ART
Chuck Close and poet Bob Holman
Chuck Close is something of a one-trick pony, but he does that one trick magnificently. He does portraits of his friends in an almost endless variety of media and techniques, usually close-ups with sharp focus on the center of the face and fading along the edges. This internationally famous artist who grew up near Tacoma and went to school at the University of Washington first became famous in the 1960s for his stark, in-your-face photographic realism â€" images of faces seen so close and in such gigantic scale that every pimple, scar and wrinkle was seen in almost microscopic detail.

Now showing at Tacoma Art Museum is a collaborative project two years in the making between Close and the poet Bob Holman â€" visual and word portraits of themselves and their friends â€" titled A Couple of Ways of Doing Something: Photographs by Chuck Close, Poems by Bob Holman.

The poems are witty and inventive. If you happen to be familiar with Glass’ music or Murray’s paintings and Sherman and Serrano’s photographs, then the poems will have enhanced meaning. One of the funniest is Holman’s poem in praise of himself, which is presented as a letter to him from “the rest of the world except for you.” â€" Alec Clayton
[Tacoma Art Museum, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., $6.50-$7.50, 1701 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, 253.272.4258]

FILM
The Visitor
The following is a bare-bones synopsis of writer-director Thomas McCarthy’s latest film, The Visitor. A lonely man keeps to himself upon losing someone dear to him. He then meets an energetic stranger who helps recharge his broken spirit. A couple of women also enter his life and help to reawaken his tender side.

Now read it again and apply it to McCarthy’s only other film, the much-lauded indie favorite The Station Agent (2003). Funny how that works. McCarthy wrote and directed both films, and both are terrific if you buy in from the get-go that strangers from wildly different backgrounds can form intimate bonds in a short time. Give McCarthy credit, because it works. Rated PG-13 for brief strong language. Three and a half stars. â€" Teresa Budasi
[The Grand Cinema, 4:40, 6:55, and 9:10 p.m., $4.50-$8, 606 Fawcett Ave., Tacoma, 253.593.4474]

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