Fine Arts
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Picasso Black and White
Chiaroscuro Theme at the Guggenheim to January 23
By: - Dec 17th, 2012For the holidays two blockbuster exhibition provide the chance to compare and contrast the greatest masters of the School of Paris. The Metropolitam Museum is showing Henri Matisse while the Guggenheim features Picasso Black and White. A spin through the Guggenheim proved to be disappointing with a glut of mediocre mid period and late works and just a couple of bona fide masterpieces.
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What’s Wrong with the Whitney Museum
Enervating Mix of Holiday Shows
By: - Dec 16th, 2012With the Whitney Museum of American Art winding down its time on Madison Avenue and preparing for a move downtown near the popular High Line the curators appear to have concoted a yard sale of ho hum exhibitions. There is a deadly combination of the recycled- Richard Artschwager! and Sinister Pop- and a signifier of the alleged bright future Wade Guyton: Os which I just don’t buy into.
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Gunther Uecker at Haunch of Venison
First NY Exhibition for Group Zero Artist Since 1966
By: - Dec 16th, 2012Now 82 the German artist and member of Zero, which disbanded in 1966, is having his first New York exhibition, at Haunch of Venison, since then. Now and then we encounter one of Gunther Uecker's signature nail pieces at MoMA or in rare Zero exhibitions such as those mounted by Sperone Westwater Gallery. While we enjoyed the opportunity to experience his work in depth it provoked many unanswered questions about his intentionality.
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Ai Weiwei at Mary Boone and the Hirshorn Museum
Forge Evokes 5,200 Lost Schoolchildren
By: - Dec 15th, 2012Americans are shocked and devastated by the slaughter yesterday of schoolchildren and teachers in Connecticut. The conceptual art installation Forge on view at New York's Mary Boone Gallery by Chinese dissident Ai Weiwie evokes the memory of 5,200 schoolchildren. They were killed when the Beichuan Middle School collapsed during a 2008 earthquake through shoddy, cost cutting, "tofu" construction. The Communist regime tried to bury the incident along with the victims. With dire consequences the artist strives to keep their memory alive against all odds.
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Jed Perl Collected Essays Magicians and Charlatans
Being There
By: - Dec 11th, 2012Thinking back on more than twenty years of art criticism by Jed Perl on the occasion of the publication of his most recent collection of essays by the Eakins Press Foundation "Magicians and Charlatans." Cross-cutting the main stream contemporary art world.
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Santa Fe Artist Joyce Melander Dayton
The Craft of Turning Nature into Art
By: - Dec 10th, 2012Edward Rubin discusses with the artist Joyce Melander Dayton how she stopped being a representational painter and now works primarily in 3-dimensions using textiles, fabrics, glass beads, wool, and wood veneers.
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Museum of Fine Arts Pimps its Masterpieces
Fenway Visitors Find a Bare Cupboard of Favorite Works
By: - Nov 26th, 2012It is usual for the world's great museums to swap their masterpieces for special exhibitions. It is the quid pro quo of doing business. Currently, however, an unusually large number of its greatest treasures are missing from the walls of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Some 26 works, however, have been loaned strictly for cash by the entrepreneur Marco Goldin and his for profit organization Linea d’Ombra. In Italy Goldin is known as "The King Midas of the art world." If that's the case what should we call deal maker Malcolm Rogers of the MFA?
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Tripoli Gallery Thanksgiving Collective 2012
Southampton's Modern Salon To January 24
By: - Nov 26th, 2012Tripoli Gallery’s “Thanksgiving Collective 2012: Modern Salon,†as the title suggests, combines the new and the old, and does so on several different levels. “Modern Salon†refers, in part, to the way in which the show was installed. Salon Style evokes renderings of the floor-to-ceiling historic exhibitions of the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
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Jessica Park at The Good Purpose Gallery
Visions on the Spectrum II in Lee, Mass.
By: - Nov 25th, 2012As part of its ongoing effort to support the arts for students with autism and other learning differences, the College Internship Program in Lee, Mass. is featuring Jessica Park’s paintings, and also the glass sculpture of Hoogs and Crawford, at its Good Purpose Gallery through January 2, 2013.
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The Primacy of Visual Cognition in Western Art
From Caravaggio to Cezanne
By: - Nov 13th, 2012On the surface great art seems anarchical. Take Cezanne without whom we cannot even imagine the 20thc language of abstraction. He jumps to another level of seeing that seemed crude and anarchic to those living artist surrounded by the aesthetic of the 19thc, which was a continuation of the once anarchic chiaroscuro of Caravaggio. In fact both artists pursued a deepening of the understanding of what it means to see. They didn’t jump out of the language of seeing; they jumped more deeply into it. I agree that certain holy grails never assure survivability but nor does anarchy. What at first glance seems anarchic is always the product of an exploration of the language of seeing that has found new foundations.
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The 2012 Boston Biennial
The Gallery at Spencer Lofts
By: - Nov 09th, 2012It finally had to happen. A Biennial coming to a neighborhood near you. In this case The Gallery at Spencer Lofts in Chelsea. For an entry fee of just twenty five bucks artists can put that all important entry, Biennial, on their resumes. By the way, the juror, one Branden Harrington III is a "noted Boston artist and all around cool guy." Frankly we've never heard of him or I and II. Is this a scam or spoof? You decide. Caveat Emptor. Check out the video.
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British Public Art Is For Sale
Local Governments Want to Raise Funds By Deaquisitioning
By: - Nov 09th, 2012It is a phrase that seems to have arisen with the latter half of the 20th Century: Is public art necessary? Monuments always seem to be appreciated. But they are memorials, usually homage to death or dying, heroic or victimized. The problem is that the less educated, the less aware do not understand art's utility. They look for functional value not aesthetic quality. Now the Philistine's are thick on the ground in the United Kingdom.
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2013 James and Audrey Foster Prize
ICA Announces Finalists for Biennial Award
By: - Nov 09th, 2012Sarah Bapst, Katarina Burin, Mark Cooper, and Luther Price were named finalists for the 2013 James and Audrey Foster Prize, the ICA's biennial award and exhibition program for Boston-area artists, the museum announced today. Bapst, Burin, Cooper, and Price will participate in an exhibition organized by Helen Molesworth, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, on view at the ICA from May 1 through July 21, 2013.
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Art at North Adams Regional Hospital
New Installation of Community Art Program
By: - Nov 07th, 2012For the past several years the North Adams Regional Hospital has hosted semi annual installations of the curated Community Art Program. Following a call for artists a selection of some 200 plus works are displayed in the corridors and waiting rooms. While there is an emphasis on landscapes, still life and abstractions this time the graven image has been added to the mix. While eclectic, the Hospital shows are always upbeat, fun, and even surprising. Surely these colorful images help to ease the aches and pains of visitors.
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Further Thoughts on the Artist Tim Nichols
Responding to Reader Comments
By: - Nov 05th, 2012My blog on Tim Nichols and the subsequent comments from people who knew him, opened up my eyes to the difficulty of simple descriptions of a life as long as Tim’s. As we all navigate our life, how we must appear to others is so variegated that in the end there is not one Tim but as many as there were observers of his life
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Hugo Boss Prize 2012 to Danh Vo
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Announces Winner
By: - Nov 02nd, 2012The Hugo Boss Prize 2012 has been awarded to Danh Vo, announced Richard Armstrong, Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, and Claus-Dietrich Lahrs, Chairman and CEO, HUGO BOSS AG. Vo is the ninth artist to receive the biennial honor that was established in 1996 to recognize significant achievement in contemporary art.
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Light & Landscape at Storm King Art Center
Sculpture Exhibition Through November 11
By: - Oct 30th, 2012Storm King Art Center, with its 500 acres of rolling meadows and wooded groves, is arguably North America ’s most beautiful sculpture park. Just one hour north of New York City, its impressive collection has continually grown…and it just keeps getting better and better. Deftly organized by Associate Curator Nora Lawrence, Light & Landscape features the work of fourteen artists “all who use a variety of strategies to engage with light as a central component of their work.â€
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Spiders Alive! American Museum of Natural History
Original Web Masters on View in NY to December 2
By: - Oct 29th, 2012Cleverly cashing in on this Spiderman craze – Why not! They do house the world’s largest research collection of spiders – is the American Museum of Natural History’s mini-blockbuster Spider’s Alive! Populated by hordes of excited children with parents in tow, this show which runs through December 2 appears to be the most popular exhibition in the city.
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Brian O’Doherty Receives Clark Award
Award Ceremony at Explorer's Club NY Nov. 16
By: - Oct 18th, 2012The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute will honor artist, writer, and critic Brian O’Doherty with the 2012 Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing by recognizing his continuing contributions to the visual arts. Established in 2006, the Clark Prize recognizes insightful and accessible prose that advances a genuine understanding and appreciation of the visual arts.
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Stephen Hannock Part Three
Neo Romantic Landscapes and Beyond
By: - Oct 15th, 2012In the third and final installment of an in depth interview Stephen Hannock discusses how it takes a village to create his work. And that all of the individuals deserve to be respected and paid. He also articulate the process by which his remarkable lifestyle and the narrative of his images get woven into their creation.
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Artist Stephen Hannock Part Two
Dreamscapes Biopic at Williamstown Film Festival
By: - Oct 14th, 2012Using a digital high definition video camera Wolram Hissen, for three years, intersected with the Berkshire based artist Stephen Hannock. The resultant documentary Dreamscapes is featured in the 14th annual Williamstown Theatre Festival. This is the second of three installments of a studio visit and dialogue with the artist.
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Dreamscapes: Stephen Hannock Film by Wolfram Hissen
Williamstown Film Festival Celebration with Top Chef Tom Colicchio
By: - Oct 13th, 2012The documentary film Dreamscapes by Wolfram Hissen will be screened on Thursday October 18 at the annual Williamstown Film Festival. Following the film, its subject the artist Stephen Hannock, and Top Chef producer and chief judge, Tom Colicchio, will engage in a dialogue with tasting at the restaurant Mezze. Hannock has been involved by creating paintings for a dozen new restaurant projects with Colicchio and his partner Danny Meyer. We met with Hannock in his Berkshire studio to discuss the film and his latest art projects.
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Andres Institute of Art: A Mountain of Public Art
Artists from all over the World Have Created Sculpture
By: - Oct 08th, 2012Founded by engineer Paul Andres who bought Big Bear Mountain in Brookline, NH and fostered by sculptor John Weidman who lived nearby, the Andres Institute of Art invites sculptors from around the world to work on pieces for 2 to 3 weeks to add to the 72 works sprinkled throughout various hiking trails open to the public. Here art is accessible yet universal, monumental but often intimate. Though many are, all of the work is not spectacular, but the sum of the whole is.
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Jerry’s Map at Mass MoCA
Per Aspera ad Astra through October 14
By: - Oct 07th, 2012What started as a doodle in 1963 has catapulted to Earth as Jerry's Map. The vast installation by Jerry Gretzinger is on view at the Hunter Center of Mass MoCA for just one week. For an ET experience trip on over to the North Adams museum through Sunday, October 14. Beam me up Scottie.
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Rethink! American Indian Art
Berkshire Museum Through January 6
By: - Oct 04th, 2012Combining numerous objects from its permanent collection augmented by contemporary pieces by six Native American artists- Marcus Amerman, Jeremy Frey, Teri Greeves, Diego Romero, Preston Singletary and Bently Spang, the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield has mounted the special exhibition Rethink! American Indian Art through January 6.
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