Fine Arts
-
Rafael Mahdavi Dancing with Luck
Sonnets by Rory Brennan
By: - Jul 26th, 2016Now 70 the artist Rafael Mahdavi, who lives and works on a farm in the Burgundy region of France, created a suite of nine narrative paintings. They have been handsomely reproduced in a book with 25 sonnets inspired by them from the Irish poet Rory Brennan. There are also critical essays by David Galloway and Jonathan Shimony. It has been interesting to follow the work which has changed in the decades during which I have had extensive critcal dialogues with artist.
-
Rockwelling the Boat
Norman's Ersatz Conquest of Abstraction
By: - Aug 03rd, 2016In Norman Rockwell's 1961 Saturday Evening Post illustration "The Connoisseur" a dignified gentleman gazes on a simulacrum of a Jackson Pollock painting. It provided the impetus for a mishegos attempt to locate the representational populist illustrator as responding to the avant-garde art of that formative era.
-
Nick Cave’s Until at MASS MoCA
Bling, Bling, Sparkle, Sparkle
By: - Oct 16th, 2016Bling, bling, bling went our heartstrings during a first encounter with Nick Cave's "Until" which will be on view at MASS MoCA for a year. The installation which has a festive, crowd pleasing appeal is a not readily apparent statement about deaths of African-Americans in police custody in places like Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere.
-
2017 Whitney Biennial
Sixty Three Artists to be Shown from March 17 to June 1
By: - Nov 19th, 2016The Whitney Museum of American Art was founded in 1931 and opened its first of several venues in 1931. Initially American art was viewed as inferior to the School of Paris. That shifted after WWII with the ascent of the New York School. Early on the museum mounted Annuals which eventually evolved into Biennials. They have long been regarded as reflecting the latest developments in the field. With 63 participating artists the 2017 Whitney Biennial (March 17 to June 1) continues that tradition.
-
Takashi Murakami's Pop Kitsch in Chicago
Enormous Exhibition at Museum of Contemporary Art
By: - Jun 08th, 2017Takashi Murakami is best known for his work related to Japanese anime and manga, as well as his sweeps into commercial and pop art and collaborations with artists such as Kanye West and Pharrell Williams. During last week’s press preview, he was articulate in discussing his work and his inspirations with curator Michael Darling (although the artist occasionally needed help from his translator).
-
Grant Wood's American Gothic
Iowa's Most Famous Artist
By: - Dec 10th, 2016American Gothic, arguably the best known and most iconic painting by an American artist, was created by Grant Wood when he was on the dole from the WPA. Artists had to pass in work to get their monthly checks. This painting was part of the inventiry when the relief program was shut down. It was given to the Art Institute of Chicage where it has deliughted viewers ever since.
-
Ai Weiwei: Laundromat
Jeffrey Deitch Gallery
By: - Dec 13th, 2016Three New York galleries- Jeffrey Deitch, Mary Boone and Lisson Gallery- have collaborated to create a massive, museum-level overview of work by the dissident Chinese artist, Ai Weiewi. This is an interview with the artist in a release from Deitch gallery.
-
Exploring Porto
Winding Down an Adventure in Portugal
By: - Dec 03rd, 2017My pre Thanksgiving travel in Portugal ended with a weekend in Porto. With 2.4 million inhabitants it is the small nation's second largest city. On a glorious, summer-like afternoon a highlight of the adventure was a river cruise in the romantic City of Bridges.
-
Touring Chelsea Galleries
A Selection of Exhibitions
By: - Dec 19th, 2016Extracted from a recent tour io Chelsea galleries we present a selection of highlights. The artists include Benny Andrews, Alfred Leslie, Mark di Suvero and Carrie Mae Weems.
-
Spectacular Modernist Shchukin Collection
Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
By: - Dec 26th, 2016Between 1897 and 1914, Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin (Chtchoukkin) 1854 -1936, acquired 275 masterpieces, including 41 Matisses, 50 Picassos, 8 Cézannes, 13 Monets, 16 Gauguins, as well as works by his fellow Russian artists Malevich and Rodchenko. In 1918 the collection was seized by the government under Lenin. Some 127 works are now on view at the Frank Gehry designed Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.
-
Francis Picabia at MoMA
The Finest Modernist You Have Never Heard Of
By: - Jan 08th, 2017The enigmatic modernist, Francis Picabia, suggested that artists change styles as frequently as their shirts. He is the subject of an eclectic and intriguing retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.
-
Kerry James Marshall: Mastry
At Met Breuer
By: - Jan 08th, 2017Through January 29 there is still time to see the stunning and riveting retrospective at New York's Met Breuer. He is among the elite of African American artists of his generation. His work is fresh in its timely subject mater as well as traditional with roots in American genre and social realism.
-
Lester Johnson Works on Paper
Provincetown Art Association and Museum
By: - Apr 10th, 2017The sixteen works on paper that comprise the small but evocative exhibition Lester Johnson from the Permanent Collection provide rarely seen early works, starting in 1951. They provide examples of how the artist was looking at and deconstructing or abstracting seascapes, facades of houses, and breaking down the human figure. It is on view at the Provinctown Art Association and Museum through May 7.
-
Ross Moffett from the Permanent Collection
Provincetown Art Association and Museum
By: - Apr 11th, 2017Ross Moffett (1888-1971) first came to Provincetown in 1913 to study with Charles Hawthorne. A year later a group of artists formed the Provincetown Art Association (later and Museum). In 1964 he published Art in Narrow Streets the first study of the art colony. Currently, the museum is exhibiting Ross Moffett from the Permanent Collection. It provides a rare opportunity to evaluate the work of a seminal Provincetown artist.
-
Free Sunday at Clark Art Institute
Last of the Off Season
By: - Apr 20th, 2017Celebrate spring in the Berkshires with the Clark Art Institute’s final First Sundays Free program of the season on Sunday, May 7 from 1–4 pm.
-
Agita of the Artist Martin Mugar
Innocence and Experience
By: - Apr 26th, 2017For Blake, Christ was both a child and a lamb putting the innocence of the child and the lamb of the poem a priori in the realm of the godly. One cannot be a lamblike or a childlike without that innocence of God, which raises the question: what then is experience without innocence? Experience can only be a loss of innocence. Why do I in my painting linger in this realm of peachy keen colors if not to insist on the importance of this innocence that precedes experience.
-
Trident Gallery in Gloucester
Bringing Relevant Art Back to Cape Ann
By: - Apr 30th, 2017During the 19th Century and era of modernism Cape Ann was home to leading American artists. That faded in the post war era leaving a mostly tacky, conservative, artist colony. Several years ago Matthew Swift launched Trident Gallery as a matrix for Gloucester's best and brightest contemporary artists. While visiting we attended the closing party and special performances of the provocative exhibition The Political Body.
-
Turner at the Frick
Britain's 19th Century Painter of Light
By: - May 02nd, 2017A beautifully presented exhibition built around works from The Frick Collection, Turner’s Modern and Ancient Ports: Passages through Time, brings together 37 water colors, drawings, engravings, sketchbooks and oil paintings, from 1817 – 1845, a turning point in the artist’s career.
-
Massive Rauschenberg Exhibition Headed to NY
Mulling Over Perls of Wisdom
By: - May 12th, 2017When visiting the Frank Stella retropective at the Whitney in 2015 the critic had his car towed. The event was so costly and inconvenient that Martin Mugar is thinking twice of driving to Manhattan to view the upcoming Rauschenberg exhibition. Many of his concerns and misgivings are informed by the critical comments of the critic Jed Perl. Here Mugar refects on Perls of wsdom. They enforce his own ideas of how Rauschenberg is emeblematic of the decline and fall of art in our time. As Mugar states "If you like your postmodern condition you can keep your postmodern condition and Rauschenberg's your guy."
-
Matisse in the Studio at the MFA
Collectibles Demonstrate Master Artist's Theatricality
By: - May 13th, 2017Matisse’s collectibles had a profound influence on his creative choices. Allowing us a priceless opportunity to see how the artist’s mind worked and the ways his creative process unfolded, this magnetic exhibition at the MFA Boston allows us to examine them in relationship to his art. As its only North American venue, Matisse in the Studio will only visit Boston.
-
Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World
Controversial Traveling Retrospective
By: - Jan 27th, 2018In 1993 I was intrigued by ersatz weapons fabricated from funky materials by Jimmie Durham in the Whitney Biennial. To explore creative freedom the artist left America in 1987 never to return. While acquiring a global reputation it is only now that the work is again being seen and debated in the States. A long overdue retrospective "Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World" organized by the Hammer Museum traveled to the Walker Arts Center and is finishing its run at the Whitney Museum. It states a case for Durham as one of the formost American artists of his generation.
-
Expanded MASS MoCA Galleries
Preview of May 28 Opening
By: - May 16th, 2017During a media tour of the final phase of build out for the 17 acre MASS MoCA campus artists, curators and installlers were working around the clock. While some of the works were not ready for prime time we caught an exciting glimpse of what visitors will encounter this summer in North Adams. The development of Building Six adds 130,000 square-feet of usable space. For renovations, programming and endowment the museum has raised $65 million.
-
Nick Cave at MASS MoCA
Sound Suits on Parade
By: - May 29th, 2017As part of the dawn to dusk celebration of the launch of Building Six of MASS MoCA there was a titubating parade of the Sound Suits of the artist Nick Cave. The event was choreographed by Williams College professor Sandra Burton. Cave was present for the occasion.
-
MASS MoCA Celebrates
32 Years from Thought to Finish
By: - May 29th, 2017It was a challenge to find a legal parking space anywhere near the museum in North Adams. On Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, from dawn to dusk, there were long lines and a constant stream of visitors. There may have been some 6,000 during the day and another 10,000 attended the rock concert by Cake on MASS MoCA's Joe Thompson Field.
-
Clark Features Summer Double Header
Tandem Exhibitions of Picasso and Alma-Tadema
By: - Jun 03rd, 2017This summer the Clark Art Institute features four special exhibitions Picasso Encounters, an exhibition of prints with a few key paintings, as well as Orchestrating Elegance; Alma Tadema and the Marquand Music Room and two focused on prints and paintings by Helen Frankenthaler. The museum launched its expansion with a spate of blockbusters but is now moving into a new era with less hoopla under its reserved and scholarly French-born director Olivier Meslay.
<< Previous Next >>