Fine Arts
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Ancient Oracles
Horror Vacui
By: - Mar 09th, 2016In the mid 1960s while working in the basment of the Egyptian Department of the MFA ancient oracles were packed into a dense drawing. It was sold during my second exhibition. I used the money to buy an Alpha Romeo. While organizing files I recovered that vintage image.
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Ferrin Contemporary at Mass MoCA
RE—Reanimate, Repair, Mend and Meld
By: - Mar 03rd, 2016The exhibit at Ferrin Contemporary features work by contemporary artists whose pieces imitate, replicate, or honor inventive repairs of the past. Reanimate, Repair, Mend and Meld examines the current interest in materially related forms and graphic material by leading artists who exploit and explore surrounding issues. The show was originally presented as a special exhibition at the New York Ceramics & Glass Fair 2016.
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Stunning Intersections at Peabody Essex Museum
A Beacon for Remembering Beauty of Islamic Creative Culture
By: - Feb 26th, 2016In a period of radicalism and terrorism, Intersections serves as a beacon for remembering and cherishing the sensitive beauty of the best of Islamic creative culture. This is a must-see visual and environmental experience.
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A Very Hungry Caterpillar on Broadway
Berkshire's Eric Carle's Stories and Art Live
By: - Feb 07th, 2016Puppets in the collage-inspired work of Eric Carle engage in story-telling on Broadway. Three actors tell four of Carle's stories in the magical tones of familiar classics, the audience is incanting phrases like, "but he was still hungry." The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Art and its literacy programs in Amherst benefit from this production of Jonathan Rockefeller's charming puppetry.
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Art of the Ozarks
From the Old Frontier to Fine Arts
By: - Jan 24th, 2016From Little Rock, we traveled to Fort Smith which is located on the Arkansas-Oklahoma border. Fort Smith was established in 1817 on the banks of the Arkansas River. Wild West history is celebrated in Fort Smith. During the Civil War, the North met the South here and there was lots of blood shed.
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John Stomberg Discusses Hood Museum
51 Million Expansion Designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien
By: - Jan 13th, 2016Recently we visited Dartmouth College where we learned that the Hood Museum of Art will close in March for renovations to begin this summer. We discussed these plans with an old friend, John Stomberg, who has just arrived in Hanover as the new director of the museum.
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Giant White Bunnies at the Lawn on D
Down the Pop Culture Rabbit Hole
By: - Jan 12th, 2016In recent years several serious artists, Amanda Parer among them, have created giant inflatable pieces with the aim of making cultural and political statements. Last year, five giant white rabbits took over the Lawn on D for a few days. They were not just visually compelling but intellectually provocative.
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Robert Morgan's Large Watercolors
AVA Gallery and Art Center, Lebanon, N.H
By: - Jan 11th, 2016The occasion of an opening for Large Watercolors by Robert Morgan inspired a winter break weekend. On Friday night we visited the spacious and lively AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon, N.H. We spent Saturday at Dartmouth College in nearby Hanover viewing the Orozco murals and works in the Hood Museum of Art. There was a lot of remarkable work to enjoy and think about.
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Dinosaurs in Their Time in Pittsburgh
Displayed at Carnegie Museum of Natural History
By: - Jan 11th, 2016What began in 1899 with the discovery of Diplodocus carnegii eventually led to the museum’s current Dinosaurs in Their Time, the first permanent exhibition in the world to feature scientifically accurate, immersive environments spanning the Age of Dinosaurs—arranged chronologically and filled with actively posed original fossil specimens.
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Patrick Dougherty's Stickwork
Architectural Sculpture That Interweaves Myth and Reality
By: - Jan 10th, 2016By weaving and intertwining branches and twigs, environmental artist Patrick Dougherty crafts primitive yet metaphorical structures around the world. These structures are at once mythic and primitive touching chords on our human instrument. A wonderful installation was set adjacent to the Peabody Essex Museum for several months in 2015. Rather than just closing, the environmental statement had begun to deteriorate back into its earlier natural form.
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Dazzling Architectural Allusions at the deCordova
Exploring Presence of Architecture in Contemporary Sculpture
By: - Jan 08th, 2016After years of a yard full of junk, the current curatorial staff at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum has cleaned up its act and created a wonderful sculpture environment. Architectural Allusions is a stunning exhibit underscoring architectural gesture as sculpture and sculptural form as architectural statement. Now, everybody wins.
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The Rain Room in LA
Bone Dry California Enjoys Unique LACMA Exhibition
By: - Jan 06th, 2016How does the special exhibition at LACMA, The Rain Room, work? Tim Rushby-Smith of the Royal Academy of Engineering said, ”The Rain Room installation includes injection moulded tiles, solenoid valves, pressure regulators, custom software, 3D tracking cameras, steel beams and 2,500 litres of water creating a downpour of a thousand litres of rain each minute.
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Strandbeests — Theo Jansen’s Divine Machinery
Kinetic "Living" Sculptures Delight at Peabody Essex Museum
By: - Jan 06th, 2016A thought-provoking life work by Dutch artist Theo Jansen that explores the notion of movement, robotics, nature and artificial intelligence. It is gracefully done with a smile and a deft touch. Here engineering becomes art, and art becomes fantasy and even myth.
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2015 in the Arts
Hiphopera, Tap, Berkshires and Beyond
By: - Jan 02nd, 2016In some of the most exciting and insightful productions and performances of the year there was a notable cross pollination and invention as vernacular street cultures and indigenous art forms conflated into high art. Classic works were not just revived but reinvented from the insight out. The best works of 2016 raised the bar through risk taking and challenging audiences. These rare experiences tend to make the majority of what we experience ordinary and enervating. In an era signified by ubiquitous standing ovations what is truly worthy of special recognition?
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Where Time Meets Space
James Crump's Troublmakers: The Story of Land Art
By: - Jan 02nd, 2016“Troublemakers” documents Virginia Dwan’s unflinching belief in projects unimaginable to most – in sheer vastness of scale and sometimes limitlessness of time to realize. Her generous patronage made some of the most profound Land Art projects realities, like Heizer’s “Double Negative,” Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty” and more recently in 1996, Ross’s solar spectrum environment for the Dwan Light Sanctuary in Montezuma, New Mexico, to name but a few. Her philanthropy continues to this day with her 2013 bequest of her collection and archive to the National Gallery of Art, of which “From Los Angeles to New York: The Dwan Gallery 1959-1971” is being curated by James Meyer to open in the newly renovated East Building in 2016.
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Finally Public Art Booming In Boston
Boston’s Visual Art Ethos Safe and Non-experimental Beginning to Change.
By: - Dec 30th, 2015For decades, no centuries, public art in Boston was a bronze statue of mostly historical men sometimes on horses. Unlike most contemporary cities, there were few and mostly small examples of public art sprinkled throughout the city and the region. The long time Mayor Menino regime was frightened of public art. Conservative institutions and universities seemed to ignore what was happening outside the region as well. Public art was something other cities invested in, but not Boston. However, the year 2015 began to demonstrate that there was a new flowering of public art. And about time, too!
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Pop Art Design in Chicago
Museum of Contemporary Art Through March 27
By: - Dec 29th, 2015The new Pop Art Design exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art pairs 150 art works and design objects in an exhibit that sparkles with wit and irreverence. And it reminds you of how Andy Warhol's "Campbell soup can art" was first received with ridicule...by non-connoisseurs. That was just about the time that the elite collectors woke up and began buying Warhols.
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Abstract Artist Ellsworth Kelly at 92
Graduate of Boston's Museum School
By: - Dec 28th, 2015In 2013 we interviewed abstract artist Ellsworth Kelly during an exhibition of his relief series in wood at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. A graduate of the Museum School he maintained close times with the city and its museum. He passed away yesterday at his home in Spencertown, New York.
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Athena LaTocha: Curated by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
Exhibition at CUE Art Foundation in Chelsea
By: - Dec 25th, 2015CUE Art Foundation presents a solo exhibition of new work by Athena LaTocha, which has been curated by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. The show features a large-scale immersive installation of an ink-wash drawing by LaTocha that spans the entire length of the gallery. While the work depicts a landscape, its more abstract elements leave the viewer to decipher what they see.
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Peabody Essex Museum's Mellon Foundation Grant
Supports Native American Fellowships
By: - Dec 22nd, 2015The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) has been awarded a $750,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that will allow the museum to expand and strengthen its Native American Fellowship program.
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Curious Sound Object At Boston Cyberarts Gallery
Hearing and Seeing As Part of the Visual Arts Experience
By: - Dec 21st, 2015Visual art is evolving in wonderful technical directions. Boston Cyberarts is continuing to foster this development. A Fall 2015 exhibition showcased a whole group of artists working not only visually but auditorially. Hearing and seeing was believing.
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MASS MoCA Winter Spring
Upcoming Exhibitions and Performances.
By: - Dec 14th, 2015MASS MoCA has many highlights in its schedule for exhibitions and performances. Start to mark our calendars particularly for the June 11 exclusive performance of The National which is sure to sell out in a flash.
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ICA Acquires Works by Women Artists
The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women
By: - Dec 10th, 2015The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women, established at the ICA in 2014, represents three decades of collecting by Lee and brings together painting, sculpture, photography, and videography by iconic modern and contemporary women artists.
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Tom Krens Develops Business as a Museum
A For Profit Paradigm for North Adams
By: - Dec 08th, 2015Tom Krens joined the Guggenheim Foundation in 1988 when museums were attempting to transform to business models. Now, for North Adams he is developing Global Contemporary Art Museum. In a new paradigm it is being privately funded as a for profit institution. With reverse momentum he is establishing a business on the model of a fine arts museum.
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Tom Krens Has Plans for Northern Berkshires
Discusses Williamstown to North Adams Cultural Corridor
By: - Dec 07th, 2015For seven years former Guggenheim Foundation director, Tom Krens, made grueling monthly trips to China. He declines to discuss how he was "beaten down" in negotiations with the Chinese. He has opted to develop two museum level projects closer to home. Krens, a Williams alumnus and former director of its museum, initiated what is now Mass MoCA. He left decades ago but has maintained a residence in Williamstown.
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