Museum of Modern Art

The Italian artists circa World War I advocated destroying the past while embracing the future. Hence Futurism the subject of an enormous and fascinating survey Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe on view at the Guggenheim Museum through September 1. In their enthusiasm and nationalism they embraced the Fascism of Mussolini.

From the late 1890s through the Russian Revolution of 1917 the Moscow based business man Sergei Ivanovich Schukin (1854-1936) assembled one of the great collections of early modern art. When the Soviets confiscated the collection he emigrated to Paris. The National Arts Club in New York is currently showing 35 Russian avant-garde works from the collection of family member Marina and Nikolay Shchukin. Through June 14 the exhibition is sponsored by Russian American Foundation as a part of the Annual Russian Heritage Month.

The title of the exhibit, "The Production Line of Happiness" is taken from a Jean Luc Godard documentary in which an amateur filmmaker compares his day job as a factory worker with his hobby of editing his films of the Swiss countryside. Williams says that today's consumer culture pictures and produces endless images to be consumed.

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.

Visiting new York City means seeing great theatre. Mark Favermann and his companion Lisa saw Pinter's No Man's Land with Sirs Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart and the musical A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder with the versatile Jefferson Mays. These shows are two of the 2013-14 Broadway season highlights in the Big Apple. And NYC also means visiting great museums. Two that were visited were MoMA and the Morgan Library.

Carl Chiarenza is distinguished both as a photographer and a scholar. Rochester Contemporary Arts Center is featuring him in Makers & Mentors new and recent collages, paintings and photographs by: Carl Chiarenza (Rochester), Lisa Bradley (New York), Bruno Chalifour (Rochester), David W. Haas (Rochester) February 6 – March 16, 2014.

Dream surrealism has always been accessible to the general public. During the Holiday season in New York, through January 12, there is an intriguing double header. The relatively small but concise "Balthus: Cats and Girls — Paintings and Provocations" is on view at the Metropolitan while "Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938" is featured at the Museum of Modern Art.

Relaunching after renovations the Irish Museum of Modern Art presented two special exhiitions- Kathleen Eileen Moray Gray (9 August 1878 – 31 October 1976) the Irish born furniture designer, and architect and Leonora Carrington (6 April 1917 – 25 May 2011) a British-born–Mexican artist, surrealist painter and novelist. Her mother was Irish.

Building Five of Mass MoCA is one of the largest and most magnificent spaces for contemporary art in North America. It is always fascinating to see how artists respond to the daunting challenge. Izhar Patkin: The Wandering Veil is now on view for the coming year.

For a variety of social and political motivations the majority of modern and contemporary museum level exhibitions we viewed recently in Dulin and London featured feminist reclamation projects for women artists of varying degrees of obscurity. Of these the large restrospective of work by the Cuban artist Ana Mendieta at Hayward Gallery required no PC underpinnings. Her work clobbered us with its primal power and originality.

In collaboration with the Hall Art Foundation a building dedicated to works by the German artist, Anselm Kiefer, will be on view at Mass MoCA for the next 15 years. Combined with the 25 year agreement for the Sol LeWitt building this greatly enhances the museum as America's foremost destination for contemporary art.

There were just 250 works to convey Russia! Nine Hundred Years of Masterpieces and Master Collections at the Guggenheim Museum. This exhibition was interesting in view of efforts to write a history of 19th century art and modernism that does not entirely focus on Paris. The highlight of the exhibition conveyed the brilliant but brief Great Utopia that emerged with the Russian Revolution until the rise of Stalin after the death of Lenin. This review of the 2005 exhibition was posted to Maverick Arts Magazine.

As research for the exhibition Native New Yorkers we interviewed artists, a curator and collector. We found that questions led every deeper into a richly diverse and little understood field of contemporary art. The article is reposted from Maverick Arts Magazine.

Yinka Shonibare: Double Dutch was shown at the Kunsthalle Wien in 2004. He was one of the most interesting artists included in the controversial 2000 exhibition of the Charles Saatchi collection Sensation at the Brooklyn Museum. This article is reposted from Maverick Arts Magazine.

The retrospective of Dieter Roth begged the question of the difference between treasure and trash. One waded through an enormous amount of stuff created by an amazingly original and prolific artist. This article was posted in Maverick Arts Magazine on April 6, 2004.

By 1913, as the leader of the Russian movement of Suprematism, Kazimir Malevich pushed abstract art to the limit. During the initial liberation of the Russian Revolution he held a position of authority over the fine arts. That Utopia ended with the rise of Joseph Stalin after which the fine arts retreated to the conservative, agit-prop movement of Social Realism. This review is reposted from 2004 article in Maverick Arts Magazine.

Blinky Palermo a name adapted by a German artist from the genre of American boxing was a student of Joseph Beuys. But, in a brief career, he went in a different direction. In the relatively small Serpentine Gallery in London we had the rare opportunity to see his work in depth. This report was posted to Maverick Arts Magazine on May 29, 2003.

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.

It started as an e mail dialogue. During a drive through the South West we arrived at the studio of the renowned Native American artist and activist, Jaune Quick To See Smith. That led to an exhibition of all new works on paper that I curated for the gallery of the New England School of Art and Design at Suffolk University. On that occasion Janune gave a special lecture to a general assembly of Suffolk students.This report is reposted from a 2005 article in Maverick Arts Magazine.

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.

Following World War II the matrix of global contemporary art shifted from Paris to New York with the development of abstract expressionism as the leading movement of contemporary art of that era. During the 1950s there was much speculation about a Return to the Figure. Young artists who flocked to Provincetown to study with Hans Hofmann and Henry Hensche explored a synthesis through Figurative Expressionism. A number of these artists showed with Sun Gallery in Provincetown and Hansa Gallery in New York. The exhibition "Pioneers from Provincetown: The Roots of Figurative Expressionism" curated by Adam Zucker, Co-curator, Stephanie DeTroy focuses on this important movement.

We met with Native American artist Lloyd Oxendine in his New York apartment in 2006. He related early efforts to promote the artists of his heritage in the 1960s and 1970s. Recently we learned that not long after the interview the artist became homeless and nothing has been heard from him since then. In 1985 he became Director/Curator of New York's American Indian Community House (AICH) Gallery/Museum. During his tenure he organized some 40 exhibitions and worked to promote reviews and sales.

The National Design Awards program celebrates design as a vital humanistic tool in shaping the world, and seeks to increase national awareness of design by educating the public and promoting excellence, innovation, and lasting achievement. This year's award-winners are from a variety of design disciplines.

Tate Britain today announced the four artists who have been shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2013. This year the exhibition will be held at Ebrington in Derry-Londonderry as part of the UK City of Culture 2013. The artists are (in alphabetical order): Laure Prouvost, Tino Sehgal, David Shrigley and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.

Michelle Dorrance, Artistic Director of Dorrance Dance, is lauded as "one of the most imaginative tap choreographers working today” (The New Yorker). A 2012 Princess Grace Award Winner, 2012 Field Dance Fund Recipient, and 2011 Bessie Award Winner, Dorrance is among the world’s most sought after tap performers, teachers, and choreographers today.