Fine Arts
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CAVS/MIT @ 50
The MIT Museum Exhibitions
By: - Mar 09th, 2018Gyorgy Kepes opened in 1967 the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT and it was officially inaugurated in 1968. An ardent proponent of collaborations between the arts, sciences and technology MIT was the right place to start such a Center. Since then, a number of museums, organizations and academic centers with similar mandates are flourishing in North America and Europe. Here's just an overview of work that was created at CAVS during 40 years of its existence. The program Art, Culture and Technology (ACT) has taken on the mantle at MIT of interdisciplinary work in the 21st Century.
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In the Studio with Rick Harlow
Eclipse Mill Gallery Exhibition Opens May 1
By: - Mar 29th, 2018The landscape, particularly as inspired by visionary experiences with the indigenous people of Colombia, have long been key to the large paintings of Rick Harlow. In the past couple of years, taking off from the radical technique of Jackson Pollock, nature has been a more subliminal signifier in dripped and spattered abstract paintings. During a studio visit we discussed the dozen paintings to be included in "Landscape of Energy" at the Eclipse Mill Gallery. It will be his first Berkshire solo show.
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Renowned Boston Arts Critic David Bonetti
Found Listening to Classical Music
By: - Apr 05th, 2018A Berkshire Fine Arts contributor, the renowned arts critic, David Bonetti, was found dead in his Brookline, Mass. apartment while listening to classical music. His writing career started with Art New England and the Boston Phoenix. He joined the San Francisco Chronicle and then St. Louis Post Dispatch. After that he retired writing the occasional feature on the fine arts. In his final years he wrote on opera for this site. He was widely regarded as one of the best critics of his generation.
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Public Art at Boston Fenway's Pierce Boston Tower
A Lost Opportunity for Developers, Arquitectonica, and artist Alexandre da Cunha.
By: - Apr 04th, 2018Though somewhat rare in Boston, every attempt at public art is not necessarily a triumph. Unfortunately, the recent commission by Alexandre da Cunha in the Fenway Neighborhood is not great, inspiring or even provocative. Just something to fill a space or a true lost opportunity, the civic and artistic bar needs to be set higher.
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Berkshire Museum Decision Handed Down
Green Light to Sell Treasures and Gut the Building
By: - Apr 05th, 2018Pittsfield used to have a small, charming, eclectic regional museum. As of today that's no longer true.
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London’s Fourth Plinth in Central London
The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist Transformative Public Art.
By: - Apr 28th, 2018For the Fourth Plinth in London's Trafalgar Square, Artist Michael Rakowitz has recreated the Lamassu. This winged bull and protective deity guarded the entrance to Nergal Gate of Nineveh (near modern day Mosul) from 700 BC until it was barbarically destroyed by ISIS in 2015. This wonderful reconstruction is made from recycled packaging from 10,500 empty Iraqi date syrup cans. This represents a once-renowned Iraqi industry now decimated by war. The piece's inscription is written in Cuneiform. Rebuilding the Lamassu in Trafalgar Square means it can continue to guard the people who live, visit and work in London. It is a layered artwork full of myth and tragic reality.
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Rick Harlow's The Landscape of Energy
Statent by a Berkshire Artist
By: - May 05th, 2018Through the end of May The Eclipse Mill Gallery launches its 2018 season with the first Berkshire solo show of abstract paintings by resident artist, Rick Harlow. In an artist's statement Harlow provides a context for what he describes as The Landscape of Energy. On May 26 in the gallery at 243 Union Street, North Adams, the group Aluna will create improvised music inspired by the paintings.
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Augmented Reality at Boston Cyberarts Gallery
Examples of Immersive Aesthetic and Sensual Experimentation
By: - May 10th, 2018Known for its cutting-edge and often transformative shows about art and technology, Boston Cyberarts has recently presented two inspired gallery exhibitions as well as unconventional outdoor exhibits presenting examples of augmented reality art.
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Margaret Swan at Boston Sculptors Gallery
A Decades Long Appreciation
By: - May 13th, 2018Margaret Swan is an artist I have followed with much appreciation over decades. Her recent exhibition "Aloft" at Boston Sculptors Gallery was insired by the rigging, spars and sails, of tall ships. With this latest work there is a readily identified thread that reveals the aesthetic DNA of an artist who has been sharply focused through the years. Yet again the reliief pieces of varying scale are pristine in thought and execution.
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CAVS Fellows Gather to Celebrate
50 Years of Art Science and Technology at MIT
By: - May 18th, 2018The former faculty and fellows of MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies gathered from all over the world for a 50th anniversary exhibition and celebration. There was a lively reception in the ground floor gallery of the MIT Museum which faces MASS Ave in Cambridge. The exhibition continues in galleries above. The museum moved to this more accessible building several years ago. The project also entailed galleries in the Rotunda area of the main building on the MIT campus.
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Berkshire Museum Plays Bait and Switch
Juried Show Art of the Hills Opens on June 2
By: - May 22nd, 2018On Sunday, June 2, the Berkshire Museum is hosting a festive opening for its summer-long juried exhibition Art of the Hills. Of 230 who applied works by 36 regional artists will be on view. I will not cross picket lines to attend the "celebration." There are no plans for Berkshire Fine Arts to view or review the exhibition.
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MIT/CAVS @ MIT Museum
Celebrating 50 Years of CAVS
By: - May 25th, 2018The MIT Museum's current exhibitions include: 'Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies,' until January 31st, 2019 and 'Gyorgy Kepes Photographs II, MIT Years 1946-1985,' until July 15, 2018. This article also highlights the Museum's party in late April, where more than 150 people celebrated with the CAVS community. As always, photographs of artwork and people make words visible and more memorable.
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Schön and Schön: From Generation to Generation
Mother and Daughter Collaborate on Ceramic Sculpture
By: - May 30th, 2018For the first time mother and daughter collaborated to create a large, abstract, ceramic vessel emblazoned with evocative faces. With other works by both artists it resulted in a special exhibition Schön and Schön: From Generation to Generation. It remains on view, through June 28, at the North Hill community complex in Needham, Mass. Nancy Schön, now 89, is renowned for her "Make Way for the Ducklings" bronze sculptures in the Boston Public Gardens. Ellen Schön is the Ceramics Studio Supervisor and an adjunct faculty member at Lesley University College of Art and Design.
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Hudson River Museum
Show by former CAVS Fellow Ellen Kozak
By: - Jun 01st, 2018Former MIT/CAVS Fellow, Ellen Kozak, and composer Scott D. Miller are presenting a 4-Channel Video Installation at the Hudson River Museum until September 9. The summer exhibition also includes monumental abstract drawings by Christine Hiebert as well as museum owned etchings that are titled: Donald Judd: Variations on a Theme.
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Joe Thompson Takes a Plunge
MASS MoCA Director and Taryn Simon’s A Cold Hole
By: - Jun 01st, 2018Fully clothed in an elegant summer suit, MASS MoCA director, Joe Thompson, during the opening of “A Cold Hole" by the artist Taryn Simon, jumped into her icy installation. That was truly shocking but what happened next is even more of a hoot.
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Real Eyes on Adams
Former Furniture Store Now a Gallery
By: - Jun 03rd, 2018Until a few years ago the vast Simmons Furniture Store anchored the Park Street business area of downtown Adams. The town has improved curbside cosmetics. Now that business has been revitalized as Real Eyes Gallery with two large spaces. One featuers an arts and crafts store while the other displays works by former Met Opera scene painter, Bill Riley. He and his wife Francine Anne Riley are now gallerists as well as continuing as arts activists and community catalysts.
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Director Laurie Norton Moffatt of Rockwell Museum
What His Legacy Means to the Berkshires
By: - Jun 12th, 2018The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge has just launched “Keepers of the Flame: Parrish, Wyeth, Rockwell and the Narrative Tradition.” During a recent press preview we enjoyed an unencumbered view of the scholarly and superbly installed exhibition. Founding director, Laurie Norton Moffatt, discussed what the Rockwell legacy means in light of the controversy of the sale of two of his works by the Berkshire Museum. One of those works "Shuffleton's Barber Shop" was acquired by George Lucas who is loaning it to the Norman Rockwell Museum for the next 18 months.
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ICA Launches Watershed in East Boston
Expansion Shuttles Across the Harbor
By: - Jun 25th, 2018When the ICA opened its new home on the edge of Boston Harbor its fatal flaw was immediately obvious. While praised for dramatic design with development of surrounding towers it was soon hemmed in with no space for expansion. In a bold move it has now reached across the harbor to fast changing East Boston. A former factory has been reconfigured as Watershed. It combines generous exhibiton space with opportunities for meetings, education, and community programming. A long time community activist Frank Conte covers the launch which opens with free admission on July 4.
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Now + There — Reinterpreting Public Art
Making the city of Boston An Art City
By: - Jun 27th, 2018Now+There is the lineal descendant of the Urban Arts Institute. Its mission has expanded to reinforce social justice and environmental concerns with community-involved public art projects. Led by the creative and energetic Kate Gilbert, it works on a variety projects throughout the City of Boston.
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Van, Van the Used Up Man
Berkshire Museum Director Shields Retires
By: - Jun 28th, 2018In a tersely worded press release, offering no explanation, the Berkshire Museum announces parting ways with its controversial director, Van Shields. He was hired in 2011 and presided over the decline and potential extincton of the museum. His strategy to sell key works from the permanent collection and launch his New Vision was met with protest and global media attention. Some will praise him for "saving" the museum and endowing its future. For others he leaves behind a pariah shunned by other museums. His departure and potenial board restructuring are essential as the museum mends fences and fine tunes drastic plans for renovations and gimmicky reinstallatons.
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Objects of Desire at Eclipse Mill Gallery
Larry Alice and Joan Kiley Paired In Evocative Exhibition
By: - Jul 03rd, 2018The special exhibition Objects of Desire pairs whimsical narrative paintings by Joan Kiley with relief sculpture and polychromed assemblages by Larry Alice. There is a confluence and empathy of fantasy and the surreal in work that will be on view in the Eclipse Mill, 243 Union Street, from Friday, June 29 through Sunday, July 29. A receptiom will be held on Friday, July 6.
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The Bennington Mural Project
Union Street Mural Unveiled
By: - Jul 03rd, 2018In downtown Bennington, a new mural lets local artists shine and brings the community together.
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Impact of ICA Expansion to East Boston
Continued Neglect of Community of Artists
By: - Jul 11th, 2018The ICA has a major problem not just with East Boston artists, but with most local Boston-area artists, and it's due primarily to 3 factors -- mistaken policies, mistaken attitude, and mistaken curatorial direction. The author is an artist.
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MCLA Gallery 51 Exhibition by Charles Giuliano
Heads and Tales a 40 Year Retrospective
By: - Jul 17th, 2018A forty year retrospective by Charles Giuliano "Heads and Tales" opens Thursday, July 26 at MCLA Gallery 51 in North Adams, Massachusetts. It will be a part of the monthly Downstreet celebration, The artist will give a talk at the gallery on Wednesday, August 8 from 6 to 7 PM. The exhibition, curated by gallery director Arthur Debow, surveys 40 images of jazz and rock musicians from the Rolling Stones, to Marvin Gaye, Miles Davis, Yoko Ono and Frank Sinatra.
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Ivo van Hove's The Damned
Hatred as Source of All Evil at Park Avenue Armory
By: - Jul 21st, 2018The Damned by Ivo van Hove, based on the screenplay of Luchino Visconti, tears through the Park Avenue Armory. The stage is in four parts, if you don’t include a scene which goes out onto the Park Avenue where a shocked dog walker sees the mad Sophie von Essenbeck running wildly in search of her son.
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