Memory is a tricky thing. Why do you forget what you had for lunch yesterday, but you remember vividly something that happened decades ago? Or how can someone manage to completely forget a trauma, but have it come rushing back in a flood of searing memories like it just happened. In part, these mysteries are at the heart of Waltz with Bashir, which makes its Fort Worth debut with a three-day engagement at Magnolia at The Modern this weekend.
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The Modern blog reminds us that Sunday is the last day for the Hubbard/Birchler: No Room to Answer exhibit. If you haven’t seen the exhibition or want to see it one last time, this is your last chance. And the best part is Sunday is free admission for those feeling the pinch of the holidays.

Let’s face facts: not all is well in the arts. The tanking economy is going to pose some significant funding challenges in 2009, and the arts communities caught a glimpse of the dark side with Texas Ballet Theater’s struggles this year. But at the risk of stating sounding too Pollyanna, 2008 was a actually a great year for local art. Let’s take a minute to look back at some of 2008’s highlights.
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Installation of Permanent Collection and Then Some from Modern Art Museum of FW on Vimeo.

This is just plain cool: Dustin and the rest of the fine folks at the Modern have put together the time lapse video you see above, covering the installation of “The Collection and Then Some.” As Dustin writes at The Modern Blog:

The permanent collection has been up in first-floor galleries for a month now. Everything always looks so clean and crisp when the installation is complete, but the process of getting everything to that stage is a lot of work. We took some time lapse video of the crew installing four of the works on view right now and you can see some of the work that goes into installing a show.

Taken by Kevin Buchanan. View larger on Flickr.

Cafe Modern at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. This is a three-exposure HDR image tone mapped in Photomatix Pro, taken with a Canon Digital EOS Rebel XT. I took this HDR image handheld, without a tripod. I’m not a big fan of super-processed HDR images, so I always try for a more realistic appearance – I think I’ve achieved that on this image.

Thought y’all might like to see.

One of the films in this year’s Lone Star International Film Festival is going to be quite a treat for Fort Worthians. They Came to Play is a documentary filmed here in Fort Worth covering the events of The 2007 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs.

Even better, there will be a preview showing of the film hosted by LSIFF this Thursday at The Modern (tickets available here), including live performances by some of the contestants featured in the film, a cocktail reception, and a question and answer session with the filmmakers.

Clark Griffith, third place winner of the competition in the film, just happens to be my next door neighbor, so I wanted to share my own experience getting to know the man in the movie…

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In case you missed the ad that’s been running in our sidebar for the last few days, there’s a new independent film series starting up at The Modern tonight.

The series is has been put together by Kinetiq HD, a local production company. One of the guiding forces of the series is local filmmaker Andrew Disney, who screened his short “Frank’s Last Shot” at the Lone Star International Film Festival back in November.

The show starts at 7:30 tonight at The Modern. Get your tickets here, then get your butt out there!

If you listened to the West and Clear podcast about Friday Night at Modern back last fall, you already know that our art criticism skills rank somewhere between Bob Ross and Larry the Cable Guy. But God love the people at The Modern … they invited us to the press preview for the Martin Puryear exhibit anyway. Take a look … if you can’t stand the commentary, just turn down the volume and watch the pretty pictures.