Page 25 - MIN TTC 8 OCT 2015

PEOPLE & ARTS A31
Roker to headline
Weather Channel’s
digital show
In this March 16, 2015 file photo, Al Roker attends the premiere of
“The Divergent Series: Insurgent” at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New
York.
DAVID BAUDER
AP Television Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — After
The Weather Channel can-
celed his morning show, Al
Roker is coming back on a
much smaller screen.
He’s the headliner for “The
Lift,” a digital offering that like.
could have intriguing im-
plications for television
programs. It will launch on
Oct. 15, available on the
network’s free mobile app
on weekdays between 6
and 11 a.m.
Each day’s program will in-
clude six minutes of weath-
er news, science and na-
ture stories, fun videos and
eventually local forecasts
tailored to the mobile de-
vice owner (development
of the local forecasttech-
nology won’t be ready
for the launch). “The Lift”
comes a few weeks af-
ter The Weather Channel
axed the two-hour morning
show, “Wake Up with Al,”
that Roker had hosted.
“Was I sad to see ‘Wake Up
with Al’ go?” Roker asked.
“Absolutely. But it was a
better opportunity to utilize
my time. Two hours is two
hours, and this is a consid-
erably shorter show.”
The Weather Channel
cited research from eMar-
A person looks at a self-portrait by Dutch master Rembrandt dated 1669 during a press preview of
an exhibition called “Dutch Self-Portraits - Selfies of the Golden Age”, at the Mauritshuis museum
in The Hague, Wednesday Oct. 7, 2015.
17th century ‘selfies’ show at
Dutch museum the Mauritshuis
MIKE CORDER
Associated Press
THE HAGUE, Netherlands
(AP) — These days, any-
Associated Press body with a smartphone
can snap a selfie in a split
keter that 65 percent of second. Back in the Dutch
smartphone users in the Golden Age, they were
U.S. check their devices called self-portraits and
within 15 minutes of wak- were the preserve of highly
ing up. The morning is also trained artists who thought
the network’s busiest time long and hard about every
of day as viewers check to aspect of the painting.
see what their day will be Now the Mauritshuis muse-
um is staging an exhibition
Mobile users will see a link focusing solely on these
to “The Lift” when they 17th century self-portraits,
open their Weather Chan- highlighting the similarities
nel app. They will be able and the differences be-
to watch it as a six-minute tween modern-day snap-
show or in individual seg- shots and historic works of
ments 40 to 60 seconds art.
long. Roker said he can see The museum’s director,
“The Lift” being a model for Emilie Gordenker, said
other information-based Wednesday there has nev-
television shows or net- er been such an exhibition
works as a way to augment of Golden Age Dutch self-
their reach. portraits before and her
“Other programmers will museum was keen to tie
migrate to that model be- the paintings to a modern-
fore long,” he said. day phenomenon — the
The show will primarily be ubiquitous selfies captured
produced out of a newly- with smartphone cameras
built Atlanta studio, with and spread via social me-
Roker filming his contribu- dia.
tions from New York or else- The exhibition opening
where when he’s sent on Thursday and running
location by the “Today” through Jan. 3 features 27
show. Meteorologists Do- self-portraits by artists rang- that went into the paintings
menica Davis and Ari Sar- ing from Rembrandt van
salari will also be featured Rijn, a master of the genre,
on “The Lift.” to his student Carel Fabri-
“It’s like the difference be- tius — best known for “The
tween having a sit-down Goldfinch,” which hangs
breakfast or a good grab- elsewhere in the Maurit-
and-go,” Roker said.q
Thursday 8 October 2015
shuis — and Judith Leyster,
whose self-portrait is on
loan from the National Gal-
lery of Art in Washington,
D.C.
A less well-known artist,
Huygh Pietersz Voskuyl, is
the poster boy for the ex-
hibition. His striking 1638
self-portrait features a
classic selfie pose; staring
over his right shoulder out
of the frame. It does not
take much imagination to
picture him gazing into the
lens of a smartphone rath-
er than a mirror — which
Golden Age artists used to
capture their images for
self-portraits. Giant mirrors
are spread through the
exhibition space, creating
reflections within reflections the self-portraits almost a
of paintings that are them-
selves mirror images.
While the similarities be-
tween selfies and self-por-
traits are obvious — the
subject matter is the person
creating the image — the
differences are also appar-
ent. A selfie is often shot
speedily with little concern
for composition, while these
self-portraits are carefully
conceived works of art. A
video made for the exhibi-
tion highlights the thought
and what today’s selfie
makers can learn from it to
improve their snapshots.
And, yes, you are allowed
to take selfies in the muse-
um.
Associated Press
The Voskuyl is a good ex-
ample of the richness that
can be found in such an
apparently simple picture.
“He brings out all these little
details, like his beard or the
little embroidery on his shirt,
even a kind of fake wood-
paneled wall behind him,”
Gordenker said. “So he’s
thought very hard about
the textures and the things
that make him who he is.
At the same time, you can
see the skill with which he
painted this and this will
have definitely been a very
good advertisement for
what he could do.”
That kind of attention to
detail and quality made
Golden Age calling card —
showcasing the artist and
his or her talents to poten-
tial clients.
“A lot of artists in the 17th
century painted self-por-
traits, not only as portraits of
themselves but also as an
example of the beautiful
art that they could make,”
said the exhibition’s curator
Ariane van Suchtelen. “For
instance, Rembrandt was
very famous for his very vir-
tuoso sketchy way of paint-
ing. If you would buy a
self-portrait by Rembrandt,
you would not only have a
portrait of this famous art-
ist but also an example of
what he could do, what he
was famous for — his art.”q