Fine Arts
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Boston Art Dealer Alan Fink at 91
Art Was the Family Business
By: - Apr 04th, 2017Alan Fink met his artist wife, Barbara Swan, in Paris where he lived for three years on just $700. They married in 1952 and relocated to Boston. There he went to work for the next 16 years at Boris Mirski Gallery. In 1967 he founded Alpha Gallery now run by their daughter Joanna. Their son Aaron is an expressionist painter.
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Remembering Jim Rosenquist
Billboard Painter to Pop Artist
By: - Apr 02nd, 2017For a period of time in the late 1960s I worked in the studio of Pop artist James Rosenquist. He passed away recently at 83. When Jim first arrived in New York he painted billboards high above Times Square. He later used those techniques as a key but undervalued Pop artist.
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Artists As Pinball Wizards
Exhibition at the Elmhurst Museum
By: - Mar 11th, 2017Kings & Queens: Pinball, Imagists and Chicago sets 16 working vintage pinball machines in several galleries with about 30 pieces of art by the pioneers of 1960s and ‘70s Chicago Imagists: Ed Paschke, Karl Wirsum, Suellen Rocca, Ed Flood, Jim Nutt, Gladys Nilsson, Christine Ramberg, Roger Brown and Ray Yoshida. The connection, of course, is that the artists were influenced in childhood and adolescence by the art of pinball machines and comic books.
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ICA To Lease Expanded Space
Two if by Sea in East Boston
By: - Mar 07th, 2017When the Institute of Contemporary Art opened its waterfront home there were awards for the dramatic design by Diller Scofido and Renfro. Immediately, however, it was obvious that with 65,000 square feet, and just its top floor for exhibitions, there was no plan for expansion and growth. For the next five to ten years the ICA is leasing a 15,000 square foot industrial place in East Boston. Visitors will commute by ferry to the seasonal Watershed which opens in the summer of 2018.
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Federal Support for the Arts Under Attack
Five Boston Museum Directors Express Concern
By: - Feb 24th, 2017Five Boston museum directors have signed a letter of concern over reports that the National Endowment for the Arts is under threat of being abolished, along with the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Under the conservative agenda of the Trump adminsitration this is an attack on the arts in America. Guarding the Trumps in NY, DC and Palm Beach for a week is on a par with endowment support.
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MASS MoCA Announces Events
Ladie's Choice for Winter
By: - Dec 07th, 2016Sliding into the Holiday season followed by the dead of wintwr Mass MoCA is looking on the bright side. The North Adams based mega museum has posted a full schedule of enticing upcoming events. It's time to mark the calendar.
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Mass MoCA Free to Berkshire Folks
No Charge for Admission Dec. 1 to 21
By: - Nov 26th, 2016The holiday season comes early this year. From December 1 through 21, MASS MoCA opens its doors and waives admission to all Berkshire County residents. MASS MoCA hopes to welcome as many friends and neighbors as possible with its first-ever Free Berkshire County program.
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Legendary Art Dealer Dick Bellamy
Judith E. Stein's Biography Eye of the Sixties
By: - Nov 24th, 2016"Eye of the Sixties: Richard Bellamy and the Transformation of Art" by author Judith E. Stein has fleshed out an essential and enigmatic chapter in contemporary art. While entirely absorbed with the artists he discovered and exhibited Bellamy had an oddly contrarian indifference to making sales. When the artists he championed soared in the red hot art market he was nowhere to be seen. Reflecting his Eurasian heritage Bellamy was more a monk with a begging bowl than an aggressive gallerist.
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Lincoln Center Presents Miwa Matreyek
Animation and Performance Flow
By: - Oct 22nd, 2016Enchantment. Provocation. Rapture by enrapping. The animator Miwa Matreyek performs as a shadow silhouette in two pieces, one that suggests that beauty of the quotidian, and the other which puts us inside human evolution through geologic time from the Big Bang. You are swept into her vision.
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Boston Globe Shrinks Fine Arts Coverage
Eliminating Cate McQuaid's Weekly Gallery Column
By: - Sep 21st, 2016Bad news continues for the arts community. The Boston Globe has announced that it is elminating Cate McQuaid's weekly gallery column. Kington Gallery is circulating a petition to have the vital coverage reinstated.
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Susan Erony: Scribe as Artist
Transcribing Text Into Images
By: - Sep 13th, 2016Working in sessions of four hours, word by word, days turned into months as Susan Erony transcribed the 635 page text of The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson. The resultant work has been exhibited in Gloucester but deserves to be more widely known. She is preparing for an exhibition at Gloucster's Trident Gallery. She took a break to discuss the role of text in her practice as a visual artist.
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Carl Belz at 78
For 24 Years Director of Rose Art Museum
By: - Sep 03rd, 2016For 24 years Carl Belz was the director of the Rose Art Museum where he was a champion of regional artists with an emphasis on women. There was an annual major exhibition sponsored by Lois Foster who was later instrumental in his ouster when she and her husband Henry were the primary donors of an addition in their name designed by Graham Gund. Belz passed away recently at the age of 78.
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Mass MoCA Installation by Richard Nonas
The Man in the Empty Space
By: - Aug 22nd, 2016Now in his mid seventies Richard Nonas switched from anthroplogy to sculpture in his thirties. His work is featured in Building Five of MASS MoCA the largest space for contemporary art in North America.
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Gounod's Romeo and Juliet
Santa Fe Opera Orchestra
By: - Aug 22nd, 2016The Santa Fe Orchestra under Harry Bicket charges in the introduction to Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet with a dark gusto. On stage, the Capulets in blue sword fight with the Montagus in red. We quickly cut to the choral summation of the famous tale of ill-fated lover who pave the way to peace among naturally-born enemies.
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Provincetown Arts
31 Years of Publishing
By: - Aug 17th, 2016Mid summer, since 1985, we anticipate the annual issue of Provincetown Arts. The current magazine features whimsical works by the figurative fantasy painter Tabitha Vevers.
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MASS MoCA Fall Schedule
Program Through December
By: - Aug 03rd, 2016MASS MoCA heads into the fall with the 6th annual FreshGrass Festival on September 16-18, a rollicking weekend largely devoted to artists in roots and acoustic bluegrass music — and powers through until December when Dinosaur Jr. takes the stage in a night of power-grunge. In between, swoon for Benjamin Clementine in the Hunter and Eisa Davis up in the Club — and witness what might be one of the most powerful, poignant, and political works we have ever exhibited.
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Summer Nudes in Williamstown
Splendor, Myth, and Vision: Nudes From the Prado
By: - Jul 05th, 2016In the quid pro quo of museum trades, through October 10, the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown is hosting “Splendor, Myth, and Vision: Nudes From the Prado.” This includes 28 paintings by primarily Italian, Flemish, and Spanish masters of the 16th and 17th centuries.
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Aaron Siskind's Photographs
Art Institute of Chicago
By: - Jun 27th, 2016The beautifully curated exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago shows the full range of Siskind’s abstract expressionist photography in scenes shot in Chicago, New York, Gloucester, Martha’s Vineyard, Rome and other locations all over the world.
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Ken Moffett at 81
First Contemporary Curator of the MFA
By: - Jun 22nd, 2016During the 1970s Kenworth Moffett, while a full professor at Wellesley College, was hired part time as the founding curator for contemporary art at the Museum of Fine Arts. After a long illness he passed away at the age of 81. Long after our days as aesthetic adversaries we remained friends. During annual visits to Palm Beach we would meet for lunch in Ft Lauderdale where he was director of its museum. In 2015 we collaborated on an extensive interview which is linked to this obituary.
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"Rodin — Transforming Sculpture” Peabody Essex Museum
Human Form Shaped With Emotional and Psychological Complexity
By: - Jun 21st, 2016Rodin was the first truly "modern" sculptor. His work was an evolving process in creating figurative pieces that expressed and integrated emotional, psychological and even spiritual notions of humanity. Rodin sometimes mixed, recycled,, and re-combined used “spare parts”: plaster-cast heads, torsos, arms, and legs. His mix-and-match sensibility was the inevitable result of his deep belief that art is always in transition, never complete. And these hybrid assemblages were put together in ways that are intended to evoke passion and reaction. This PEM show is a visual treat.
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Stefan Stux Closes New York Gallery
Started in Boston in 1980
By: - Jun 12th, 2016When Stefan and Linda Stux, with a partner, opened a gallery on Newbury Street in Boston in 1980 it was a year before they made a sale. The partner left and they continued to support the gallery while working full time jobs. His brother asked how long he intended to maintain his "museum." The answer was "forever." But now that day has come with the closing of the New York gallery after some 35 years of ups and downs. Stefan and Linda had an enormous impact during the era of Boston's cultural revolution in the 1980s.
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John Leavey at Prince Street Gallery
Selected Works 1963 to 2016
By: - Jun 11th, 2016A passion for the Italian Renaissance informs the approach of the artist John Leavey. The Berkshire resident who lives and works in Pownal, Vermont is exhibiting a selection of work spanning 1963 to 2016 at Prince Street Gallery
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Gagosian Asks Who Reads Poetry?
Vulgarian One-percenters Trump the Art World
By: - Apr 30th, 2016In the contemporary art world bigger is better. Presiding over the complex ever more decadent global art world is mega dealer Larry Gagosian. As king of the heap he makes no apology for catering to the whims and vulgarian taste of one-percenters. The benefit to the general public is that they can enjoy his museum-level gallery exhibitions free of charge. Critics may debate the quality of the work on display but their opinions have long since been marginalized by those who write the checks. De gustibus non est disputandum.
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Susan Schwalb at Garvey|Simon
Abstract Metalpoint Works on View in New York Gallery
By: - Mar 19th, 2016An exhibition by Susan Schwalb features abstract, linear compositions of mixed metalpoint on colored surfaces, many of which investigate absence or the void as a constructive element The exhibition at Garvey/ Simon Gallery in New York will run from April 28 – June 4, 2016
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Nasreen Mohamedi at Met Breuer
Work of Exquisite Indian Artist Launches Rebranded Museum
By: - Mar 15th, 2016The Metropolitan Museum of Art has leased the iconic Madison Avenue building that was formerly the home of the relocated Whitney Museum. The artist Susan Schwalb offers an insightful and personal view of the work of the Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi (1937-1990) which launches the new space.
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