Front Page
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Thomas Messer and the Early Years of the ICA
Aborted Plan to Merge with the MFA
By: - Jan 21st, 2026From 1957 to 1961, Thomas Messer was director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston and, for part of that time, taught modern art at Harvard. From 1961 to 1988 he was director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. For a time there was a plan to merge the ICA as the modern/ contemporary department of the MFA. The ICA was briefly housed on the second floor of the Museum School. He advised on a couple of adventurous MFA acquisitions. A contemporary department was eventually established in 1971.
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Marjorie Prime
New York's Helen Hayes Theatre
By: - Jan 23rd, 2026What struck me after seeing the incredibly acted production of Marjorie Prime at the Helen Hayes Theatre in New York City was that these two plays (Your Name Means Dream was the other) use AI to provide companionship to elderly people.
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The Little Foxes
Island City Stage
By: - Jan 22nd, 2026Island City Stage's strong production of "The Little Foxes," by Lillian Hellman is riveting. The production finds the humanity in the story while steering clear of excess melodrama.
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The Cleveland Orchestra Delivers Verdi's Requiem
Welser-Most Conducts at Carnegie Hall
By: - Jan 21st, 2026Franz Welser-Möst arrived at Carnegie Hall on January 20 with the Cleveland Orchestra and Verdi’s Requiem. Asmik Grigorian, well known for her dramatic operatic singing, took the soprano solo role. She was joined by Deniz Uzun (mezzo-soprano), Joshua Guerrero (tenor), and Tareq Nazmi (bass), all of whom added vocal pleasures. Lisa Wong directed the chorus.
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Divine Color: Hindu Prints from Modern Bengal
Museum of FIne Arts
By: - Jan 22nd, 2026Organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), Divine Color: Hindu Prints from Modern Bengal explores the origins of these popular prints— which have historically been overlooked by the art world—and their powerful impacts on Indian pop culture, religion, and society.
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Cynthia Erivo at Tanglewood
To Perform with Pops
By: - Jan 21st, 2026Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award-winning and three-time Academy Award-nominated actress, singer, author, and producer Cynthia Erivo joins the Boston Pops in the 2026 Tanglewood Popular Artist Series schedule.
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Photorealism in Focus
Rose Art Museum
By: - Jan 21st, 2026Emerging in the late 1960s during an era of rapid technological change and inspired by the visual language of commercial imagery, Photorealism took shape as artists such as Richard Estes, Charles S. Bell, Ralph Goings, and others created painstakingly detailed paintings based on photographs that pushed the limits of illusion. These artists challenged traditional hierarchies between photography and painting while capturing the nuanced textures of contemporary experience.
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Art in Bloom at the MFA
A Fifty Year Tradition
By: - Jan 21st, 2026Framing Nature coincides with the 50th anniversary of Art in Bloom (May 1 through May 3, 2026). This beloved tradition pairs art with floral interpretations created by New England area garden clubs, professional floral designers, and volunteers.
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Tiergarten, a Cabaret at Prototype
Andrew Ousley Gives Decadent and Provocative Evening
By: - Jan 19th, 2026The Prototype Festival, founded by Beth Morrison and the producers of HERE twenty years ago, has been at the forefront of new opera since its inception. This season, a cabaret evening created by another new-performance impresario, Andrew Ousley, took a special place in Prototype.
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10 x 10 At Barrington Stage
Winter Theatre Quickies
By: - Jan 16th, 2026With a cast of Barrington Stage Company favorites, BSC presents 10 fast-paced plays full of drama, comedy, wit, and irreverence, in its annual 10x10 New Play Festival, the cornerstone of Pittsfield’s Upstreet Winter Arts Festival. Now in its fifteenth year, 10x10 will run for five weeks, from February 12 through March 15, on the St. Germain Stage at the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center in Downtown Pittsfield.
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10 by Satch
New Black Eagle Jazz Band
By: - Jan 16th, 2026The New Black Eagle Jazz Band brings faithful recreations of Armstrong’s music to the Berkshires, performing ten of his most notable numbers in this cabaret concert (dancing optional; to some, it will be inevitable), on Friday evening, Feb. 20, 2026, 7:30pm. Part of Pittsfield’s 10x10 Upstreet Arts Festival.
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Dishwasher Dialogues, Theatre of Mischief
Looking For Samuel Beckett
By: - Jan 16th, 2026The Boulevard Saint Jacques wasn’t that long, it ended at Rue de la Santé. I forget where exactly, and after three or four attempts, we walked into a lobby, and read the names on the mailboxes. And there it was. Samuel Beckett.
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Yinka Shonibare's Sanctuary
Rose Art Museum
By: - Jan 16th, 2026The installation consists of 18 scaled-down replicas of historical and contemporary buildings that have served—and, in many cases, continue to serve—as places of refuge for persecuted and vulnerable groups or individuals. These structures range from ancient temples and medieval cathedrals to modern safe houses and shelters.
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Say It Loud: AAMARP, 1977
ICA Boston
By: - Jan 15th, 2026Founded in 1977 by influential artist, educator, and activist Dana C. Chandler, Jr., the African American Master Artists-in-Residence Program (AAMARP) at Northeastern University is one of the few longstanding residency programs for Black artists in the United States. For nearly five decades, AAMARP has stood at the intersection of art, activism, and community.
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The True Purpose of Practice
Cultivating the Inner Silence
By: - Jan 13th, 2026We practice not to achieve, but to allow. We practice to become the perfectly still, clear vessel, prepared to receive and reflect the endless wonder of the effortless flow.
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Met Opera Chamber Ensemble at Weill Hall
Carnegie Hosts Erin Morley and Lawrence Brownlee
By: - Jan 13th, 2026A chamber ensemble, comprised of members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, performed a Brahms Trio and accompanied premiere singers in Schubert Lieder and a Donizetti duet. The intimate Weill Concert Hall, seating around 250 people, gave the audience a taste of the individual talents that come together in the grand opera house and rarely get a chance to display their solo skills. James Levine cooked up this idea, and it makes for an exciting and inviting evening.
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The Mount and Straw Dog Writers Guild
Nine Writers Residences
By: - Jan 13th, 2026The Mount and Western Massachusetts’ Straw Dog Writers Guild announce the nine writers selected for the 2026 Residency for Emerging Writers.
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Tina Packer's Epic Women of Will
Five Three Hour Performances
By: - Jan 10th, 2026During a remarkable career one of the greatest accomplishments of Tina Packer was her epic series the five part Women of Will. She started writing the extracted texts while a fellow at The Bunting Institute. After she retired as artistic director of Shakespeare & Company she was able to focus on the project. She performed with male partners from the Company at various stages of development. I saw the series performed with Nigel Gore.
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Tina Packer Co Founder of Shakespeare & Company
September 29, 1938- January 9, 2026
By: - Jan 10th, 2026Tina co-founded Shakespeare & Company in 1978 along with a cadre of theater artists, served as its Artistic Director until 2009, and continued to direct, teach, and advocate for the Company until her passing. Her indelible creativity will be carried forward by countless artists, students, colleagues, admirers, and friends, and her influence on the world of Shakespeare will be enduring.
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The Dishwasher Dialogue, In the Red Darkness I Fainted
The Almost Bearable Lightness of Being
By: - Jan 09th, 2026I exposed the photo-canvas to my image and then instead of developing it in the bath I laid out the canvas on the floor, dipped a fat brush in the developer and painted abstractly on the canvas, thick strokes, thin ones, drips here and there and so on. And as I expected here’s what happened. Only in the areas where I had applied the developer with my brush did the image or part of the image appear. On other canvases I applied the developer on the exposed canvas with my hands and in some cases with my body.
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The Universal Religion
Dismantling the Altar of I-ism
By: - Dec 30th, 2025I-ism is the religion of the self, the worship of the ego. It is a faith where the “I” is the central deity, the mind is the high priest, and our desires and fears are the liturgy we recite daily. Unlike other religions that require a conversion, we are initiated into I-ism the moment we first say the word “mine.”
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One Battle After Another, Best Picture
Paul Thomas Anderson's Take on Pynchon's Vineland
By: - Jan 05th, 2026One Battle After Another comes out of the starting gate in first place, a position it deserves to keep. It has just won the Critics’ Choice Best Picture Award, along with Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
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Renowned Architect Frank Gehry at 96
Comment on His Passing
By: - Jan 04th, 2026On December 5, 2025, world-acclaimed architect Frank Gehry died at the age of 96. Not since his even more celebrated predecessor, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, passed away in 1959 has so much praise, adulation, and press attention been given to a star American architect.
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Dishwasher Dialogues Limits of Rational Behaviour
Encounters with Authority
By: - Dec 19th, 2025Life in our Paris may have been uncomfortable with few indoor toilets and fewer phones, but life was more relaxed than today, communication was slower, and the police seemed more tolerant. Maybe that was because the May riots of 1968 were still fresh in the collective memory of Paris.
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Timothee Chalamet as Marty Supreme
Josh Safdie's Film Enthralls and Sucks
By: - Dec 19th, 2025Marty Supreme starring Timothee Chalamet goes into wide release on Christmas Day. It is the Safdie Brothers “Uncut Gems" redux. Shot by the fabulous Darius Khondji in zoom close up, with the camera moving with the figures and placing us right beside characters we may not want to know so well, we are gripped for two and a half hours.
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