Too much Tucci?

It was the early 1990s when people began telling me that there was an obscure television actor who looked just like me. Not being much of a TV watcher, I had no idea who he was until the movie Big Night* came out in 1996, and I realized they'd been talking about Stanley Tucci. I’ve been a fan ever since.

And yes, he still looks like me - but now he’s famous, and he’s written a nice little book about his lifelong love affair with food. As Tucci puts it, he is "Italian on both sides" … so obsessing about food comes naturally. He’s also an experienced writer, with several film scripts to his credit, making Taste: My Life Through Food much more than the average celebrity memoir. And, when it comes to food, he’s got plenty to talk about.

You may already be aware of a TV series that ran last winter on CNN called Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, in which our hero goes to various regions of Italy and explores some of their local food specialties, oohing and aahing in ecstasy along the way. It's a great series, slated to continue until (I hope) all 20 regions of Italy have been covered.

Me and Stanley - He's got a better makeup
man, but I speak better Italian ... so I guess
that makes us even!

photo: Robert Blake

Between the first six episodes of Searching for Italy, and the book Taste, you get to know a lot about Stanley (or The Tooch, as I like to call him), including various facts about his family, but most of all you learn just how completely obsessed with food he is and always has been. Me, I don't resemble the Tooch in this way - which became a problem about halfway through the book, as I skipped over most of the recipes and, I'll admit, some of the slightly overlong descriptions of whatever Stanley loves to eat.

For true foodies, I'm sure this wouldn't be an issue, but I disclose to be honest and thorough. On the other hand, I am probably even more of an Italophile than the Tooch himself, so his stories that involve anything cultural fall on wide-open ears. And, boy, does he have stories, which he shares in a fluent, likeable voice that is clearly his own (no ghost writer here). Stanley seems to think of himself as great company, and for a time I thought so, too - but, after a while, that particular voice began to seem a bit self-indulgent, and I grew tired of it.

Another aspect of Taste that I found a bit of a bore was the name-dropping. OK, given that Tucci hangs out with the likes of Meryl Streep and George Clooney, it's understandable that he'd want the reader to know that ... and, maybe to his credit (I can't decide), he calls himself out on the name-dropping each time he does it. But it's still name dropping, and it's still tiresome to old, un-famous me.

The book also contains two big revelations, which ***spoiler alert*** I am about to detail. The first is that Tucci recently had a pretty bad form of mouth cancer that not only threatened his life, it took away his ability to enjoy food for two years. And that plain sucks. Luckily, treatment and endurance won out and, by the end of the book, he was back to eating almost normally.

The second revelation is even more disturbing - that Tucci has tired of acting and really just wants to feed people from now on. Aw, jeez, Stanley! As we aren't in the realm of Meryl and George (or of the Tooch's other friends and relatives), that makes us the losers. I will definitely miss Stanley Tucci the actor. Though there remains the fact that CNN has renewed his wonderful TV series ... and I can't wait to see what regions of Italy he'll visit next (my Italian-American wife is rooting hard for Abruzzo)!

*Big Night is a terrific independent film starring Tucci, Tony Shalhoub, Minnie Driver, Ian Holm, and Isabella Rossellini that put Stanley’s name on the map and boasts a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Masterful prints at the Fenimore Art Museum

Albrecht Dürer - Agony in the Garden (Christ on the Mount of Olives), 1508
detail of a print from the Engraved Passion series

It can be easy to overlook printmaking as an art form, especially in our current digital age, where a few clicks will get you a nice image made of ink on paper. But two very different shows currently on view at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown serve as timely reminders that it wasn’t always so easy, and that it still takes vision to make easy into wonderful.

All fans of visual art know the name Albrecht Dürer, but most of us probably didn’t know that Dürer “singlehandedly transformed printmaking from a craft to a fine art” in the late 1400s and early 1500s, as postulated and amply demonstrated by the traveling exhibition Albrecht Dürer: Master Prints, on loan to FAM through Nov. 22 from Pennsylvania’s Reading Public Museum.

Fall of Man from the Small Woodblock Passion, c. 1510

The show includes more than 20 examples of Dürer’s woodblocks and copper engravings, including all 16 of the “Engraved Passion” series. Though the prints are quite small (typically about 2.5 by 4.5 inches), they are packed with detail; and, though they are monochromatic, they feature an engaging range of tones and textures, emphasized by Dürer’s signature chiaroscuro style. A few examples of work by contemporaries who influenced or were influenced by Dürer are also included here, and they provide the context to support the idea that his work transcended illustration to achieve true artistic expression in a medium generally meant for popular consumption.

Not that Dürer eschewed popularity – on the contrary, according to the exhibition wall text, “his prints circulated throughout Europe, making him one of the most influential artists of his age.” Something like today’s YouTube or Instagram stars, he gave the people what they wanted, providing his own special twists in the form of naturalistic curiosities, bravura line work, and visual puzzles. The woodblock print Fall of Man provides one example of these strengths – whereas a simple rendering of Adam and Eve with the snake would do, Dürer adds other animals such as a bear (or is it a boar?) and a peeping lion, along with his classic personal logo on a trompe l’oeil metal tag.

Joachim and the Angel from The Life of the Virgin, 1504

Dürer honed his craft and his vision during a trip to Italy in his 20s – no surprise that exposure to the culture that spawned Renaissance art would make him a better artist, too – but his work still radiates a German sensibility in its emotional restraint and controlled, almost analytical approach. Equally, the religious and moral subject matter of these images speaks of their time and place, and presumably of Dürer’s Christian devotion, but there’s much more than Biblical storytelling to their content. Another fine example is Christ Shown to the People, in which several exquisitely detailed human figures, a darkly vivid forest, and a microscopic farming scene are all crammed into a small engraving, emulating some of the best qualities of Italian art of the time.

All in all, with a little patience (and maybe a magnifying glass, available for use in the museum), this display of Dürer’s master works will greatly reward any visitor.

Kykuit Estate, Tarrytown, New York

Flashing forward to the 21st century, an exhibition of beautifully realized inkjet-printed photographs by Steve Gross and Susan Daley entitled Blue Gardens makes a strong complement to the Dürer show.

Gross and Daley work as a duo, and they built this collection of images over more than a decade (mixed in with other projects), by visiting numerous venerable parks and estates to capture their seemingly timeless outdoor spaces using digital cameras.

The resulting show of 22 prints, all of them transformed to the mellow blue tones of a cyanotype, provides both a document of these special places and a lush and pensive visual style that the pair have cultivated over many decades of photographing landscapes and gardens together. The beautiful consistency of this group belies the diversity of its subjects, ranging from South Carolina to Upstate N.Y.

Untermyer Park, Yonkers, New York

All but two of the prints are a medium size for photographs (about 11” by 18”), which is small enough to draw you in close, but still big enough to allow you to enter the space and peruse the finely rendered details of plants, statuary, architectural elements, and water features (natural or man-made). Two of the prints are much larger (about 30” by 40”), which helps them work well when viewed from a distance, and emphasizes their strong compositional effects.

In many of these pictures, the sky is a powerful presence. This may have been part of the reason for printing in blue, or just a happy byproduct of the decision to render the gardens themselves in blue, but the effect of that choice works beautifully (I have tried to imagine these images in a classic grey monotone instead, and it doesn’t seem to work at all). In any case, the skies are crucial to the work precisely because, while the rest of the subject matter is virtually unchanged from its inception a century or more ago, the ever-changing sky captured in a fleeting moment firmly anchors the images as photographs, timeless though they may seem.

Blue Gardens will remain on view at FAM through Dec. 31.

Steve Gross and Susan Daley - Crane Estate, Ipswich, Massachusetts

In Memoriam: Elena Pino

At Cala Piccola on the Mediterranean Sea, 1994

Elena Pino, a native and resident of Rome, Italy, died in Padua on May 23 after battling cancer for the past year. She would have turned 57 on July 1.

Elena (accent on the first syllable, please) was one of the great loves of my life and, more important, she was one of the finest people I have ever known. The world is greatly diminished by her premature departure.

Doing relief work with Hopeful Giving

An attorney, Elena worked for many years for the Italian State Attorney’s office (similar to our Attorney General) in Catania, Florence, and Rome. She loved to travel, was enamored of weekend sailing competitions and, in recent years, had become very active in relief efforts for Italian earthquake victims and refugees from the Middle East and Northern Africa.

Elena loved and supported the arts, especially in the form of classical music, literature, and visual art. As a youngster, she sang in a chorus. She also began skiing at a very young age, loved hiking and being by the sea at her place in Cala Piccola, and enjoyed all things beautiful, especially wild flowers.

More than anything, Elena loved - and was beloved by - people of all kinds. She never married or had children, but Elena was devoted to her nieces Carlotta and Benedetta, her nephew Tomasso, and Carlotta’s two little girls, all of whom survive her. She is also survived by her brother, Maurizio Pino, and his wife, Brunella, of Rome; and by her fiancé, Albertino Pastorini of Padua.

Elena was a co-founder with Albertino of the relief organization Hopeful Giving, which became the centerpiece of her existence in her final years. You can make a donation to Hopeful Giving in her memory and support relief efforts for struggling refugees in Europe by going to https://www.facebook.com/HopefulGivingIdomeni/.

Addio, Elenina.

Just in case you were wondering ...

Pink Wall, Deruta

It's been about nine years since Get Visual debuted, first as a feature of The Daily Gazette online edition, then independently on this platform. In that time, I've published more than 260 articles, most of which have been art reviews. I've also published only one of my own photographs, in August 2010 (see it here). At that time, I wrote that I would "very probably" never do that again.

Today, I'll break that pledge, with five examples from a recent trip to Italy. Just in case any of you were wondering whether I still take photographs, here's proof that I do. Hope you enjoy! -DB

Adriatic coast near S. Vito

View of the Majella from Chieti

Houses and Canal, Comacchio

Portico, Bologna

Dazzled by Millennia

View of the interior of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, Italy

When it seems that contemporary art is over-hyped, too gimmicky, or just generally full of crap, it can be a tonic to go back a few centuries - or more - to experience some of the art that has stood the test of time - and that's just what my spouse and I did on a recent trip to Italy.

My relationship with Italy is 40 years long and just about as deep. Usually, when I go there, it's to reconnect: with friends and family, with familiar places both urban and rural, and with Italian life as it is lived today. Though I try to make a point of also going to new places when I'm there, it isn't my habit to check in with the art treasures of the past that made the peninsula so popular to begin with.

Pattern detail from the mausoleum

But, on this trip, I broke with tradition. The new places we visited, while still lively and lovely in 2017, also featured some not-to-be-missed historical sites. So we bought the tickets and lined up to see the best of those, in Mantova (aka Mantua), a delightful city on the eastern edge of Lombardy, and in mosaic-centric Ravenna, at the Adriatic end of Emilia-Romagna. Both cities are designated UNESCO World Heritage sites, and there's no doubt they are worthy. We were well rewarded for our trips there and would gladly go back to both.

Natural detail from the mausoleum

I will not try to describe the mosaics we saw in Ravenna - pictures fail to do it, and so would words. The experience of seeing them for the first time was literally breathtaking. We began with the top draw - the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, a modest brick structure built around 425-450 AD that is encrusted over every interior centimeter with the most dazzling images and patterns imaginable from that era or any time since. You duck in from a bright day to an intimate space, your eyes adjust to the soft light that filters in from alabaster windows - and speechless awe is the only possible response.

Detail portrait of the Empress Theodora
in the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna

Equally powerful are the mosaics that adorn major parts of the large Basilica of San Vitale, also in Ravenna. These were installed over a longer stretch of time, and completed in 547 AD. The capstone piece of the group is a rectangular mosaic that depicts the Empress Theodora and her court (across the apse is a matching picture of her husband and his entourage, but the guys are nowhere near as pretty). This image could be right out of Vogue magazine - presumably designed by the Richard Avedon of the day - and it is just as astonishing as Galla Placidia's little tomb.

Mosaics have special qualities that speak easily across time. Because they are constructed of tiny cut pieces of colored stone, there is a directness to them that is absent in painted images - you can see exactly how they are made; there is no mystery to the technique. But in the presence of a work like the mausoleum, you are knocked out thinking of the effort that went into creating this richly beautiful imagery: the collecting and cutting of the stones in so many colors (plus, of course, real gold - after all, this is Byzantine art); the laying out of the highly complex patterns; the planning of the naturalistic imagery, and so on. How many hands, and how many years, were required to accomplish such a construction?

Detail from the Camera degli Sposi, Mantova

You think not so much of an artist (clearly, there was a large crew of skilled workers involved) as of a culture that brought this into being. The people of this culture wanted to show us everything in their world - its animals, its plants, its sky, its people ... and then added their own clever illusory patterns of stars and feathers and geometry, maybe just to show off. Unlike paint, the colors in these stones would never fade - and so they are stunningly rich and vivid today, more than 1,500 years later.

But if you did want to think of an artist, our visit to the Camera degli Sposi in the Ducal Palace in Mantova would provide you with just the right one. Andrea Mantegna, a native of Padova who died in Mantova, worked from 1465 to 1474 on this roomful of frescoes, demonstrating a level of naturalism that hadn't been achieved in European art before that point (and certainly not in fresco, a notoriously tricky medium). Like the mausoleum in Ravenna, this is a room that is decorated over every surface (including the flat ceiling, transformed into a stunning illusory "oculus") and it leaves your jaw hanging open.

Its charms are many, including numerous gaily clad figures, accurately rendered animals, and fanciful images of Rome (a city Mantegna never saw in life). It also features a famous self-portrait by the artist, hidden in the curls of ornamental trompe l'oeil architectural details. In contrast to the egoless immersion of Ravenna, here we have the self-referential Renaissance man on full display. And he was awesome. Sometimes, it's hard to think that any artist working today can honestly measure up.

Fresco of the court of the Duke of Mantova in the Camera degli Sposi, Mantova

Caroline Ramersdorfer at Opalka Gallery

Installation view of Gravity & Light at Sage Colleges' Opalka Gallery

all photos provided by Opalka Gallery

A world-class sculptor is on view at Sage College of Albany's Opalka Gallery  - so please go see the wonderful retrospective solo show Gravity & Light: Caroline Ramersdorfer Sculpture, 1985-2016. It opened on Dec. 2 and will be there through March 5, so no excuses.

Ramersdorfer has great international credentials, both in her development and in the exposure of her art - yet, she is also local, having a home and studio in the Adirondacks town of Wells, which she shares with an equally prominent sculptor, John Van Alstine (see my brief review of their two-person show at Lake George Arts Project in 2014). A native of Austria, Ramersdorfer studied art in Paris and Florence and then learned marble carving in Carrara (where else?), and has produced commissioned work for permanent installations in places as fur-flung as China, Iran, Egypt, and Abu Dhabi.

One extraordinary feature of this exhibition is its inclusion of numerous maquettes and sketches for some of Ramersdorfer's major projects, and they are as skillfully crafted as their larger progeny, while also being charming in their tininess. The beautifully produced catalog of the exhibition features lavish illustrations of each foreign installation (plus one on the Sage campus in Albany), telling the story of these remarkable and ambitious creations.

But no number of pictures can substitute for the experience of sculpture in the flesh (so to speak), and this installation of about 30 years of work is an unforgettable opportunity to visit with each piece, large or small, move around it, and see how it works in three-dimensional space, as the artist intended.

The gallery's open floor plan and high ceiling augment the uncrowded arrangement of the show, which presents about 50 individual works (counting models, sketches, and very small finished pieces) in grouped relationships, in cases and on pedestals, or freestanding. It is not strictly chronological, but the earliest work is seen in the far, back corner of the gallery, set off just a bit by a dividing wall, which allows for a sense of discovery in going backward in time to sculptures that evoke very early times with arrow and axe forms in stone and wood.

Ramersdorfer's newer work is thoroughly modern; however in some instances the primitive shapes remain, such as in a large piece sited near the entrance, called Nexus_Open, which reprises the axe handle and blade in polished and rough marble.

Inner_View 5 2002, marble and steel

Mid-career work, some of it much smaller in scale and carved in alabaster, marble, and other stones, explores simple geometry such as cubes, but also incorporates organic forms that suggest body parts or even microscopic life. These pieces can be flowingly beautiful, as in the 2006 carved marble Wave Wing, which marries an open cube with the form described by its title in a delicate game of balance.

Most of Ramersdorfer's later work is part of an ongoing series titled Inner View, which uses layering to develop complex visual and spatial relationships among planar carvings with molecular and geological structures. These stacked sculptures pull the viewer's eye into their center, mesmerizing and fascinating with the play of light and shadow on and between their surfaces.

It is innovative and masterful work by an artist at the peak of her powers.

Inner View_Open 2009, marble

Flosdorf and Swidorski at Fulton Street Gallery

Two photographers who've been quite active on the local scene in recent years are presented in side-by-side solo shows at Fulton Street Gallery in Troy, with a reception on Friday (Jan. 29) that coincides with the always fun and eclectic Troy Night Out.

The three-room installation of 15 pictures each by Jim Flosdorf and Theresa Swidorski offers an opportunity to see each artist's work in depth (often impossible in the more common group shows) and to compare and contrast them as well. While Flosdorf's show is billed as a retrospective, touching on about ten years of output in digital color, Swidorski's is made up of two recent groups of images in traditional black and white.

The gallery's ample front room provides plenty of space in which Flosdorf's large, rather brightly colored work can breathe; the flat-mounted, minimally framed (or unframed) pieces use it well. Visually, and in terms of process, they are an amalgam of classic photography technique and painterly yearnings; some highly graphic, others richly detailed, they can be successfully viewed from a distance or up close.

The newest image in the show (2010's Ore Crusher, shown above), is a crystal-clear example of what makes Flosdorf tick: it uses oversaturated color, gritty texture, romanticism, and playfulness to quickly engage the viewer and then keep the relationship going for a while.

Many of Flosdorf's other works (in this show or not) are much more complex than Ore Crusher, but they do not necessarily exceed it. One I particularly like, titled Grassy Inlet, plays a similar game of seek-and-find, while offering a much bigger world view, and more adventure.

Two other recent images in this selection were part of the 2009 Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region exhibition at Albany's University Art Museum, and were taken at the massive Sol Lewitt installation at MASS MoCA (one is shown above). These typify Flosdorf's more graphic approach, where color and shape are the dominant features, rather than intimate detail.

Other works in the show that hew in this direction were made inside a heavily graffitoed and trashed set of train cars. Unlike many of Flosdorf's photographs that are often highly manipulated in PhotoShop, these appear to be straight images. Another train image shows a moving engine that appears to be floating out of a pink haze like an apparition or a dream - it is perhaps the most like a painting of the photos in this selection.

Speaking of selection, one note on curatorial choice: While it is valid to do a retrospective show of an artist with ten years' worth of work to choose from (and I know from past viewing that Flosdorf has plenty of depth in the work made in that span), by taking many small slices of that work you run the risk of creating a show with a "best of" feeling, rather than an experience of the artist at his best.

I think it would have served Flosdorf (and the audience) better to have presented larger slices of a smaller range of images, thereby communicating the consistency and coherence of this artist's vision in a more complete way.

This, in effect, is what is accomplished in the smaller-scale, two part show of Swidorski's photographs from Italy and Ireland. A group comprised of eight pictures, all of them vertical 11x14's taken in Venice and Vicenza (one is shown at left), fits snugly along an upstairs balcony in the back of the gallery.

The carefully modulated tones of wet-processed silver printing take this work well out of the realm of the tourist snapshot, as does Swidorski's receptive, deceptively quiet eye for a meaningful scene. She often shoots in the soft light of early morning, relishing the surfaces and forms of her classic subjects.

This is not your sun-drenched Italy, but it definitely is Italy - presented from a certain point of view, but as and for itself. In a more personal category are the seven pictures Swidorski shows from Ireland in the gallery's back room (one is shown below).

These are printed larger than the Italy images, but also much more expressively - while some retain the sharpness and range of tones we associate with traditionally well-made black-and-white prints, others are dark and brooding, using great swaths of swirling graininess to capture and render atmosphere. This is where I think Swidorski starts to accomplish something special. While it is hinted at in the Italy pictures, the Irish weather allows Swidorski's emotional side to come out and play.

One favorite (not shown here), titled The Amazing Cloud at Inch, presents a rural landscape, its elements dwarfed by a looming, black stormcloud. A similar effect is created in another image titled Lost in Donegal. Swidorski can be comfortable resting her reputation on the strength of these two pictures alone.

If you want to go out and play, Troy Night Out will have many other shows also worth a look: painter Harry Orlyk at Clement Gallery; a group show at Martinez Gallery that includes many regional favorites (Flosdorf among them); Dan McCormack at the PhotoCenter; two new shows and an Ellen Sinopoli open dance rehearsal at the Arts Center; and much more.

Luigi Ghirri at Aperture Gallery

It was with a huge sense of fulfillment that I took in the current exhibition of photographs by Luigi Ghirri at Aperture Gallery in New York (through Jan. 29 http://www.aperture.org/gallery/).

Please let me explain. I first came upon Ghirri's work in early 1993 as I was beginning a two-year stay in central Italy. He was from Modena (like the balsamic vinegar) and I found his work in a substantial catalog that accompanied a retrospective exhibition that had just been held in Bologna. In the book, charmingly titled "Vista con Camera" ("View with a Room"), I found an eclectic, regional sensibility represented in highly refined color photographs, many of which resembled many of my own. The elation I felt in finding an artistic soulmate in my new country quickly turned to a feeling of loss, though, when I learned that Ghirri had died at 49 years old the previous year, and that the show was an elegy.

Ghirri was quite well-known in the European art and publishing fields, but he was almost completely unknown in the United States. None of his many books had been published in English, and I never did meet anyone here in the US who had heard of him (though the record shows he exhibited at Light Gallery in New York).

But now we have a fine exhibition of his work at Aperture and a beautiful monograph in English that accompanies it. "It's beautiful here, isn't it ... " is the title of the show and book, and immediately expresses the sweet openness with which Ghirri approached his life in photography and in the high plains of north-central Italy. No naif, Ghirri was a deep-thinking philosopher and theorist, whose esoterically probing writings are peppered throughout the show in perfect proportion to the 90 pictures on view.

Constructed as a room within a room, the large gallery places the viewer immediately into the labyrinth of Ghirri's roving mind, led, of course, by his all-seeing eye. A very large opening panel presents a wallpaper-like grid of simple sky snapshots, about 200 of them selected from a total numbering 365, for an entire year in which he took one picture of the sky each day. This introduction sets the emotional and intellectual tone for the show, but it does not represent Ghirri's genius for careful perusal and selection; rather, it shows his almost religious exuberance in accessing the joys and sorrows of daily life through photography.

The rest of the exhibition consists of framed pictures of generally modest size - no art-fair mural prints here - grouped in thematic runs of short or long duration, and organized somewhat, though not strictly, chronologically, from the earliest work of the 1970s through his last years. The walls are white, but in the central room, where some of the strongest work is displayed, they have been painted a middle blue, which very nicely offsets the soft colors of the works hung there.

Ghirri's subject matter is about equally divided between landscape and interior. Architecture is a dominant theme, and people are few. Unlike his contemporary color pioneer William Eggleston (who wrote the book's preface), he seems more of a quiet observer than a participant in the images, and he keeps his distance in that sense. But his observations are acute, placing him near Eggleston in the category of social commentary. Late-20th-century color practitioners Joel Meyerowitz, Stephen Shore and Joel Sternfeld also share his sensibility.

The early work, mostly shot in 35mm, has a sense of the absurd and a structured form. Many of these images are composed vertically, and play visual tricks on the eye. Ghirri's sly observations of cityscape and landscape as playgrounds for the fertile mind are characteristic of the movement in the '70s that eventually took on the name New Topographics.

Later work, especially several 20x24-inch Polaroids done in 1980, appears more personal and allegorical, which leads smoothly to the latest work, in which Ghirri has constructed groups of pictures that together form a portrait of their subjects - the artist Giorgio Morandi and the architect Aldo Rossi - not by depicting the men themselves but by recording the details of their studios.

These last two bodies, shot in 6x7 centimeter format and printed at 16x20 inches, are shown in the central blue room, and they remain my favorites of the show for their masterful use of color and composition and the strong and subtle ways in which they work together. As with the rest of the show, the prints are both vintage and contemporary.

Ghirri was known to take his work to a drugstore for processing, and while the technical quality of some of the earlier prints is acceptable, some others in the show are noticeably off-color and unevenly printed. But the new prints are just perfect in every way, using the latest in inkjet technology to appear exactly like expertly made C-prints.

Obviously, Ghirri was not available to plan the show or its installation, but his wife, Paola, deserves credit for a marvelous job of culling and curating. There's no doubt Luigi would be proud of the show and very pleased to be reaching wider audiences on these shores at last.