Mark Favermann
Bio:
Architecture, design, film and theatre critic/associate editor Mark Favermann, is an urban designer and public artist who over the past two decades has written extensively on art and design. A former Fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT, he was the first leader of the Boston Visual Artists Union (BVAU), the 1970's Boston activist artists organization, served as the former Director of Visual and Environmental Arts for the City of Boston and has been an adjunct professor at several universities. He was a columnist and/or editor for a large number of prominent publications. His own design work has included creating the award-winning marquee for the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, designing the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, creating the look for the 2000 NCAA Final Four in Indianapolis and the 1999 Ryder Cup as well as the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England. For the past eight seasons, he has been a design consultant to the Boston Red Sox. His 2005 public art commission, The Birds of Audubon Circle, was nominated by the Boston Art Commission as one of the best pieces of public art in America. In the Fall of 2007, his Recognition Gateway sculpture was installed in South Brookline.
Recent Articles:
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Brothers Quay to Receive '09 Coolidge Award Film
6th Annual Award to Edgy Animation Twins
By: - Mar 26th, 2009Adding to the list of the most distinguished filmmakers and performers in the world, the Coolidge Corner Theatre is awarding this year's prestigeous Coolidge Award to two esteemed animators. Recognized as among the world's most original contemporary animators, the Brothers Quay are American twin collaborators living and working in England. With a passion for meticulous detail, color and texture, the duo's films and shorts are unique and instantly recognizable. Their work also includes outstanding set design and collaboration with other artists and filmmakers.
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Boston City Hall: Brutalism at 40 Plus Architecture
Contempt For An Outmoded Aesthetic
By: - Mar 20th, 2009Boston's City Hall is the most hated building in the city, perhaps in New England. Not only do tax bills, parking tickets and political hot air come out of the structure, it is not visually friendly or tactilely comforting. Mayor Tom Menino wants to sell it or tear it down. At one time, it was an architectural jewel considered one of the greatest buildings in the world. Now it is an example of a rejected style. Literally it is a piece of architectural history.
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The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist Fine Arts
19 Years: The Art of Mystery and The Mystery of Art
By: - Mar 18th, 2009In a story suitable for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was robbed by thieves pretending to be Boston Police Officers on March 18, 1990. The robbers took 13 art objects that ranged from priceless to relatively little value. The case has gone unsolved for 19 years. There is a $5 million reward. Do you know who done it and where the art is? No one else seems to, either.
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Brookline's Gibbs House A Modernist Archetype Architecture
Samuel Glaser's Stunning 1936 Rare Residence
By: - Mar 16th, 2009Snuggled among Tudor Rival brick houses in the elegant Cottage Farms neighborhood in North Brookline, MA is the Bauhaus inspired stunning residence at 6 Chilton Street. This regionally unique and brilliant structure was designed by a less than prominent architect, Samuel Glazer. Alas, as special as the Gibbs House is, he never designed another building like it during his career.
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Two Men of Florence at Huntington Theatre Co. Theatre
Richard Goodwin's Science vs. Religion Smackdown
By: - Mar 13th, 2009Like some sort of metaphorical wrestling match, Richard Goodwin has dramatized the science versus religion controversy of Galileo and Pope Urban VIII as an ongoing dispute between the logic of science and the emotion of religion. However, Galileo is very emotional about his science, and this Pope feels very logical about his religion. The wrestling is a verbal torrent interestingly framed. Even though we side with one over the other intellectually, the problem is whether are not we are made to really care about who actually wins.
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Beckett's Elusive Endgame at American Repertory Theatre Theatre
Stunning Play Features a Brilliant Cast
By: - Feb 25th, 2009Samuel Beckett was one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th Century. His work is about ambiguity and the human condition. The current production of Endgame at the ART is both skillfully presented and intellectually embracing. The fabulous performances of the four ensemble cast members are among their best ever. This Post Modern play is simply magnificent.
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The Women: By T.C. Boyle Architecture
A Novel on Architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Loves
By: - Feb 21st, 2009T.C. Boyle fictionalizes the great architect's incredibly unacceptable personal life in a provocative, sometimes revelatory, and occasionally scandalous narrative. It's not only illuminating about the day to day life of the great architect but it is a fascinating and fully embracing read.
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Cat On A Hot Tin Roof At Lyric Stage Theatre
Sizzling Tennessee Williams Classic
By: - Feb 15th, 2009Tennesee Williams' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof inhabits a Mississippi Delta plantation world of hypocrisy, greed and mendacity. A disfunctional wealthy family celebrates the birthday of its patriarch in a destructive way. Maggie the Cat, Brick, and Big Daddy all portray a human firestorm caused by addiction to the bottle, desperation to conceive a child, and not so ambiguous feelings toward a late best friend.
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Egyptian Monuments and Memories Travel
Images from a Trip to Egypt
By: - Feb 10th, 2009Egypt is one of the most ancient civilizations in the world. Its major industry is tourism. The country's temples, monuments and architectural artifacts are magnificent and still mysterious. A Moslem country with an increasing fundamentalist minority, Egypt combines the ancient with the contemporary, the rawly primitive with the highly sophisticated. And there are fantastic pyramids.
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Shepherd Fairey at the ICA Fine Arts
Creator of Barack Obama's Campaign Portrait Icon
By: - Feb 06th, 2009The poster was everywhere evoking the calm, collected well-spoken presidential nominee. The ubiquitous image of the cool, elegant, post modern, 21st Century campaign image of Barack Obama was created by street artist/graphic designer/fine artist Shepherd Fairey. Boston's ICA correctly guessed that this 38 year old was worthy of a museum show. An artist of the people and for the people, Fairey wants his art to be affordable and prices it that way. His work has an appeal that resonates. Obama won, and Shepherd Fairey's portrait now hangs in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery.
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R. Crumb Exhibit At Mass Art and Design Fine Arts
Underground Comics Cult Cartoonist Shines
By: - Feb 02nd, 2009Eccentric, quirky and more than a bit perverted, Robert Crumb virtually founded underground comics in the 1960's. His following spanned the hippy generation and mainstream hip. His wonderfully rendered drawings chronicled sex, drugs and fantasy (mostly his own). He was and still is highly influential in graphic design and illustration. After 40 years, his engaging early work still holds up while his later work shows the mature but still perverse genius with pen and ink.
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Two Uninspired Boston Public Art Competitions Design
A Dull Gillette Edge & A Fishy Swan Boat Pavilion
By: - Jan 31st, 2009Public art is generally a good thing on many levels: good for the community, good for the visual environment and good for the artists involved. However, recently, two Boston public art competitions seem to show that good intentions and good ideas do not necessarily go together. Being creative in a time of fiscal downturn does not necessarily reap the best returns. In these particular cases, the two juries do jobs with questionable even negative results.
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Brandeis University To Close Rose & Sell Art Fine Arts
Financial Troubles Cause Desperate Measures
By: - Jan 27th, 2009In a terse press release, Brandeis University's president told the world that its 48 year old art museum, The Rose Art Museum, will close, and it will sell its art collection. This terrible decision seems to have been brought about by the financial downturn and loss of previous and potential benefactors. For Brandeis, things are certainly not Rosy.
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Bread & Puppet Theater's Sourdough Philosophy Theatre
Boston Center for The Arts Cyclorama Hosts
By: - Jan 27th, 2009With its creative and politicized winds blowing from the far left, The Bread & Puppet Theater is literally a force of nature. Now celebrating its third year at the Boston Center for the Arts, the Vermont-based multiarts group is led by Peter Schumann with roots in the 1960's. It is still a magical, layered and thought-provoking visual, musical and theatrical experience. And there are the giant puppets and freshly baked bread as well.
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The Seagull Startling At American Rep Theatre
A New Perspective on a Modern Classic
By: - Jan 17th, 2009Not your expected Chekhov's usual fare, this version of The Seagull is quite contemporary and dreamlike. The American Repertory Theatre's edginess works in unexpected ways with a modern classic. This Seagull brilliantly flies its own unpredictable course.
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Author John Mortimer Dead At 85 Word
Created Rumpole of the Bailey
By: - Jan 16th, 2009Perhaps the best raconteur of his generation, Sir John Mortimer wrote novels, screenplays and autobiographies while practicing law. Perhaps his greatest achievement was the combination of law and literature in the form of one of the great English fictional characters, Rumpole of the Bailey.
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Charming The Corn Is Green at Huntington Theatre
Kate Burton Shines in Spirited Portrayal
By: - Jan 15th, 2009The Corn is Green is a delightful play about hope and redemption. Set in a Welsh coal mining village, the narrative follows an eccentric spinster's journey of educating the children of the area in spite of community opposition and personality quirks. Her unsophisticated star pupil has the ability to gain a scholarship to Oxford, but fate and love raise their hands.
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Actor Paul Benedict Dead At 70 Theatre
Character Actor Dies on The Vineyard
By: - Jan 07th, 2009Paul Benedict was one of those actors that always brought a smile. He had a distinctive and unusual face and a strange British accent though he was born in New Mexico and raised in Massachusetts. He appeared often with distinction in theatre, film and television. Perhaps not a giant in the world of entertainment, he was certainly a super supporting star. Often he was cast as an eccentric, a looney or an oddball. He was an American original.
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Ada Louise Huxtable's Eloquent On Architecture Architecture
Her Collected Reflections On A Century of Change
By: - Dec 31st, 2008Arguably the greatest architecture critic of the last half century, Ada Louise Huxtable is as iconic as some of the buildings that she has superbly written about over the years. Her new book, On Architecture, is a joyful guide through the last five decades of design and construction of our urban environment. This is a must read for anyone interested in architecture, cities or contemporary culture.
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The Wrestler is A Mickey Rourke Pin Film
Rourke's Acting Career Resurrected
By: - Dec 27th, 2008Mickey Rourke has been a Hollywood badboy for over three decades. His anti-establishment attitude has hurt him professionally. His decisions and judgments have been self-destructive. However, now in his 50's, his acting career seems to be resurrected with this outstanding and powerful performance in The Wrestler.
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Harvard Art Museum Appoints José Ortiz Deputy Director and Chief of Finance Fine Arts
Currently Hirshhorn's Finance Chief/Administrator
By: - Dec 20th, 2008José Ortiz brings a distinguished resume and administrative experience to the Harvard Art Museum at a time of major renovation, construction and fiscal crisis. He appears to be the right person for this strategic job in a time of sensitive transition.
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Boston Neighborhood Architectural Details Architecture
A Portfolio of Elegant Design Delights
By: - Dec 14th, 2008By the late 1870's, scores of European skilled craftsman had immigrated to the United States in general and to Boston in particular. This pictorial survey shows the craft and elegance of some of their handiwork on residential buildings in a compact several small blocks area in Boston and Brookline.
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Denise Kasell Heads Coolidge Corner Theatre Film
Ex Hamptons Film Fest Head To Succeed Joe Zina
By: - Dec 13th, 2008After an extensive international search, Denise Kasell has been appointed by the board of trustees of the Coolidge Corner Theatre Foundation as the new executive director of the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, MA. Ms. Kassel brings an extensive background to a wonderful institution. After the spectacular tenure of 10 year Executive Director Joe Zina, it will be fascinating to watch how she puts her own signature on this dynamic and historic institution in the future. Denise Kassel's film and entertainment credentials are impressive.
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Surrealism at American Repertory Theatre Theatre
Charlie Chaplin's Granddaughter Performs Magically
By: - Dec 11th, 2008A bit magical, a bit dance, even a bit dreamlike and a whole lot entertaining, Aurelia's Oratorio is a surprisingly beautiful holiday performance present from ART. Aurelia Thierree is a lissome limbed , gifted performer whose personality shines in sometimes spectacular ways performing an art that is part imagination and part athleticism.
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Geometric Jewel on The Charles in Cambridge Architecture
784 Memorial Drive is Art Moderne Masterwork
By: - Dec 06th, 2008Set overlooking the Charles River is the 1937 elegant former headquarters of the Polaroid Corporation. This wonderful edifice is emblematic of the dynamic 1930's architecture and design style Art Moderne. It somehow survived while few other examples did. Few recent buildings exhibit the style, grace and thoughtful comprehensive design approach of this elegant period structure.
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