Fine Arts
-
Carl Chiarenza on Boston Photography
Harvard Dissertation on Aaron Siskind First on Photography in US
By: - Aug 07th, 2019During graduate study at Boston University photographer Carl Chiarenza was a professor, mentor and friend. We spoke at length about how JFK and the Vietnam War nudged him into studying art history. At Harvard he was the first American to write a dissertation on photography. It was a biography and critical study of then living American icon Aaron Siskind. Now retired from the University of Rochester he continues to create new work.
-
Renoir: the Body, the Senses
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA
By: - Jul 23rd, 2019On the occasion of the 100th anniversary since his death the Clark Art Institute has organized a scholarly exhibition Renoir: the Body, the Senses. At his best few 19th century masters can match his charm and popular appeal. His greatest works were included in the 1985-1986 blockbuster exhibition Renoir, which was shown in London and Paris before it came to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It broke MFA records with 500,000 plus visitors. The Clark show by comparison is small and uneven.
-
Kevin Puts Premiere at Tanglewood
Andris Nelsons Conducts Renee Fleming and Rod Gilfry
By: - Jul 21st, 2019The Brightness of Light by Kevin Puts had its world premiere at The Shed at Tanglewood. Rod Gilfry, baritone, and Puts' collaborator Renee Fleming, sang the baritone and soprano roles of Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keefe, who were married for twenty-two years. Often living and working in different parts of America, they corresponded. Puts scoured the correspondence to develop an arc for his orchestral song cycle. It is a brilliantly achieved work.
-
Raphael and the Pope’s Librarian
Up Close and Personal at the Gardner Museum
By: - Jul 16th, 2019To mark the 500th anniversary of the legendary painter Raphael’s death, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum will bring together - for the first time – Raphael’s portrait of papal librarian, Tommaso Inghirami, from its collection and a painting depicting an episode in his life from the Musei Vaticani in Vatican City.
-
Marjorie Minkin: The Shape of Light
Museum Quality Work at Real Eyes Gallery in the Berkshires
By: - Jul 05th, 2019In a relatively short time Real Eyes Gallery. located in the heart of Adams in the Berkshires. is notable for programming museum level exhibtions. Marjorie Minkin: The Shape of Light sets the bar high. Gallerist Bill Reilly has been able to work with artists from an expanding and ever more remarkable community of artists. How long can MASS MoCA ignore phenomenal work being created in its own back yard?
-
Patricia Hills on American Art
Whitney Museum Curator and Boston University Professor
By: - Jun 25th, 2019A leading scholar of American Art, Patricia Hills curated major exhibitions for the Whitney Museum including "John Singer Sargent."Her books and catalogues range from Eastman Johnson, to Alice Neel and Jacob Lawrence. At Boston University she trained a generation of scholars and curators. As a Marxist she has been particularly involved in social justice projects.
-
Mugar's Theory of Zombie Abstraction
An Update and Controversy
By: - Jun 24th, 2019When I first wrote about Zombie abstraction in December 2013 several months before the concept achieved notoriety in Walter Robinson's now famous essay on Zombie Formalism, I got a blowback in a comment on my Zombie blog from artist Craig Stockwell.
-
Basquiat x Warhol at The School
Summer Exhibition in Kinderhook New York
By: - Jun 22nd, 2019The Swiss dealer, Bruno Bischofberger commissioned a collaboration between Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol as well as Francesco Clemente. The project with Clemente fizzled by thrived with the other two artists. The dealer would purchase between sixty and eighty of their works together. The project wasn't completed but eight works from the series are on view at The School in Kinderhook New York. There are some hundred works by the artists on view, Saturdays, through early September.
-
Phenomenal Nature at Met Breuer
Mrinalini Mukherjee, Sculptor
By: - Jun 17th, 2019Phenomenal Nature, the first American retrospective of the remarkable sculptures of Indian artist, Mrinalini Mukherjee, will be on display at the Met Breuer until September 29 and is well worth viewing.
-
Gabrielle Barzaghi: The Tzar’s Children
Gloucester’s Trident Gallery
By: - Jun 14th, 2019Trident Gallery in Gloucester is presenting Gabrielle Barzaghi: The Tzar’s Children. There will be a discussion wth the figurative /narrative artist on Sunday, June 16, at 4 PM.
-
50th Anniversary of Stonewall
About Face: Stonewall, Revolt and New Queer Art
By: - Jun 09th, 2019About Face: Stonewall, Revolt and New Queer Art commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, a spontaneous rebellion by gay activists after a police raid on a gay bar in Greenwich Village. Curated by Jonathan David Katz, Ph.D., activist, art historian, writer and university professor, the exhibit features almost 500 works of art in every conceivable media.
-
Canadian Curator Claude Gosselin Turns 75
Founded Biennale de Montréal
By: - Jun 05th, 2019Today, June 5, friends will gather to celebrate the 75th birthday of the curator Calude Gosselin. Not having visited Montréal in some time we made plans for travel in the fall. That changed abruptly when we were bumped off a flight to the U.K. From the road we called Claude and told him we would arrive in a couple of hours. It was great to catch up. Since the 1980s he has curated major exhibitions including Les Cent jours d’art contemporain de Montréal and Biennale de Montréal. We covered many of those projects.
-
First Nations at Art Gallery of Ontario
A Third of the Museum’s Gallery Space
By: - Jun 03rd, 2019During a recent road trip we visited museums in Montreal, Ottowa and Toronto. We noted different strategies to intergate First Nations artists into special exhibitions and permanent collection galleries. A third of the exhibition space of the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto features First Nations artists. With an unfavorable comparison only a handful of American museums have a commitment to feature Native American art and culture.
-
MFA Addresses Recent Incident of Racism
An Open Letter from Director Matthew Teitelbaum
By: - Jun 03rd, 2019A group of 26 middle-school students with chaperones from the Helen Y. Davis Leadership Academy visited the MFA on May 16, 2019. They were on a self-guided visit. Before leaving the Museum, the group filed a complaint with Member and Visitor Services that they were met with racism and verbal abuse from visitors and staff during the visit. In an open letter to the MFA Community its director Matthew Teitelbaum details the museum's response and plan of action.
-
Deep Dirt on Annie Lennox
Installation of Detritus at MASS MoCA
By: - May 31st, 2019As an epic memento mori the 64-year-old British pop star has created “Annie Lenox: Now I Let You Go…” A huge mound of earth scattered with her memorabilia will be on view long term at MASS MoCA. The ambitious installation will be of great interest to her global fans.
-
MASS MoCA Launches Summer Season
Annie Lennox Life of the Party
By: - May 26th, 2019For the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend general admission to MASS MoCA was free. For the launch of it's 20th summer season the museum was mobbed. There were food and drink stands as well as many family oriented activities. For tickets ranging from $100 to $1000 there was a performance by British rock star Annie Lennox. There was also an installation of her memorabelia and legacy which will be on view for the coming months. The museum launched many new temporary exhibitions. There are also long term displays of contemporary masters.
-
Spring Awakening at Hancock Shaker Village
Borrowed Light Watercolors by Barbara Ernst Prey
By: - May 24th, 2019Working "24/7" over several months the renowned, Williamstown-based artist, Barbara Ernst Prey, created Borrowed Light. The suite of watercolor renderings of interiors is on view in a converted chicken coop of Hancock Shaker Village. It is a part of expanded contemporary programming under the director Jennifer Trainer Thompson. She was a founding member of the MASS MoCA team. They have been neighbors and friends for many years. It was intuitive for them to undertake this remarkable project.
-
A Cultural Trip Through Canada
Encountering First Nations Artworks
By: - May 23rd, 2019On the spot, fully packed and ready to travel, we decided on a car trip to Canadian locations: Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Niagara Falls, after we were denied boarding an airplane to Chicago. Our final destination was (not) to be Edinburgh, Scotland and London, England. Here's a cultural overview of our ersatz-trip, which turned out to be just great!
-
Kathleen Jacobs’ Natural Abstraction
Echos at TurnPark Art Space in West Stockbridge
By: - May 19th, 2019During four years in China Kathleen Jacobs learned calligraphy from a master. That entailed rubbing ancient reliefs and copying the inscriptions. Several years ago she developed a technique of making paintings by attaching canvas to trees. The surfaces are rubbed and the canvases left outside to endure a year of seasons. The paintings are finished in the studio. Through Echos finished paintings and works in progress are on view at TurnPark Art Space in West Stockbridge, in the Berkshires.
-
The Power Plant
Toronto’s Renowned Contemporary Art Kunsthalle
By: - May 16th, 2019Occupying a former municipal structure, since 1987, The Power Plant in Toronto has been a renowned presenter of Canadian and global contemporary art. We visited during the final days of three solo exhibitions: “Same Dream” by Omar Ba a Senegalese artist who divides time between Dakar and Geneva, Switzland. Shuvinai Ashoona, a member of a renowned family of Inuit artists, presented “Mapping Worlds.” For twenty years, Alicia Henry, a graduate of Yale, has resided in Nashville, Tennessee where she teaches at Fisk University. Her show was titled "Witnessing."
-
Albright-Knox Art Gallery Plans AK360
Buffalo’s Great Museum Gets Even Better
By: - May 15th, 2019Founded in 1862 as Buffalo Fine Arts Academy today Buffalo's Albright-Knox Art Gallery is regarded as one of America's foremost small, regional museums. Its first building opened in 1906. In 1962 a wing was added and a new 30,000 square foot structure will begin construction at the end of this year. It will double space for the permanent collection and special exhibitions.
-
Refus Global to Intersectionality
Rethinking Paradigms for Canadian Art
By: - May 14th, 2019In a complex reconfiguration of permanent collections of Canadian museums there is a mandate for integration of First Nations work with galleries of post war abstraction. While change is welcome and necessary, for now, the juxtapositions are complex and disorienting. There is more contrast than confluence.
-
Henry Moore Sculpture Centre
900 Works at Art Gallery of Ontario
By: - May 13th, 2019The Art Gallery of Ontario owns 900 works by Henry Moore including large plasters for bronzes, maquettes, drawings and related materials. The 1,200 square foot gallery and its ancillary displays comprise the largest public collection of the artist's work. Simply put, it is one of the most magnificent experiences of 20th century sculpture on a global level.
-
Social Commentary by Canadian Kent Monkman
Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience
By: - May 12th, 2019The special exhibition "Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience" by the First Nations artist Kent Monkman is a game changer. With ferocious wit the artist deconstructs horrific aspects of Canadian history through a series of narrative, social realist paintings. We viewed the work at the McCord Museum in Montreal where the traveling exhibition closed on May 5.
-
You Me and Art: Artists in the 21st Century
A Book of Interviews by Marta Gynp
By: - Apr 27th, 2019A book of interviews by Dutch art historian Marta Gynp "You Me and Art: Artists in the 21st Century" is lively, eclectic and informative. Of the twenty individuals she interacts with some are well known and others less so. In several instances what artists had to say about their work changed how I respond to it. In an engaging and familiar manner she was able to get behind the facade to probe intimate thoughts and insecurities. That approach reveals a humanistic view of how work evolves from studios to galleries and museums.
<< Previous Next >>