such a myriad of spiritual approaches. Lewis roots her investigations in concrete portraits of seekers and placers. Thus, “Mercy” portrays a lone devout ministering to the “transgressed” in the Arizona desert. “When the Guru Was Around,” obviously based on the case of Kripalu’s fallen founder, is a somewhat cutting look at those too ready or eager to follow blindly. The title track is a kind of midrash, or retelling, of the Biblical stories of the matriarchs and patriarchs, where the narrator seeks redemption after a father’s death “somewhere between religion and release.” Northampton guitarist Brooks Williams does an appropriately wonderful evocation of fellow mystic slide-guitarist, George Harrison, on Lewis’s ode to Grand Canyon, “Bright Angel Creek,” where she locates “God’s bedroom.” All is not Kierkegaardian angst on “Religion and Release.” Lewis lightens things up with longtime concert favorites like “Normal’s Just a Setting on the Washing Machine” and “Born to Schmooze.” The album is peppered with appearances by an all-star cast of national and local musicians, including Ellis Paul, Jennifer Kimball, Dar Williams, Adam Rothberg, Bobby Sweet, and Rick Tiven. Look for Lewis to play a selection of these and other old favorites on Friday night, June 9, at the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington (528-1955) at 8. [This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on June 8, 2000. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 2000. All rights reserved.]
Seth Rogovoy rogovoy@berkshire.net music news, interviews, reviews, et al.
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