Fine Arts
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Collages by Raeford Liles
Publishing the Greek Pots Series
By: - Jun 05th, 2015I have known and much appreciated the witty and whimsical artist Raeford Liles since the 1960s. He was represented by the East Hampton Gallery when I worked there. Some years ago the artist returned to Birmingham, Alabama where he grew up. Now in assisted living his family has been working to catalog, archive and preserve decades of his work. From this extensive project has emerged the publication of a series of digital prints from his inspired Greek Pots series.
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Gerard Malanga on Andy Warhol's Mother Julia
Insights to Mother and Son Collaborations at WCMA
By: - Jun 04th, 2015The major exhibition this summer at the Williams College Museum of Art is "Warhol by the Book" through August 16, 2015. Of the 500 works on view some of the most intriguing material entails collaborations involving Warhol's graphic design and his mother Julia's calligraphy. We spoke about Julia with former Warhol associate the poet Gerard Malanga who knew her well.
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Tina Olsen Talks About Warhol at Williams
Making Books
By: - Jun 01st, 2015Warhol by the Book at the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) is on view through August 16, 2015. Creating books was a vital part of Warhol's career’s. It is the first in depth presentation of a relatively unexplored aspect of his work. Taking over the top level galleries of the museum there are 500 works on view featuring some 300 from the Williams collection and many works from the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. We spoke about the project with MCMA director, Tina Olsen.
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Stickwork: Interweaving Myth and Reality
Temporal and Mystical Public Art at Peabody Essex Museum
By: - Jun 01st, 2015Enigmatically, sculptor Patrick Dougherty bends, weaves and flexes saplings into architectural sculptures that dynamically relate to the landscape and built environment. Over the last 30 years, he has created more than 250 works throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. Constructed from saplings collected by area volunteers, "What the Birds Know" provides a wonderful and viscerally accessible counterpoint to the highly finished wood-frame early 18th Century Crowninshield-Bentley House. This is the first time PEM has commissioned an outdoor sculptural installation. And the bar has been set very high.
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Art and Poetry at Gallery 51
Stephen and Wilma Rifkin, Ellen Joffe-Halpern, Annie Raskin
By: - May 29th, 2015Two Natures Talking: Poetry and Visual Arts at Gallery 51 of MCLA in North Adams brings together the paintings of Wilma Rifkin with the poems they inspire by her husband Stephen. The exhibition which has been curated by Julia Morgan-Leamon also pairs the visuals of Ellen Joffe-Halpern and poems by Annie Raskin.
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Lauren Olitski: Painting From Nature
Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts, May 28 - June 28, 2015
By: - May 26th, 2015Lauren Olitski is known for the vibrant and exciting surfaces and bold colors of her abstract acrylic paintings. In this body of work, her masterful infusion of organic elements (garnet, pumice, and molding paste) into the plastic, inorganic acrylic gels and paints gives her work a rare visceral authenticity.
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Boston CyberArts Reaches into the Public Domain
From Desktop to Laptop to Public Art
By: - May 26th, 2015Making digital art even more accessible, Boston Cyberarts is fostering major public art installations. This is art with virtually no boundaries. Founder George Fifield is the "godfather" of new art forms being computer-generated. Cyberarts is a 21st Century entity bringing new mediums to the masses.
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Hokusai Makes Waves at the MFA
230 Works by Japanese Master on View to August 9
By: - May 25th, 2015Because of the activity of the 19th century collector William Sturgis Bigelow the Museum of Fine Arts has some 30,000 Japanese prints. He donated 80% of these treasures. Through August 8 the MFA is showing 230 works by the Japanese master Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). The centerpiece is his iconic color woodblock print “Under the Wave off Kanagawa,†“a.k.a. “The Great Wave.†It is from "Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji" which the artist produced while in his 70s. He later added ten more because of the success of the series.
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Zombie Formalism
Responding to Banality in Contemporary Art
By: - May 23rd, 2015Martin Mugar coined the term Zombie Formalism. That bounder, Walter Robinson, a known grifter and blowhard has claimed it as his own. Here our man Mugar bares his soul and makes a case. This is more heavy lifting in the realm of art criticism. Like how about that lead with Heidegger. Not exactly bedtime reading for most of us.
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Taubman Museum of Art
Opened in Roanoke, Virginia in 2008
By: - May 19th, 2015The Taubman Museum of Art occupies a dramatic, 81,000-square-foot geometrically oblique building just across from Roanoke, Virginia’s historic Marketplace Square. Designed by Los Angeles architect Randall Stout and completed in 2008, the museum, with its swooping and soaring metal roof, is a dramatic architectural presence that has established itself as a major force in the life of Roanoke’s thriving arts community.
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Janet Echelman's Dazzeling Aerial Sculpture
With This Project, Boston Has Become A Public Art Player
By: - May 17th, 2015A major piece of public art was floated above the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Downtown Boston. The scale, complexity and the fact that it was even done at all makes a clear statement that Boston has joined the 21st Century. The artwork by artist Janet Echelman is a strong indication that the sky is now literally the limit.
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Two Natures Talking at Gallery 51 in North Adams
Exhibition Combines Artists and Poets
By: - May 16th, 2015On Thursday, May 28, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts’ (MCLA) Gallery 51 will open “Two Natures Talking,†a text/image exhibition that pairs up visual artists Wilma Rifkin and Ellen Joffe-Halpern with poets Stephen Rifkin and Annie Raskin. On Sunday, June 14, the Gallery will host a poetry reading with Stephen Rifkin and Raskin, from 2 to 3 p.m.
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Conceptual Artist Chris Burden at 69
Shock of the No Longer New
By: - May 11th, 2015Particularly in the early work starting with Five Day Locker Piece in 1971 when he remained confined to a cramped space as his thesis project Chris Burden tested the limits of his human endurance. His occasionally death defying art entailed getting shot, crucified to a Volkwagen, and laying down in traffic. Given these dark projects, reporting on his death at 69 from melanoma, lacks the intensity and dramatic impact of his work. We recall meeting with him during a 1989 exhibition at Boston's ICA. Speaking with him about outrageous work made perfect sense.
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Museum Director Michael Rush at 65
Battled Brandeis University over Rose Art Museum
By: - May 03rd, 2015In 2009 Michael Rush, then the director of the Rose Art Museum, took the fall when Brandeis University schemed to close the museum and sell its $350 million collection. In 2010 he became the founding director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. He died recently at 65.
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Jane Farver Death in Venice
Former MIT List Director at 68
By: - May 01st, 2015The Venice Biennale is about to open. The renowned curator and museum director, Jane Farver, was working with the artist Joan Jonas on an installation in the American Pavilion. It was announced that she died suddenly apparently of a heart attack. Jane was a friend and beloved mentor during her tenure as director of the MIT List Visual Arts Center from 1999 to 2011.
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Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha
Journey of a Prince and an Artist
By: - Apr 29th, 2015From 1833 to 1834, the explorer and naturalist Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied, Germany, traveled on a 2,500-mile journey into the American Interior, generally following the path of the Lewis and Clark expedition (1804-6). Maximilian was accompanied by the Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, whom the prince had hired to record the cities, rivers, and people they saw along the way. Maximilian and the 23-year-old Bodmer left St. Louis in April 1833 and
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Provincetown Artist/ Activist Jay Crichtley
Retrospective at Provincetown Art Association and Museum
By: - Apr 28th, 2015The Provincetown based based conceptual artist a master of gonzo agit-prop, Jay Critchley, is having his first museum level solo exhibition at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. We visited his cluttered home, studio and back yard where he was preparing works for installation in the museum. We viewed the artifacts from numerous projects and conceptual works.
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Artist Otto Piene’s Last Environmental Artwork
A Test Run at a Boston Gallery before Exhibition in Germany
By: - Apr 25th, 2015With the passing of pioneering art and technology artist Otto Piene last Summer, his creative legacy has continued to be showcased with shows in Berlin, the Guggenheim in New York and the Cyberarts Gallery in Boston. Recently, the prolific Piene's last art installation was "tested" at the Miller Yezersky Gallery in Boston's SOWA District in preparation for an exhibit at at LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur in Münster, Germany. The master artist's spirit embraced this wonderful environmental art event.
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Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist
Traveling Exhibition of Vintage Paintings
By: - Apr 25th, 2015Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist is a full-scale exhibit of about 45 of Motley's paintings now on view at the Chicago Cultural Center. Along the corridor leading to the gallery is a display of information about Motley's life and work. Jazz age music plays on the gallery sound system. Prior to Chicago the exhibition was on view at the LA Country Museum of Art. The next stop if the Whitney Museum of American Art
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Cleveland Museum of Art
Completing a $350 Million Expansion by Rafael Viñoly
By: - Apr 16th, 2015May 2014 marked the official opening of th Cleveland Museum's new atrium, part of a $350 million dollar expansion designed by award-winning Uruguyan architect, Rafael Viñoly. It is one of the top comprehensive art museums in the nation, with 45,000 objects spanning 6,000 years.
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Biennale di Venezia 2015
Organized by by Okwui Enwezor
By: - Apr 16th, 2015The 56th Biennale of Venice opens on May 9. The Belgian critic Roger D’Hondt offers a preview.
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Tony Simotes Part Two
One Foot Out the Door then Kate Called
By: - Apr 16th, 2015The contract with Milliken University was due to arrive when Kate Maguire called and asked Tony Simotes to meet for breakfast. Racing against the clock and making phone calls she offered him a job as second in commend at Berkshire Theatre Group. Then Tony and Lucy faced the tough decision of turning down tenure, benefits and security to take another challenging but risky job in theatre.
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Wedgewood Ceramics at Birmingham Museum
Unique Collection in Alabama
By: - Apr 14th, 2015Within the Birmingham Museum of Art, a charming parquet-floored, yellow-walled gallery contains the largest collection of Wedgwood ceramics in the United States. It consists of some 10,000 pieces thousands of which are displayed.
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Matthew Teitelbaum New Director of the MFA
Former ICA Curator Returns to Boston
By: - Apr 10th, 2015From 1989 to 1993 Matthew Teitelbaum was an ICA curator under director Milena Kalinovska. On August 2, after some 22 years at the Art Gallery of Ontario, he will take over as the 11th director of the Museum of Fine Arts. It is anticipated that he will bring a more welcoming management style than the autocratic Malcolm Rogers who cleaned house and instilled fear in the staff under the mantra of One Museum.
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Biographer Belinda Rathbone at the Clark
Free Lecture Sunday, April 26 at 3 pm
By: - Apr 10th, 2015Belinda Rathbone, daughter of Perry Rathbone, the director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston from 1955 to 1972, discusses her book The Boston Raphael: A Mysterious Painting, an Embattled Museum in an Era of Change, and a Daughter’s Search for the Truth at the Clark Art Institute on Sunday, April 26 at 3 pm.
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