Opinion
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Racial Injustice Themes in Pop Culture
Arts for Social Justice in America
By: - Sep 08th, 2020Historians a century from now may decide that this part of the 21st century was a political horror show. So it only makes sense that the real world of racial injustice and our racist history is bleeding over into pop culture. We can now partake of film, video, books and music where these historical themes are blended with horror and heroic stories.
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How George Seybolt Changed the MFA
Board President Initiated Business Concepts from 1968 to 1972
By: - Sep 11th, 2020George Crossan Seybolt (1915-1993) was president and chairman of the William Underwood Company, best known for its canned Deviled Ham. He was recruited to the board of trustees by the director, Perry T. Rathbone. When be became president of the board there was constant conflict. Seybolt mico managed the museum and ousted Rathbone over the Raphael incident. His personal appointment for director, Merrill Rueppel, proved to be a disaster. He was fired after a Globe exposé. Seybolt went on to be a museum lobbyist and visionary. It's what we discussed in 1977.
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More on Wagnerism by Alex Ross
George Eliot Absorbs Wagner
By: - Sep 10th, 2020When Wagner’s music crossed the English Channel, it attracted the attention of novelist and critic, George Eliot, who always took a great interest in music. Early on, she identified Wagner’s achievement as a path to the future, writing, “…anyone who finds deficiencies in opera as it has existed hitherto...” must admit that Wagner “…has pointed out the directions in which lyric drama must develop itself, if it is to be developed at all.”
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MFA Reopens on September 23
The Director Welcomes Us Back
By: - Sep 11th, 2020The MFA will open over the next month or so in phases. First, and with great pleasure, we reopen the Art of the Americas Wing, reinvigorated with some new additions and enhanced interpretation. “Women Take the Floor,” on the Wing’s third level, has new works to see, presenting a refreshed narrative worth another look, and “Black Histories, Black Futures,” the groundbreaking display curated by Boston teens, remains on view in the Level 1 Rotunda, Sharf Visitor Center, and Hemicycle.
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Iris Love
Unforgettable
By: - Sep 11th, 2020The doorbell rang. I was in bed. It was about 9pm and I was a little hung-over from the birthday party I’d hosted the night before. Who could it be? Wearing nothing but a t-shirt and underwear, I opened the door just enough to see who it was. OMG. It was Iris Love, dressed in her full Scottish clan regalia of plaid tartan kilt, white shirt, knee socks, and jacket with kilt pins and clan badges.
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More on Alex Ross, Wagnerism
Ross Captures The Meister's Voice
By: - Sep 14th, 2020Alex Ross’s depiction of Wagner in America, in his new work "Wagnerism," is focused at the start on the author Willa Cather. Ross finds Cather and Thomas Mann the most musically educated and sophisticated of the many literary figures who infused their work with the ideas of the Meister. The boundless scope of a work, its inclusion of ancient myth made present, and leitmotifs bound together to organize a story, are key elements of the Wagner style.
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Stepping Back from Your Own Mind
Becoming Observer and Observed
By: - Sep 15th, 2020In a moment of upset when we are raging against that “thing” we thought so awful, shouting such hurtful words at the one standing before us, imagine how horrified we would be if we could step back to watch ourselves! Wouldn’t we wish we could find that patience, that wisdom,, to know that awfulness diminishes over time?
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Art New England
Letter from the Publisher
By: - Sep 15th, 2020We are planning a return to print with a January/February 2021 issue of Art New England. In the interim, we are working on enhancing ANE’s website and adding a few exciting new features, including a “rolling” Artist Directory (updated every two weeks); and a “rolling” Destination: New England section dedicated to the entire region.
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Brooklyn Museum Deaccessions 12 Works
AAMD Sanctions Corona Emergency Measures
By: - Sep 17th, 2020While Trump's billionaire golf buddies are begging for a bailout the arts in America are left twisting in the wind. Closed for months museums are depleting reserve funds to survive. That has meant furloughs, pay cuts and staff reductions. As a desparate measure, in a lapse from guidelines for deaccessioning, the Brooklyn Museum is selling twelve works to raise $40 million. It recalls when the Berkshire Museum gutted its collection to raise $50 million. This is never a good idea but we discuss crucial differences.
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Ruth Bader Ginsberg Loved Opera
Our Very Own Brunnhilde
By: - Sep 20th, 2020Justice of the Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who died this week while still sitting on the bench, was a hero to American women. She believed above all that women could bring about a better world. She loved Beethoven’s "Fidelio," the story of Leonore, who disguises herself as a man to rescue her husband from prison. She related to the opera's story as a woman and a feminist.
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Philip Guston Now to Not Now
What He Meant to Boston’s Artists
By: - Sep 26th, 2020The retrospective "Philip Guston Now" was scheduled to open in June 2001 at the National Gallery. It would travel to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, then to Tate Modern in London, and finally, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Of 125 paintings and 75 drawings some 24 works caricature the Ku Klux Klan. Fearing backlash the museums have postponed to 2024 to develop programming that contextualizes the work. The MFA has a history of ambivalence to the artist's work. From 1973 to 1978 he taught a graduate seminar at Boston University.
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Jay Critchley Takes on the White House
Tarred and Feathered in Provincetown
By: - Oct 06th, 2020The Provincetown based conceptual artist, Jay Critchley, is known for wit and outrageous projects. Trump has him mad as hell and he can't take it anymore. Rather than just get mad he's getting even. His latest stunt it literally to tar and feather the White House.
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Poe's Masque of the Red Death
An 1842 Masque for a Time of Masks
By: - Oct 07th, 2020In 1842, Edgar Allan Poe published one of his most famous stories, which turns out to be a parable for 2020. The Masque of the Red Death concerns a prince who gathers his wealthy friends within the walls of his castle when the Red Death rampages through the countryside, killing everyone who is exposed to it.
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Images Cinema in Williamstown
Update on Lockdown
By: - Oct 07th, 2020Images Cinema, an art house in Williamstown. has been shut down going on eight months. Here is an update from executive director, Doug Jones.
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Nick Capasso of Fitchburg Art Museum
Responding to Diversity and Social Justice
By: - Oct 15th, 2020After 22 years as a curator of the deCodova Museum, Dr. Nick Capasso, for the past 8 years has been director of the Fitchburg Art Museum. It is one of the poorest regions of the state. The community is 35% Latino and 55% of school children speak Spanish at home. The museum is unique for its bilingual initiatives and community outreach. There is diversity in all aspects of its exhibitions and programming. The museum shows New England artists. The collection has grown with an emphasis on photography, African, African American, and American art. Meeting daunting challenges the Fitchburg Art Museum is a remarkable success story.
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Provincetown Arts Press
35th Anniversary Zoom Gala
By: - Oct 28th, 2020Provincetown Arts Press celebrates 35th Anniversary Gala, which will be held on Tuesday, November 19 from 7–8pm via ZOOM, and announces the launch of its first Silent Art Auction, which will open on November 1.
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Warhol and Calder
Divagations on Jed Perl's Second Volume of Calder
By: - Oct 30th, 2020As I began to think about finishing my reading and reviewing Jed Perl’s monumental second volume of the life of Calder, the art world was inundated by the responses to the publication of Blake Gopnik’s thousand page book on Warhol. Yet again Mugar ferries us across the Styx of contemporary art history.
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Controversial Philip Guston Show Rescheduled
To Open at the MFA on May 1, 2022
By: - Nov 05th, 2020Postponed Philp Guston exhibition rescheduled. The first of four venues will be the Museum of Fine Arts. It opens on May 1, 2022 and continue through that September 11. MFA director, Matthew Teiltelbaum, shares thoughts about the decision to postpone the controversial exhibition.
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Young Musicians Tune Out Covid
At The Monmouth Conservatory of Music
By: - Nov 10th, 2020Where once technology was thought to be the death knell of human social interaction, it is now bringing us together. During this pandemic, arts institutions worldwide have been regrouping and finding ways to keep going virtually. The Monmouth Conservatory of Music is no exception. Living in this altered reality, unable to gather in-person as they normally would, the school has gone all-out to ensure the beat goes on for its young musicians (some as young as 5!)
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In Session
Panels on Anti Racism in Museums
By: - Nov 11th, 2020MASS MoCA and the Berkshire Cultural Resource Center (BCRC) at MCLA are launching In Session, a series of four panel discussions on anti-racist work in museums, streamed live on MASS MocA's YouTube channel and Facebook page beginning on Thursday, December 10, at 6pm EST with upcoming dates to be announced soon.
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Hancock Shaker Village Thanksgiving
Celebrating a Year Like None Other
By: - Nov 23rd, 2020Hancock Shaker Village felt like a home-away-from-home this year. In a year when we are counting our heroes, the Village has had many.
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Greetings from MASS MoCA
Thanksgiving Message
By: - Nov 26th, 2020In a year like no other, we're as grateful as ever for you, our art-loving community near and far. Thank you for your continued support, words of encouragement, and mask-covered smiles — we wouldn't be here without you.
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Helping Our Pal Alice Brock
Famed for Berkshire’s Alice’s Restaurant
By: - Nov 28th, 2020Now elderly, infirm, and living in Provincetown, Alice Brock, the famed proprietor of Alice’s Restaurant in the Berkshires, has always helped others. Her restaurants were staffed with friends and neighbors. She was always a soft touch for a free meal, job, or handout. Today it’s Alice, afflicted with ailments, who needs a helping hand.
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I Am Jacob's Pillow
Help to Rebuild After Recent Fire
By: - Dec 04th, 2020Recently the Doris Duke Theatre of Jacob's Pillow was lost in a fire on November 17. You can help to rebuild this landmark of American dance in the Berkshires.
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Hot Water Tanked
No Big Deal
By: - Dec 08th, 2020My hot water tank blew last week. I went to bed on Friday after a hot shower, and woke up Saturday morning with only cold water. A new hot water tank was installed on Tuesday, and order was restored. Four days of dishes and pans got washed, as did I. No big deal.
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