Opinion
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Giuliano at Williams Faculty Club on November 19
To Discuss Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 1870 to 2020: An Oral History
By: - Nov 15th, 2021Remarkably, Museum of Fine Arts Boston , 1870 to 2020, by Charles Giuliano is only the second comprehensive history of the MFA. Much has transpired since the centennial publication some fifty years ago. Over those decades the author interviewed directors, curators, trustees and administrators. The museum's great collections as well as issues of elitist exclusion, racism and anti Semitism are conveyed in their own words. The Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements have impacted all of America's cultural institutions. Giuliano will discuss the book at the Williams Faculty Club on Friday, November 19 at 7 PM.
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Hamlet and Me
The Danish prince and I Go Way Back
By: - Nov 14th, 2021I saw college productions—and I read Hamlet in a memorable Shakespeare course at one of my alma maters, Harvard on the Rocks—the two-year University of Illinois in Chicago at Navy Pier. (Later it became a four-year university and moved to its current campus.) The first Hamlet production that I remember vividly was during the 1963 opening season of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.
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MFA Union On Strike November 17
Administration Nickle and Dimeing Staff
By: - Nov 12th, 2021Over 96% of staff at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,voted to strike on Wednesday, November 17 in support of a fair union contract. Workers in departments across the Museum will picket at 465 Huntington Avenue that day starting at 8:30 am. The MFA Union includes curators, conservators, library workers, public-facing staff, educators, and administrative and professional workers.
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Letter About Charles Giuliano’s Seventh Book
Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 1870-2020: An Oral History
By: - Nov 05th, 2021The poet and Columbia University professor, Bill Wadsworth is a neighbor and friend. He has been on the road for the past month. I sent an e mail inquiring when next we might enjoy another witty and insightful literary luncheon. His response comprised a critique of my current MFA book. This ‘review’ is posted with his permission.
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Julianne Boyd Steps Down at Barrington Stage
Co Founded Theatre Company in 1995
By: - Nov 04th, 2021In 1995 Julianne Boyd co-founded Barrington Stage company producing sparsely attended but critically well received shows in a high school auditorium in Sheffield. In 2005 the company purchased and renovated a formed vaudeville house in Pittsfield. Coping with Covid-19 Boyd mounted a successful 2021 season. With the company is good shape, citing age, she is passing the reins to new leadership. In December she turns 77. She will stay on through the search and transition for a new artistic director.
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Shakeup at Williamstown Theatre Festival
Mandy Greenfield Out and Jenny Gersten Back In
By: - Nov 01st, 2021After seven seasons of woke programming Mandy Greenfield has resigned as artistic director of Williamstown Theatre Festival. There was a tech crew walkout last summer over brutal conditions during hazardous and stressful outdoor productions. During a production of Row in a reflecting pool at Clark Art Institute there were days of delays due to rain and thunder storms . Problems were widely reported in the media. Former artistic director, Jenny Gersten, has rejoined WTF as interim artistic director.
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Magic and Stillness
Autumn in the Berkshires
By: - Oct 27th, 2021My life is mostly solitary. This is by choice. When I returned from my first year in China to visit my daughters, I found living in society once again to be noisy. The temple where I lived is isolated in the Wudang mountains 30 kilometers from the nearest city, Shiyan. The temple complex sits atop the mountain, and life is very quiet, simple, and hard.
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Lewis Hine and North Adams Eclipse Mill
Children Once Labored in Artists/ Loft Complex
By: - Oct 22nd, 2021During the era of KIng Cotton North Adams thrived by processing bales shipped north from plantations. The Eclipse Mill produced thread which was woven across the street in the Delftree Mill. Until 1938 the mills employed child labor. During a single visit Lewis Hine created nine photographs outside the mill. These images as well as vintage views of the Eclipse Mill comprise a special exhibition. They flank the entrance ramp to the vast artist/ loft complex. The community based project is an aesthetic, historic and humanistic accomplishment.
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Mussorgsky's Original Boris Godunov at the Met
How Do we Assess Versions
By: - Oct 18th, 2021Alternate versions of an opera arouse controversy.The multiple versions of Verdi’s grand opera Don Carlos (Don Carlo) were a response to different productions. Terrence Blanchard adapted his opera Fire Shut up in My Bones for the Metropolitan Opera’s stage. Now we have the magnificent, original Boris Godunov.
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Facing Columbus
Four Italian American Artists at NY's Museum of Arts and Design
By: - Oct 13th, 2021Italian American Artists Grapple with Christopher Columbus's Legacy at MAD Museum. The Museum of Arts and Design will host 4 NYC artists of Italian heritage for a discussion about the colonial legacy of Christopher Columbus and his importance to the Italian American community.
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The Mount Calendar
Events Update
By: - Oct 08th, 2021Experience the beauty and splendor of Edith Wharton’s beloved estate. The Mount is currently open Wednesday – Sunday for tours. We are open on Saturdays and Sundays in November & December. See the mansion all dressed up for the Holidays! Holiday House tours start November 27. Tours can be booked online at EdithWharton.org. Please visit our website for the latest calendar of events.
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Clark Presents Zoom Lecture on Stockbridge-Munsee Community
By Heather Bruegl, Director of Education at Forge Project
By: - Oct 07th, 2021On Saturday, October 16, Heather Bruegl, Director of Education at Forge Project, discusses the history of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community, the indigenous people who once lived on these lands.
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Arnie Reisman Journalist, Playwright, Poet at 79
Resident of Martha’s Vineyard
By: - Oct 05th, 2021Arnie Reisman, a Martha Vineyard resident died suddenly. He was 79. Starting as editor of the Brandeis University Justice he was later editor of the weekly Boston After Dark/ Phoenix. He was a prolific documentary filmmaker and playwright as well as publisher of several books of poetry. With his wife Paula Lyons, he was also a panelist on NPR’s Says You!, the long-running comedy quiz show. His documentary The Powder and the Glory was the basis of the Broadway show War Paint.
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Trump Promised to Drain the Swamp
DC Still Mucked Up
By: - Oct 02nd, 2021It’s been almost a year since November 2020 when Mr. Trump lost his presidential reelection bid but secretly refuses to accept his defeat. And “the big lie’ theory continues to poison the political well being of the nation.
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Melvin Van Peebles, Going the Distance
An Appreciation
By: - Sep 27th, 2021Melvin Van Peebles, the black entrepreneur, died on September 21. Over the years, brief encounters revealed many of his sparkling facets.
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Memories of Atrocities to Come –
Published with Ref. to 9/11, WWII, and Today
By: - Sep 09th, 2021'Memories of Atrocities to Come:' Written at night, edited at daytime - published in remembrance of 9/11 - atrocities of WWII - and of today....
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Art Writing at the School of Visual Arts
Off the Rails
By: - Aug 29th, 2021The program has had a good long run of 16 years. It was a writing program for people who wanted to write about art, with an emphasis on literature, philosophy, the relation between aesthetics and politics, and the history and future of the image.
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Chuck Close at 81
An Appreciation
By: - Aug 21st, 2021Martin Mugar posted this in 2005 to the site Art Deal. Overcoming many physical and emotional handicaps Chuck Close prevailed leaving a daunting legacy of work.
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Painters Andrew Forge and David Row
Exhibitions in New York and Maine
By: - Aug 14th, 2021Here Martin Mugar considers two abstract painters. The gesture of Forge is one of the traditional hand-application of the brush to canvas. The notion of a painting existing in time took on some meaning when I saw the show of David Row at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art. It is probably one of the more perfect installations I have ever seen.
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The Scream, Sunflowers, and Mona Lisa
Gone Baby Gone
By: - Aug 09th, 2021It happened during the last week in June. Two prominent paintings by 20th-century masters were recovered nearly a decade after they had been stolen from a gallery in Athens. A contractor was arrested for committing what had become a notoriously audacious theft of works by Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian.
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New Public Art
Past, Present, and Future Ghosts of the Imagination
By: - Aug 09th, 2021For many, public art conjures up images of bronze statues of a soldier on horseback, images of historically significant and/or forgotten politicians or leaders, or symbolic (often mythological) figures of metaphoric significance. But these days public art takes a wide variety of sizes, shapes, and forms. It can be temporary or permanent.
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Covid and Interconectedness of Life
Reconsidering the Social Contract
By: - Aug 08th, 2021Everyone has an absolute right to place their own lives in danger. The Darwin Award was created to recognize such people posthumously. But no one has the right to place anyone else’s life in danger. To do so is selfish and ignorant. Even freedom has its limits – – fire in a crowded theater, for instance.
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ArtWeek Berkshires
September 16-26, 2021
By: - Aug 04th, 2021ArtWeek Berkshires is a collaboration among Berkshire County’s five cultural districts (Great Barrington, Lenox, Pittsfield, North Adams, Williamstown), supported by 1Berkshire and the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, with media support from Berkshire Magazine and Lamar.
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The Medici Portraits and Politics
Daniel Kershaw Installs Masterpieces at the Met
By: - Jul 08th, 2021A major exhibition of portrait painting spanning the decades between 1512-1570, seems to me a risky proposition. A great idea for scholars, students and serious amateurs of art history, but usually not a show that would attract the general public. This one is different, thanks in part to a first-rate installation by Daniel Kershaw, the Met’s senior exhibition designer.
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Mount's Summer Lecture Series
Women on Women
By: - Jun 22nd, 2021The Mount, Edith Wharton’s Home announces its line-up for the 2021-2021 Summer Lecture Series. Now in its 28th year, the Summer Lecture series bring leading biographer and historians to the Berkshires. This year’s series will New York Times bestselling author Janice P. Nimura, Pulitzer-prize winner author Debby Applegate, and Biographer Sydney Ladensohn Stern.
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