Institute of Contemporary Art

Judith Bookbinder's 2005 publication Boston Modern: Figurative Expressionism as Alternative Modernism is the definitive study of this important but neglected movement. Her study is meticulously researched and documented. This is the catalogue for the exhibition that the Museum of Fine Arts has failed to deliver. Significantly most of the Boston Expressionists were Jews struggling with Biblical constraints against the graven image.

Decades ago the sculptor Kahlin Gibran and his wife Jean purchased a shell in Boston's ethnically mixed South End. A meticulous craftsman the home evolved as a museum of his work and collection. Together they wrote a definitive 1974 biography "Kahlil Gibran, His Life and World." Now Jean has published "Love Made Visible: Scenes from a Mostly Happy Marriage" about a complex relationship with her late husband.

When Dr. Paul Buttenwieser, the newly-appointed President of the BSO's Board, stepped down from the board of the Institute of Contemporary Art, he performed on the piano at a sold-out fundraiser. He had studied piano as a young man in New York. He is a descendant of the Lehman banking family, which of course adds materially to his board credentials. But that he is a competent enough pianist to perform with Yo-Yo Ma in a sold out fundraiser is also an important credential.

Several months ago we spoke in depth with Joe Thompson about a bill pending on Beacon Hill to grant $25 million toward the final phase of developing the North Adams campus of Mass MoCA. This week, early August, 2014 the bill has been signed by outgoing Governor Deval Patrick a Berkshire neighbor of the museum. Thompson, as he discusses here, must raise an additional $30 million for the project which will take several years.

During a dialogue with the artist Izhar Patkin about his Mass MoCA exhibition David Ross hit a dead end when he asked whether there is a Jewish art? At this point in post modernism, with more than a century since Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Chaim Soutine or Amedeo Modigliani, it is not a question that one would ask a Jewish American artist. But is it relevant for an Israeli Sabra?

Yet again controversy surrounds who's in and who's out with the release of the list of artists selected for the 2014 Whitney Biennial. To stir the pot this time three outside curators will be given one floor each of the museum. With no compromises that will ensure the individual taste of the designated curators. The museum's curators will advise on the installations.

For his first ICA exhibition in 2005 former curator Nicholas Baume presented the German artist Kai Althoff in the exhibition Kai KeinRespekt (Kai No Respect). entering into this Gesamtkunstwerk (Total Work of Art) there was a sensation of being engulfed, overwhelmed and disoriented by a chaotic installation of drawings, paintings, photographs, clips from vintage magazines, listening stations to hear the artist’s recordings, monitors of videos, and piles of as well as a room of stuff. This review was first posted to Maverick Arts Magazine.

Before packing off to New York Cynthia Von Buhler led the avant-garde in Boston. Allston actually where opening out of her Castle she organized exhibitions and events while not pursuing a successful career as an artist/ illustrator. This 2001 article for Maverick Arts reports on Von Buhler fronting a rock band and opening for performance artist Karen Finley.

In 2003 the Museum of Fine Arts unveiled a major acquisition of European and American figurative/ realism paintings ans sculptures A Singular Vision: The Melvin Blake and Frank Purnell Legacy. This report is reposted from Maverick Arts Magazine.

Made in Mexico presented the work of 20 Mexican and international artists whose work references Mexico through iconographic, architectural, and conceptual means as a way of addressing the increasingly complex relationship between globalism and national identity. This 2004 review was posted to Maverick Arts Magazine.

As a young artist in New York James Rosenquist supported himself by painting billboards. That informed his approach as a Pop artist. For a time in the 1960s I worked for him as a studio assistant. This review of the Guggenheim retrospective is reposted from a 2004 article in Maverick Arts Magazine.

During a 2002 tour of the Rhine we visited Wiesbaden to view the special exhibition of work by the American artist Eva Hesse. This review is reposted from Maverick Arts Magazine.

Painting in Boston: 1950-2000 was presented at DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park . This review is reposted from Maverick Arts Magazine.

In 2001 the Museum of Fine Arts paid tribute to women in "A Studio of Her Own: Women Artists in Boston, 1870-1940." This review is reposted from Maverick Arts Magazine.

Meg White runs the day to day operation of the formidable Gallery Naga on Newbury Street. Founded as a cooperative gallery in 975 that changed when Arthur Dion took over in 1982. He pursued a mandate to represent Boston artists. A close working relationship and ready access to their studios was essential to his approach to representation. In 2005 we met to discuss his take on the Boston art world.

A couple of years ago Jane Farver retired as director of the List Center for the Visual Arts at MIT. That means that she no longer makes that weekly commute from Queens. This piece was originally posted to Maverick Arts.

The figurative artist, Chawky Frenn, has followed 100 Boston Painters with 100 Boston Artists. The books are handsomely designed and printed with superb reproductions. Although he consulted with many experts in the field he made the final selections. This has resulted in an eccentric and uneven overview with a mix of major and minor artists. One of the strong points of the second volume is a fresh and insightful critical essay by Debbie Hagan the former editor of Art New England.

We first saw works by Jeffrey Gibson at Boston's Samson Projects. I included Gibson in a four man exhibition Native New Yorkers with Jason Lujan, Peter Jemison and Mario Martinez. Later he was in a group show at the Aldrich Museum and is currently featured at the ICA. A solo exhibition Jeffrey Gibson: Said the Pigeon to the Squirrel, is on view at the National Gallery in New York to Sept. 8, 2013.

This group show honors local artists Sarah Bapst, Katarina Burin, Mark Cooper and Luther Price On the messy, shambolic, expressive side we have the males. These comprise Cooper's organic and crudely handmade sculptural forms and Price's soiled, gritty, gestural abstract slide shows. The women are the cerebral members of this foursome, with Bapst's conceptual take on monochromatic, minimalist sculpture and Burin's dry and deceptively meta-textual installation concerning a forgotten architect.

After seven years at the Institute of Contemporary Art, two of them as interim director, Christine McCarthy took a fifty percent pay cut to join the Provincetown Art Association and Museum as its director. Since 2001 she raised $8 to expand and renovate the Century plus institution. On her watch space has doubled with triple the budget, membership, and collection. This is the first of several installments of an extensive dialogue.

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston presents Jeffrey Gibson, Love Song—the first solo museum exhibition of the New York-based artist. Gibson’s paintings and sculptures deftly bring together geometric abstract painting with Native American visual traditions.

Perfumes, fragrances and scents are everywhere in our lives - natural and artificial ones! The Museum of Arts and Design in New York challenges the American public for the first time to recognize creators and creations: Fragrances - as artists and 'Olfactory Art.' The Art of Scent exhibition presents convincingly developments of the last 125 years in the perfume industry, and fragrances that had the most impact over time.

This article originally appeared in Maverick Arts a site prior to Berkshire Fine Arts in 2006. Because of the continued interest in contemporary Chinese art by Mass MoCA is has been reposted. The museum is currently showing Xu Bing. This article has a link to a recent exhibition of work by Ping in New York.

There are ways to consume culture at affordable prices. There are half price tickets for Broadway shows and lawn access at Tanglewood. A movie costs about ten bucks or you can see it on Netflix. Kids pirate downloaded music and videos. But it takes deep pockets to travel the world visiting great monuments and museums. Only the mega rich can afford to own the contemporary art displayed in galleries and museums. For social and economic reasons the fine arts are more elitist and esoteric than other art forms. Then there are matters of taste- High Brow, Middle Brow and Kitsch.

Sarah Bapst, Katarina Burin, Mark Cooper, and Luther Price were named finalists for the 2013 James and Audrey Foster Prize, the ICA's biennial award and exhibition program for Boston-area artists, the museum announced today. Bapst, Burin, Cooper, and Price will participate in an exhibition organized by Helen Molesworth, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, on view at the ICA from May 1 through July 21, 2013.