All phases of the oeuvre have been interesting going back decades to our first encounters. Trained in Europe there has been an intriguing cultural confluence of L'art pompier, formalism, conceptualism, Americana, and pop. Imagine a painting conflating Bougereau, Malevich, Duchamp, Warhol and Rosenquist. Miroslav Antic sent images of work created during the pandemic.

The Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art (mowna) announces a special sneak-peek of the film "pandemic statements," directed by cari ann shim sham* with a pre-show musical performance featuring accordionist Sarah Bellows, and a post show Q&A with the "pandemic statements collaborative” in the mowna party room. The event will take place virtually on June 25th at 8 pm Eastern Time. Tickets for this event are sliding scale, pay what you wish, and include access to the 2021 mowna Biennial exhibition.

Beginning in the eighteenth century, the Shakers welcomed many African Americans into their communities. The Shakers believed that all were equal in the eyes of God, and allowed anyone to join their communities, provided that they turned over their property and all material wealth once they committed to communal life.

The Yale Center for British Art opens a student-curated online exhibition that showcases four decades of experimental British filmmaking. The result is the Center’s first exhibition presented exclusively online. Art in Focus: The Provocation of Conditions features four short films. All four films can be viewed exclusively on the Center’s website from June 21 through August 23, 2021.

With their fully-staged production of Christopher Chen’s work, kudos to Mountain View’s Pear Theatre for leading the way in the return to indoor theater after 15 months of pandemic-imposed darkness.  The adventuresome small company not only offers socially-distanced indoor performances to a play with a full cast, but also outdoor performances and online streaming, to accommodate all manner of theater lover.  Hallelujah!  

The Mount, Edith Wharton’s Home announces its line-up for the 2021-2021 Summer Lecture Series. Now in its 28th year, the Summer Lecture series bring leading biographer and historians to the Berkshires. This year’s series will New York Times bestselling author Janice P. Nimura, Pulitzer-prize winner author Debby Applegate, and Biographer Sydney Ladensohn Stern.

Layon Gray's historical drama "Cowboy" tells the tale of the first black U.S. Deputy Marshal. The play is Off-Broadway-bound. The world premiere production at the National Black Theatre Festival in 2019 sold out its run in a few hours. The current Miami production is nearing its closing weekend, and has been selling out .

In 1818 the Hancock Shakers established the South Family to handle the overflow of new members. Also known as the "Young Believers’ Order," South Family members lived before committing fully to the Church and community.  They closed the South Family in 1849. In celebration of the opening of the South Family Trail on Saturday July 17, there will be member reception and interpretive walk starting at 10AM.

One of the treasures of the Berkshires is Close Encounters with Music, the brainchild of premiere cellist Yehuda Hanani. Close Encounters performs in nooks and crannies around the Berkshires and also in more prominent venues like the modern Osawa Hall designed by William Rawn of Boston, who went on to create much the same successful combination of indoor and outdoor space in Sonoma County, California. Concerts are performed in the charming turn-of the-century Mahaiwe in Great Barrington. Conceived by Joseph Mcarthur Vance, this hall was brilliantly updated by Hugh Hardy.

Ekua Holmes (born 1955) is an artist, community activist and lifelong resident of Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood whose body of work explores themes of childhood, family bonds, memory and resilience. This summer, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), presents Paper Stories, Layered Dreams: The Art of Ekua Holmes, focused on her award-winning children’s book illustrations, which reveal stories of self-determination, love and community.

 Images Cinema will host a “sneak preview” of the first episode of Hudson Falls, a new comedy/drama/mystery series, on Wednesday, July 21st at 7:30 PM. This special event will be a fundraiser for the nonprofit theater and will include an onstage conversation with the cast and the creator/producer of the show, independent TV/movie producer Elias Plagianos of Clarkstown, New York.  

“Kaleidoscapes and Sights Unseen”, an exhibition by photographer J. Alexander Baker, at the Eclipse Mill Gallery, is a series of semi-abstract waterside scenes of rivers that reveal unexpected patterns hidden within the natural world. Baker’s digital manipulation of limited color palettes, reflection, repetition and focus transform the Hudson, and other rivers, into kaleidoscopic dreamscapes that exist in the space between observed reality and imagination - "Riparian Kaleidoscapes".  

Red Bull theater company's 11th Annual Short New Play Festival will take place virtually on Monday, July 12. A recording of the livestream will be available until 7 p.m. ET on Friday, July 16. This year's theme is "Restoration." Red Bull is a professional company in New York City. It “brings rarely seen classic plays to dynamic new life for contemporary audiences.”

Playwright Michael Gotch uses the current trend toward tiny houses – those houses that are under 500 square feet (and often smaller) that forces closeness and massive downsizing of possessions.

The al fresco evening will begin with a stroll and tasting in the orchard, then move onto a multi-course savory farm dinner, featuring craft cider pairings as well as remarks by the cider makers and our farmer about the cider and the apples.

Blue Heron Gallery Online, a virtual art gallery, will be presenting the art of northern Berkshires artist Ann Scott beginning at noon on Monday, July 12, 2021, and running through August 12, 2021.  The exhibition, appearing on www.blueherongallery.online, will feature 12 of her most recent paintings depicting a path of some kind found in the forests of the northern Berkshires as well as a brief bio and her Artist Statement.

This Saturday the one and only Jeff Tweedy takes the stage in MASS MoCA's Joe's Field, joined by special guest and Wilco bandmate, Nels Cline. If you're mourning another year sans-Solid Sound, here's your chance to get that Wilco-meets-MASS MoCA fix.

Jacob’s Pillow presents the world premiere of a new work by legendary club dancer Archie Burnett entitled Life Encounters on the Henry J. Leir Stage from July 28 - August 1. Life Encounters explores New York City Club Dance styles through treasured memories from Burnett’s own life with a cast of illustrious dancers including Abdiel Jacobsen, Princess Lockerkoo, Ephrat Asherie, Samara Cohen, Maya Llanos, and Deandre Browne.

Kirill Petrenko and Jonas Kaufmann are still standing after four performances of the grueling Tristan and Isolde in Munich.  In 1869, the New York Times reported that Wagner’s music was driving people to insanity and suicide. “We learn from Munich that Herr Eberle, the piano-forte conductor, has gone mad over Tristan and Isolde and it is known that rehearsals of this unique opera had previously killed a celebrated German tenor, Ludwig Schnorr.” Familiarity has made this opera an all the more thrilling experience.

Casting announced for the World Premiere productions of Boca by Jessica Provenz (July 30-August 29 at the BSC Production Center, 34 Laurel Street) and Sister Sorry by Alec Wilkinson (August 13-29 at the Boyd-Quinson Stage, 30 Union Street)

Berkshire artist Galen Cheney will present Slow Burn at New York's David Richard Gallery opening on July 21. She has exhibited recently at Real Eyes Gallery in Adams and on line at Blue Heron Gallery. She lives and works in North Adams.

The production is currently being rehearsed at The Egg PAC, where the Manhattan based professional company has been resident every summer since 2000. “We could not be more excited to be in the theater everyday” says Artistic Director Chiara Ajkun “This long pause has forced us to reflect on the importance of the Arts and the way they shape us as People. I, for one, strongly believe the magic of ballet does not rest in the opulence of sceneries and large ensembles, rather on pure emotion, beauty and magic it creates”. 

James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim will talk during a digital event about Lapine's new book, Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created Sunday in the Park With George. This "intimate digital conversation event" will take place on the day of the book's release -- Aug. 3. Tickets are available at www.TheTownHall.org for the 7 p.m. EST, Aug. 3 event. Go to www.TheTownHall.org. Award-winning actress Christine Baranski will moderate the digital conversation.

American journeyman playwright and author Jeremy Hatcher has fashioned a new version of Dr. Glas that takes into considerations the heart of the story set in 1905 Sweden, while creating a riveting psychological thriller, and a perfect vehicle for the talent of polished British actor Daniel Gerroll, in a solo tour-de-force performance that is smartly directed by NCRT artistic director David Ellenstein.

Wolf and Badger is a tight and intense drama receiving its world premiere production at Main Street Players in Miami Lakes. The drama by Michael John McGoldrick shows what can happen drug use becomes habitual. The play takes place in 2006 in a working class neighborhood of Syracuse, N.Y. Main Street Players' strong production runs through Aug. 29. People can watch the play virtually if they choose.