It is time for the requisite inter-city Super Bowl bets. Like last year’s faceoff between New Orleans and Indianapolis, two museums have decided to put art work at stake. If the Green Bay Packers win Sunday, then the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburg will lend the Milwakee Art Museum Gustave Caillebotte’s Boating on the Yerres (1877). If the Steelers take home the Lombardi, than they will receive Renoir’s Bathers with Crab (c. 1890-1899). It’s a showdown of French impressionists, but, as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette points out, why French artists in a Super Bowl bet?

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1. The Dallas Morning News offers this roundup of North Texas attractions for Super Bowl visitors, and there are some local artist-onados on the list: UT Dallas art professor Richard Brettel (says check out Dallas City Hall), the Granada Theater’s Michael Schoder (head to the arboretum), the Kessler Theater’s artistic director, Jeff Liles (don’t miss Bolsa), the Dallas Film Society’s James Faust (grab a drink at Lakewood Landing), and the artistic director of the Dallas Theater Center, Kevin Moriarty (Third Fridays in the Dallas Arts District is where it is happening).

2. The New York Times (via their partnership with The Texas Tribune) offers this look at the impact arts have on Texas towns via the Texas Cultural Trust:

Creative industries — from advertising to dance companies to book publishing — generate $4.5 billion per year in economic activity for Texas. To highlight that fact, the trust, in association with the Texas Commission on the Arts, is releasing a new report this week, prepared by TXP Inc., an Austin-based consulting firm, and paid for with federal stimulus dollars.

3 Speaking of reports, The City of Dallas and the Dallas Arts District will take part in the America for the Arts’ National Economic Impact Study, a national survey that will try to assess the impact the arts have on economies throughout the United States. If the report remains in line with previous reports, you can guess the answer: the impact is huge.

According to Americans for the Arts most recent national study, the national nonprofit arts industry generated 5.7 million jobs and $166.2 billion in total economic activity during 2005, resulting in $29.6 billion in federal, state and local government revenues. The $166.2 billion total included $63.1 billion in spending by arts organizations and $103.1 billion in event-related spending by their audiences on items such as meals, local transportation and overnight lodging.

The Sistine Chapel is among the most well-known worship spaces in the world because, in the early 16th century, Michelangelo took his brush to the ceiling. However, as we saw in the news after the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005, the chapel plays another important role in the life of the Catholic Church: it is the setting of an ancient ritual, where, after the death of a pope, the College of Cardinals determine the new head of ..read more

The Fort Worth Symphony has had a bumpy year. Now they are hoping a new president will smooth things out and point the ship towards the future. The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Association annouced today that Amy Adkins will be their next president, succeeding Ann Koonsman, who will retire at the end of July. Adkins has been at the symphony since 2002, serving as Vice President of Development. Before joining the symphony, Adkis was a music teacher in Duncanville and began her work with the symphony in an educational capacity in the 1990s. A full release follows.

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Pretty silly weekend, as there are a lot of artists playing two days in a row.  Come on, Denton’s not that far from Dallas, is it?  Something tells me we may not have this problem next weekend.

In April, the Texas Biennial will kick off, and for the first time, the Austin-based event will include art spaces in other cities for the Texas-wide exhibition. In Dallas, Southern Methodist University Meadows School Art Division Chair Michael Corris’ Free Museum of Dallas will be an official venue for the Biennial, and the FMOD is seeking interested artists – and non-artists – to submit work for their project.

That’s right – you, non-artist, could have a piece in the 2011 Texas Biennial. Here’s what’s required, and read all the way through for the punch line:  

Each participant may submit one unframed, unmounted, two-dimensional work on paper. You may use any medium. We ask that the maximum size of your artwork does not exceed 22 x 36 inches. The artwork you submit should be related to a passage of your choice selected from one of the following books: Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War, or Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.

You can find the full release here.

In related news, the FMOD is having an opening this weekend at a location on Dyer St. featuring the work of artist Justin Shull. I’ll let the release, which you can find here, do the talking:

Come for good company, fake surprises, live beats mixed by DJ War Horse and to meet the Porta Hedge, Terrestrial Shrub Rover, Monster Log, Fresh Glade, and many other friendly objects.

A one-line recap of Mike Leigh’s new film, Another Year, sounds like a thrillist cinephile’s nightmare: two-plus hours that drag through a year in the life of the happiest, most fuzzy-feeling inducing onscreen married couple since, perhaps, Jimmy Stewart met Donna Reed. Yet in a January that is quickly crowding with dreadful, over-the-top shockers — The Mechanic, The Rite, The Eagle, etc. — Leigh’s little love vignette stands out as a singular breath of emotional sanity, a beautiful exaltation of everyman ..read more

If the prospect of screaming, possessed souls and Anthony Hopkins’ creepy gaze weren’t enough to give you nightmares, The Rite tries to trump up the fear factor by throwing some “facts” into the mix. The movie kicks off with an ominous quote from the late Pope John Paul II, who speaks about the legions of demons wandering the world. Then the onscreen titles tell you that the Roman Catholic Church is buffeting up its ranks of exorcists. In other words, ..read more

Arthur Bishop (Jason Statham) is an assassin that calls himself a mechanic, but it’s a misnomer. You get the impression that this latest thriller from Simon David (Con Air, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) would have been more aptly titled “The Dentist.” Arthur doesn’t get his hands dirty, there is no grease on his elbows, and he rarely has to strain himself to get under the bottom of a job and give anything a hearty yank. There are scarcely any power ..read more

IP Man 2, which was released theatrically today, played at the 2010 Asian Film Festival of Dallas. Here’s our review:

The first IP Man was an audience hit at the 2009 Asian Film Festival of Dallas, and the sequel delivers much of what we expect from straight-forward, Kung Fu action dramas. IP Man is a master of a style of martial arts known as Wing Chun, and despite his exceptional skill, when the movie begins, he is poor and without pupils, struggling to feed his family and pay the rent. A challenge to fight a few street kids early in the film proves IP Man’s prowess and wins him some students. The film’s first conflict comes when the other local martial arts masters challenge IP Man’s authority to teach (which he proves ably) and then try to force him to play guild dues, which the IP Man refuses to do.

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