The June Wrap-Up

first light x grounded x nonchalant poetry x close to me 

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Clint Baclawski – Luminus

When: On view June 3 – August 14th, 2016

Opening Reception: Friday June 3rd, 2016 6-8PM

Where: Adelson Gallery, 520 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118

How: Official Website 

What/Why: Read Cate McQuaid’s write-up of the exhibit here.

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Americans for the Arts Convention

When: June 17-19th, 2016

Where: See the full schedule here!

How: Official Website

What/Why:“For nearly 60 years, Americans for the Arts has convened an annual convention for arts and community leaders to network and discuss strategies for building stronger towns, counties, and cities through the arts. As our professional field has grown, so has our gathering. What started as a small group of 45 people in 1955 has now grown to nearly 1,000 each year.

Together we’ve shared the successes and challenges of using the arts as core to community development, and we’ve heard expert advice from an impressive list of keynotes including Ben Folds, Richard Nixon, Harry Chapin, John Lewis, Tony Kushner, Arianna Huffington, and Robert Redford. Our Annual Convention is also an opportunity for peer groups interested arts education, cultural diversity, emerging leaders, public art, and more to meet each year to connect and share their work.

Boston is a city with a rich history and proud tradition of revolutionary transformation that is now reinventing itself as a center for technology, education, and development. As art and culture in America comes to a similar crossroads, Boston—the foundation of democracy—provides the grounding to explore a future where all voices may be heard, and where we learn from our past to serve as leaders of the changes to come. Join us this June to reflect on where we’ve come from and map out where we’re going, as we march toward healthier, more vibrant, and more equitable communities created through the arts.

This year’s Annual Convention explores the role of the arts in creating and sustaining healthy, vibrant, equitable communities. It is organized around five core themes:

Driving Change: How can the arts fuel revolution?
Empowering People: What does it take to empower individuals?
Owning Equity: How do we learn and lead in the pursuit of equity?
Crossing Divides: Where and how can the arts permeate and impact other parts of civic life?
Building Skills: What are the primary skills needed to succeed in the arts today?”

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Elizabeth Alexander  

When: On view June 8 – July 17, 2016

Opening Reception: Friday June 3rd, 2016

Where: Boston Sculptors Gallery, 486 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118

How: Official Website 

Also on view..

Peter DeCamp Haines

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UMass Dartmouth: MFA Thesis Exhibition

When: On view June 1 – 26, 2016

Opening Reception: Friday, June 3 6-830 pm

Where: Bromfield Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA, 02118

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “The UMass Dartmouth 2016 MFA Thesis Exhibition is an annual event showcasing the artwork of graduating students from the College of Visual and Performing Arts. This large-scale exhibition consists of a wide variety of media including painting, drawing, sculpture, digital and moving images, software application design, as well as intricately made jewelry that utilizes both text and unusual contemporary materials.

The range of themes is equally diverse; explorations of personal and cultural identity, feelings of loss, intimacy, memories and dreams as well as examinations of formal and conceptual space.

The 2016 exhibition includes the creative efforts of UMass Dartmouth MFA degree candidates in the visual arts.”

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Bill Thompson

When: On view through June 11, 2016

Where: Carroll and Sons Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118

How: Official Website 

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Rico Gatson – Power Lines

When: On view June 3 through July 17, 2016

Where: Samson Projects, 450 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118

How: Official Website

What/Why: “Robustly chromatic, visually potent, at times compositionally labyrinthine and physically imposing, Rico Gatson’s mixed-media paintings, sculptures and collage-centric drawings are always, thanks in part to their carefully honed economy of forms and means, declarative, assertive and indelible—and unmistakably, unwaveringly his. On levels aesthetic and conceptual alike, Gatson does not imbue, but rather inundates his works with definitive, invariable force, executing them with just enough colorful vibrancy, linear keenness and mystical curiosity as to allow his viewers to almost—yet only almost, and this is crucial—miss or overlook their certainly important, equally cogent, subtly layered, variably strident socio-political content.

All of this has been true of Gatson’s work for quite a while, but it is now much more so in the new series of mixed-media pieces he has produced for Power Lines, a solo exhibition at Samsøñ. The artist’s characteristic palette of patently Africana-associative chromatics—bright reds, greens and goldish yellows often framed, interrupted by or sectioned off with swaths of deeply flat or slightly lustrous blacks, all arranged in variable abstractions that might even, at times, feature embedded texts—has become bolder, brighter, richer and punchier than ever, and thicker sections of color and black alike make his compositions register as weightier, more declarative, somehow exigent. Some pieces, however, especially a fresh new series of small panels, as well as certain tall, lean-to like sculptural works, Panel Paintings, evidence Gatson taking a bit further his recent explorations of chromatic switchings—transposing the complementary balancing he usually achieves via reds and greens with value-like harmonies via purples and greys, maintaining his lush warm yellow to keep the violets at bay.”

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Joan Baldwin: The Marshes

When: On view June 1-26, 2016

Opening Reception: Friday June 3, 2016 5:30-8:00PM

Where: Kingston Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave, No. 43, Boston, MA 02118

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “The Marshes is a solo exhibition by Artist Member Joan Baldwin. The works imaginatively present saltwater marsh scenes, with birds, insects, mammals, reptiles, and fish going about their daily routines. Her vivid imagery reveals a keen eye for detail and composition as well as her background in illustration, and her subjects demonstrate her sense of humor and appreciation for the setting where she draws inspiration, the Nauset marshes at Cape Cod. The resulting imagery incorporates a range of wildlife in surreal scenes that hint at larger narratives.”

Also on view..

Ellen Solari: Forest Primeval

 

 

What/Why: “Ellen Solari’s solo exhibition, forest primeval, conjures a sense of mystery and at times unease by integrating the functional tradition of basket weaving with the expressive capabilities of sculpture. Now focused on sculptural baskets, Solari has a background in painting. She discovered the world of textiles several years ago after learning how to knit.

Her works combine traditional and found materials, such as rusted wire and old rubber tubing, with rushes and small branches. With traditional techniques such as coiling and simple weaving, Solari works the materials so that the texture, color, and materials inform one other. Many of the sculptures continue to hold functional shapes, but they also bend and reach in ways that hint at multiple interpretations and invite paradox.”

Also on view..

Conny Golz-Schmitt: Reconsidered

What/Why: “In Conny Gölz-Schmitt’s exhibition, Reconsidered, a new group of mixed media works incorporates silk painting and collage. Beeswax infused silk creates a protective shield over collages built out of vintage book papers.

The collages provide structure and support for the silk paintings and a basis for their composition. They include distorted text, faded book papers and floral endpapers. Beneath the surface of the silk paintings there is this other world which becomes unfocused and fleeting like our past when we look back and try to remember.”

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Azita Moradkhani  Victorious Secrets

 

When: On view May 27 – July 2, 2016

Opening Reception: Friday, June 3rd, from 5:30 – 8:00pm

Where: Gallery Kayafas, 450 Harrison Avenue #37 Boston, MA 02118

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “We are pleased to be exhibiting Azita Moradkhani’s, Victorious Secrets.

Born in Tehran where she was exposed to Persian art and culture as well as Iranian politics, Moradkhani developed a profound sensitivity to the dynamics of the vulnerability and violence.

Drawings of intimate lingerie—beautiful, delicate, and seductive—uses an aesthetics of pleasure to shift our focus to possibility, to hope.  Yet as we look more closely, through the layers of colored pencil, past the details of lace and filigree, disruptive iconography become apparent, narrating inherited histories of nation and belief, engaging us in more complex ways.

Similar to her drawings, Moradkhani’s body casts are extraordinarily beautiful.  By casting her own body, she places herself in a vulnerable situation which challenges her own belief systems.  She again mixes imagery—tattoos of memory and history—to emphasize both inter- and dis-connections between sexual representation and national identity, between the public and the private.“

Also on view..

Nicole Buchanan In The Skin I’m

What/Why: “Nicole Buchanan’s In the Skin I’m In is a project which began when she was at the Rhode Island School of Design.  Arriving at RISD from Atlanta, she set about to network and use photography as a way to bring students and colleagues together. Through the school registrar, Buchanan sent an email to all RISD under grad and graduate students asking if they identified as African or African American to contact her if they were interested in having their portrait made. 92 students responded and of those, 50 had their portraits made.

The portraits are in a square format.  They are all lit in the same manner.  The subjects are seen from the shoulders up…free of clothing and other indicators that would imply religious, social or economic status. We see only the occasional earring, tattoo, scar, or glasses.  The resulting portrait, empty of most visual clues, allows the viewer to concentrate on the sameness – which is also the difference – the color of one’s skin.

In The Skin I’m In, I wanted to give a voice to the students who identify as being African, African American and from the African Diaspora at the Rhode Island School of Design. Our race plays a role in the perception of our work whether we want it to or not. Incorporating our dual identities as black students and artists in describing our experience of underrepresentation and micro aggressions that occur not only in the classroom but on campus. Additionally, challenging the stereotype of males being viewed as, criminals and thugs, similarly how women are over sexualized in the media. This plays into effect in racially profiling by the police and everyday society. Giving a voice to these students who are underrepresented and silenced is the most important thing in doing this project.  NB 2016

Another consequence of Buchanan’s In The Skin I’m In, was how it became a catalyst to recognize and discuss racial inequality at the school… those who participated became a community of friends and colleagues.”

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Barbara Grad: Off Road

When: On view through July 5th, 2016

Opening Reception: June 3, 2016 6-8PM

Where: Miller Yezerski Gallery, 460 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA, 02118

How: Official Website 

Also on view..

Nathalie Miebach: The Little Ones

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Soo Sunny Park: Hybrid Objects

When: On view through Fri, Jun 3, 2016 5:00pm   Sun, Jul 3, 2016 6:00pm

Opening Reception: June 3, 2016, from 5 – 9 p.m.

Where: Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, 460 Harrison Ave, C7, Boston, MA 02118

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “Hybrid Objects explores the space between two and three dimensions through work which takes elements from both drawing and sculpture to create new forms. Soo Sunny Park’s work reconfigures and redefines aspects of different mediums to construct pieces which fall in between them.”

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Tala Madani: First Light

When: On view through July 17, 2016

Where:  MIT List, Hayden Gallery, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA

How: Official Website

What/Why: “Over the past ten years, Tehran-born and Los Angeles-based Tala Madani has developed a signature practice centered on playful yet provocative representations of men. Her paintings, drawings, and stop-motion animations—characterized by loose, expressive brushwork—combine a gestural figuration with mature and often disturbing subject matter. These bracingly deadpan works satirize conventional notions of masculinity, recasting the male figure in various scenarios that both mock virility and redistribute the dynamics of power. Bright pastel color fields form the ground for base group scenes in which balding, rotund, and mustachioed middle-aged men blindly follow each other in circles, undergo interrogation, and perform various humiliating acts. Unflinchingly scatological and abject, Madani’s works encourage a larger consideration of authority, desire, and shame.”

Also on view at the List..

Villa Design Group: Tragedy Machine

How: Official Website

What/Why: “Villa Design Group creates sculptures, videos, and scripted performances inspired by the formal languages of architecture, theater, and the decorative arts. The London-based collective—comprised of Than Hussein Clark, James Connick, and William Joys—seeks to create a “theater of design” inhabited by “queer objects.” These objects are embedded in speculative narratives that ask what it might mean for a thing, not a person, to be queer today.  

Tragedy Machine, Villa Design Group’s new body of work realized for the List Visual Arts Center, comprises sculptures and a four-act theatrical production imagining the potential of an automated machine or software with the ability to compose tragic and dramatic scripts. The exhibition includes three large-scale architectural installations, sculptural costumes, and lighting that considers this potential and also reflects the group’s interest in set design and staging.”

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Beacon Hill Art Walk

When: Sunday June 5, 2016 12:00-6:00PM

Where: Beacon Hill, Boston, MA

How: Official Website

What/Why:“The Beacon Hill Art Walk is an annual event that takes place on the first Sunday in June, throughout the nooks & crannies of Beacon Hill’s North Slope.

Residents open up their private gardens, alleyways, and courtyards and allow artists to display and sell their artwork. It is a chance for visitors to tour the private spaces of Beacon Hill while viewing original, handmade artwork. Thousands of people attend each year. It is a free popular event in the neighborhood, with a festive atmosphere and volunteer musicians playing in various gardens throughout the day.

Around 100 artists usually participate, with a variety of styles, media, and subject matter. As a visitor you will enjoy a unique atmosphere boasting bursts of colors at the background sound of live classical, klezmer, and folk music playing in various gardens throughout the day. Artists display a variety of styles, media, and subject matter.

Enjoy beautiful music as it resonates off the bricks in the gardens & courtyards of Beacon Hill during the Art Walk.  Music has become an integral part of the Art Walk, and each year dozens of talented musicians donate their time to play at the event.  Visitors enjoy a unique atmosphere boasting bursts of colors and the background sound of live Volunteer Musicians.  Groups have included Klezmer Ensembles, String Quartets, Folk Groups, Fiddle Groups, Native American Flute and more, which play in various gardens and spaces throughout the day.”

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George Shaw, Ruth Lague, Ed Friedman

When: On view through June 26, 2016

Opening Reception: Friday June 3, 2016 6-8PM

Where: Galatea Fine Art, 460 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118

How: Official Website 

What/Why: Learn more about the exhibitions here!

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Grounded

When: On view through June 26, 2016

Where: Boston Cyberarts, 9 Myrtle St, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “Boston Cyberarts Gallery is pleased to present Grounded, an exhibition that explores the use of technology in contemporary art. In electrical terminology ‘grounded’ is the state of being connected to the earth. As an adjective, ‘grounded’ can also mean sensible, realistic, and unpretentious. New media is sometimes considered the most outré of art forms, but the dynamic nature of technology provides artists with a unique platform to substantively consider current events and the nature of the modern world. In Garden Rooms, Sophia Sobers attempts to reconnect people with the natural world by creating 3D scans of plants and rendering them into digital narratives. By training the world to jump synchronously, Total Jump attempts to accomplish world peace. Mark Stock implements computational physics to simulate the core of a supernova that is then represented as a sculptural object inChaotic Escape (m70).

Artists in this exhibition include: Betsy Connors, Amber Davis Tourlentes, Joseph Farbrook, Caitlin Foley and, Misha Rabinovich, Raquel Fornasaro, Simón García-Miñaúr, Ryan Kuo, Dennis H. Miller, Nick Montfort, Brooke Scibelli, Matthew Shanley, Sophia Sobers, and Mark Stock.”

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Joan Backes – Paper House

When: On view May 7th-June 18th, 2016

Opening Reception: May 7, 6-9PM

Where: Yellow Peril Gallery, 60 Valley St, Providence, RI 02909

How: Official Website

What/Why:“Yellow Peril Gallery is pleased to announce Paper House by Joan Backes, featuring a luminous mixed media house installation covered in recycled, shredded paper that incorporates natural specimens with industrial elements and LED lights, in addition to recycled wood paintings from her Art Source Artist Residency in Australia and related works poised in a space between nature and the built environment; between the allure of surface and revelatory layers of meaning; between the contemporary present and deep-seated connections to her past. Backes is an internationally renowned artist, and has shown in Germany, Scotland, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, Thailand, Canada, Argentina, and Chile, along with numerous places in the United States. Her work carefully examines the tree as a material and a concept. She dissects the tree almost obsessively, and looks at every physical and conceptual aspect, creating carpets of laminated leaves, painting detailed and accurate images of bark, taking crayon and graphite bark rubbings, and building installations and sculptures out of limbs and branches. Because of the universality of the tree as a symbol across cultures and generations, the resulting work touches a primal part of human imagination, and recalls a broad spectrum of literature, folklore, and art. Paper House (2007-2016) welcomes visitors into Backes’ artistic heart and home. After stepping through the door, viewers will see an interior featuring samples of amber, slices of fossilized bark and jars filled with acorns, dried leaves and seedpods. The luminous quality of the house underscores the idea that nature illuminates human lives with beauty, shelter and sustenance. This concept is illustrated through shreds of recycled computer paper that covers the house – the ordinary office variety. We may touch the stuff everyday, and even in our technology-saturated society, paper is still abundant around us. Paper House takes it as its most obvious building material, and reminds us that these document shreds are but trees in another form. Nature appears in many disguises. “The charming exterior of Paper House beckons us inside, and our attention is drawn even deeper,” notes Katherine Murrell, Art History Lecturer, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. “It is like a visual laboratory, a place for examining and considering the niches of objects and collections, retrieved from unknown origins and presented for examination. Not just a place of repose, this house has an intellectually engaged purpose.” In her work, Backes encourages us to enjoy the beauty of nature, but also to pay attention to the experience of it. The aesthetic values in her work are a way of connecting with the viewer, and as she describes it, “a way of bringing people toward the art.”

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Block Parts

When: On view June 11, 2016 – July 30, 2016

Where: Barbara Krakow Gallery, 10 Newbury Street, Boston, MA

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “Featuring works by
Josef Albers
Robert Barry
Michael Beatty
Mel Bochner
Ellsworth Kelly
Allan McCollum
Liliana Porter
Stephen Prina
Kate Shepherd
Richard Smith
Ana Tiscornia”

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Deborah Liljegren: Me, Myself and I

When: On view through July 3, 2016

Opening Reception: Saturday, June 4 from 5:30-7:30 PM.

Where: Uforge Gallery, 767 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain, MA

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “A one-woman exhibition featuring the recent work of Framingham-born artist Deborah Liljegren is opening on June 2, 2016 at Uforge Gallery in Jamaica Plain. Titled, “Me, Myself and I,” the show has three distinct themes and, as Liljegren observes, “it seems like the work of multiple artists…or perhaps multiple personalities.”

Included are paintings that make use of glass, light and changing points of view to create a visual experience that morphs from the obvious to the unexpected. This theme is titled “Symbology.” The second, “A New View,” is composed of archival pigment prints of her recent photographs. The third theme, “Miss Pickford,” is a series of mixed media shadow boxes that tell a story woven from history and whimsy.   

Liljegren believes photography is in her blood: her grandfather was a photographer and her parents met as photography students, she grew up surrounded by  cameras and film. She learned that she enjoyed the challenge of working with limited light, such as her underwater series, and translating it through her lens to scenes with a calming effect. After graduating from UMass Amherst and living in Boston, Liljegren currently resides in New York City where she has participated in a number of gallery shows at venues such as the Sragow Gallery, 380 Gallery and the Eostre Art Collective.

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John C Gonzalez – Works Well With Others

When: On view May 7 through June 12th, 2016

Opening Reception: Friday May 6, 5:30PM

Where: David Winston Bell Gallery, 64 College Street, Providence, RI

How: Official Website

What/Why: “A cabin for artist residencies, a restaurant menu reimagined as a family meal, a series of self-portraits — John C Gonzalez makes things with other people. Broadly concerned with processes of collaboration, the visibility of labor, and exchange relationships, Gonzalez’s project-based artworks involve painting, sculpture, and performance and emerge from the daily routines of the institutions and organizations into which he is invited. Works well with others is the first retrospective of Gonzalez’s collaborative projects—many not previously exhibited—and premiers a new project, a garden built inside the Bell Gallery with landscapers who often work with Brown University.”

Learn more about the exhibition here

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Ugo Rondinone: Moonrise Sculptures 

When: On view through September 11, 2016

Where: ICA Boston, 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA 02210

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “Best known for his large-scale sculptures and installations, Ugo Rondinone (born 1964, Brunnen, Switzerland) works in a diverse range of media, including drawing, painting, photography, and video. Rondinone’s series Moonrise—his first figurative sculptures—are eight-foot-high busts derived from masks. Modeled in clay before being cast in aluminum and painted, the sculptures show the enduring marks of the artist’s hand. Rondinone has long been interested in the subject of time, and he represents it here by the relationship between moon, tide, and calendar: each of the twelve sculptures in the series was made in homage to the moon and is named after a month of the calendar year. Two of the twelve are on view here. These monumental visages, with playfully distorted faces that smile and grimace, convey a kind of uncanny romanticism, welcoming wonder and empathy in equal measure.

Installed outside of the ICA, MOONRISE. east. april and MOONRISE. east. may, both from 2005, will welcome visitors to the ICA all summer long.”

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Sean Townley: 7 Diadems / Red Ankhhafs

When: On view through July 31, 2016

Where: Museum of Fine Arts, Avenue of the Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “For his first museum solo exhibition, Los Angeles-based sculptor Sean Townley was drawn to molds produced by conservators to aid in preserving two ancient sculptures from the MFA’s collection. Collaborating with Museum staff, Townley created fragmentary copies of the two masterworks: the bust of Prince Ankhhaf from Egypt’s Old Kingdom and the monumental Roman Juno. In doing so, Townley has crafted new, original works of contemporary art using technologies designed to create copies and reconstruct losses. Reproduced in multiples in Townley’s studio and displayed in lines to stress the repetition of forms, the sculptures 7 Diadems and Red Ankhhafs reference a moment in the mid-20th century when artists began to create their work industrially rather than making it themselves. Their installation mirrors that of the ancient works in another wing across the museum—as if Townley’s works were extensions of the originals, and his studio practice an extension of the work the Museum does to preserve them.

One of the world’s oldest sculpted portraits, the  bust of Prince Ankhhaf  was originally created as place where the spirit of the depicted could reside following his death. Townley sees his sculptures as one way to continue such an embodiment, focusing on how we experience the essence of this work thousands of years later. In ancient Roman art, a diadem is a symbol of sovereignty that adorns sculptures of royalty or gods—an object that is difficult to examine when featured on a monument so tall. Townley’s floor-based work grants the reverse perspective of Juno’s head and diadem, or crown, showcasing how the Museum is a forum for multiple viewpoints on art history.”

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Matthew Ritchie

When: On view through June 18, 2016

Where: Montserrat College of Art, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “In an era defined by the constant presence of information, Matthew Ritchie creates a snapshot of the interconnected structures that permeate modern living. Through a combination of techniques ranging from painting, to digital manipulation, to sculptures cut from sheet metal, layers of visual forms become a response to the questions Ritchie asks himself: “How do you escape the pattern that’s imposed on you by the physical order of the universe? How do you make the imaginative leap?”

The context that the art comes from is integral to the experience of the work, inviting viewers to analyze it beyond an aesthetic level. In each piece, Ritchie deals directly with information. He draws heavily from research and philosophy to distill a multiplicity of conceptual inquiries into brief moments of connection. The work often incorporates themes such as particle physics, non-linear narrative structures, games of chance, and the use of science as a tool in theological debate. Each new project builds upon an encyclopedic body of work juxtaposing the vastness of the universe with the man-made belief systems that attempt to comprehend it.”

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Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community

When: On view through July 10th, 2016

Special Event: Performing Threads, June 7, 6:30PM

Where: Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont St, Boston, MA 02116

How: Official Website 

What/Why:“Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community takes you places that you and your sewing never thought to go.” —Holland Cotter, The New York Times Boston Center for the Arts presents Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community, featuring 26 artists from four continents who remix fiber and textile craft traditions and materials to explore contemporary lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer identities and ideas. On view April 29 through July 10. Queer Threads is brought to you in partnership with the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. For more information on Queer Threads  “The artists in Queer Threads…mobilize craft and its techniques in an eclectic and campy disruption of identity categories and to imagine collective modes of gender and sexual self-determination.” —Jeanne Vaccaro, Journal of Modern Craft”

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Profiles Work by Lavaughan Jenkins and Gary Duehr

When: On view through June 30, 2016

Opening Reception: Friday June 3, 6PM-8:30PM

Where: Lens Gallery, 524 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “The portraiture work of Lavaughan Jenkins and Gary Duehr explores the concepts of identity and race during a time of social upheaval and civil unrest.”

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National Prize Show

When: On view through June 23, 2016

Where: Cambridge Art Association, 25 Lowell St, Cambridge, MA 02138

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “Kathryn Schultz and University Place Gallery, 15th National Prize Show | Juried by Paul C. Ha, Director of List Visual Arts Center at MIT”

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Taking In: LUCAD Photography

(Hannah Richman, Polka Dotted)

When: On view June 3-June 26, 2016

Opening Reception: Friday June 3rd, 6-8PM

Where: Laconia Gallery, 433 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “Taking In is a student run project featuring a selection of work created by students attending Lesley University College of Art and Design. The project focuses on the business of promoting works of art created by LUCAD Students and culminates each year with a juried exhibition, publication and website. The selected pieces were chosen anonymously by a jury of distinguished members of the Boston art community.”

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The Creative Process 2016

When: On view through June 18, 2016

Where: New Art Center, 61 Washington Park, Newtonville, MA 02460

How: Official Website 

What/Why: Learn more about the exhibition here.

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Geographically Indeterminate Fantasies: The Animated Gif as Place

When: On view through July 2nd, 2016

Opening Reception: Saturday June 4, 6-10PM

Where: GRIN Gallery, 60 Valley St #3, Providence, RI 02909

How: Official Website

What/Why: “In conjunction with Providence College—Galleries’ inaugural online exhibition, we are pleased to announce Geographically Indeterminate Fantasies: The Animated GIF as Place. Guest curated by critics from the renowned arts blog Art F City , this IRL component will feature a selection of the 25 artists who use animated GIFs to present fully-realized environments. This exhibition serves as both a vision of artists’ new worlds, and as a document of our own reality’s aspirations and anxieties.

The show tracks a number of themes: the city as a network of personal and social spaces, the personification of the landscape as avatar, the browser or more broadly, the digital as space, and the ubiquitous battlefield. The artists assembled use a variety of techniques to address these subjects ranging from 3D rendered work to collage and video-sourced GIFs. Additionally, Providence College—Galleries, under the advisement of Art F City, commissioned new works for the occasion, all by established artists working in the field—Jonathan Monaghan, Giselle Zatonyl, Brenna Murphy and Clement Valla present landscape GIFs, while artist and writer Claire Evans presents a related reading list.”

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Arien Wilkerson | Choreography

When: June 20 through June 25 2016

Where: EBK Gallery, 218 Pearl Street, Hartford, CT

How: Official Website 

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Melange

When: On view June 9 through July 29, 2016

Opening Reception: Friday June 9 6-10PM

Where: Lot F Gallery, 145 Pearl St, Boston, MA 02110

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “This summer, Lot F Gallery is excited to host “Melange”, a group exhibition with four emerging, local artists. Running June 9th through July 29th, the show will feature Allison Bamcat, Elizabeth Kirby Sullivan, Nineta and Tess Barbato. Each artist has made new works, and were given free reign to explore what they are most excited about creating currently. The public is welcome to the opening reception on Thursday, June 9th, from 6-10 pm, to kickoff the exhibition. ” Learn more here!

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Elements

When: On view through June 18, 2016

Opening Reception: May 6, 5-9PM

Where: Gold Gallery, 460C Harrison Ave, #18, Boston, MA 02118

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “Artists Joerg Dressler and Christie Scheele both engage with and challenge the tradition of landscape painting in Gold Gallery’s exhibition Elements. Dressler’s pieces reflect on what he calls the “unpredictability and mysteries of nature”— the “inherently tame and wild, soothing and disturbing, exciting and frightening, just and unjust…all at once.” His observations of our modern day relationship to nature, as a second hand experience, inspire his choices of shape, gesture, color and division within his pieces. Scheele creates a minimalist representation of a place, where a scene is reduced to it’s essentials, leaving out distractions and visual clutter. This allows the viewer to react to the atmospheric quality made by the soft edges and thoughtful color choices.”

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The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer

When: On view through June 26, 2016

Where: Davis Museum, Wellesley College, 106 Central St, Wellesley, MA 02481

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “This spring, the Davis Museum proudly presents The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer, the first museum retrospective dedicated to the work of a single video game maker. Rohrer’s work is deft, engaging, and often surprisingly moving. It refers to a diverse set of cultural influences ranging from the fiction of Borges to Black Magic; at the same time, it also engages pressing emotional, intellectual, philosophical, and social issues. Rohrer’s substantial recognition, which has included feature coverage in Wired, Esquire and The Wall Street Journal, as well as inclusion in MoMA’s initial videogame acquisition, has been built on a singularly fascinating body of games. These range from the elegantly simple—such as Gravitation (2008), a game about flights of creative mania and melancholy—to others of Byzantine complexity.  The exhibition will feature four large build-outs that translate Rohrer’s games into unique spatial experiences, alongside a section dedicated to exploring a large body of his work.

Curated by Michael Maizels, Mellon New Media Art Curator/Lecturer at the Davis, with an exhibition catalogue featuring contributions from University of Chicago game studies scholar  Patrick Jagoda, distributed by MIT Press. The exhibition, catalogue, and related programs are generously supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with additional funds provided by Wellesley College Friends of Art.”

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Jeppson Idea Lab: The Art of Combat

When: On view through September 4, 2016

Where: Worcester Art Museum, 55 Salisbury St, Worcester, MA 01609

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “One of the many treasures acquired by the Worcester Art Museum as part of the Higgins Armory collection is a rare original copy of Joachim Meyer’s sixteenth-century swordplay manual, The Art of Combat (Die Kunst des Fechtens). This work, recently published in translation by WAM’s Curator of Arms and Armor, is one of the most important sources for modern swordfighters who are today reviving the combat arts of medieval and Renaissance Europe. In 2015 the museum also acquired an equally rare two-hand fencing sword of the type used by Meyer, one of only three examples known to be in the Americas. This exhibition will display both objects—the sword for the first time in public—with video and interactives to bring their world to life.”

Also on view..

Blood and Honey

When: On view June 8 – November 6, 2016

How: Official Website

What/Why: “Amid the numerous photographs of the conflict in Yugoslavia, Ron Haviv’s work stands out as a unique record of the conflict, from its beginnings in 1991 to the hostilities in Macedonia. From the front-line trenches to the refugees behind them, his images capture both the urgency and tragedy of war. Blood and Honey is an enduring testament to the horrors that the Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, and Kosovar Albanians perpetrated against each other as a result of ancient enmities and modern political manipulation.”

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Family Outing

When: On view June 2 through July 9, 206

Opening Reception: Saturday June 11, 5 – 8 PM

Where: 555 Gallery, 555 E 2nd St, Boston, MA 02127

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “In the months to come, as we prepare to honor mothers and fathers, and make plans for summer events with family and friends, we are pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition, Family Outing, featuring the work of photographers Astrid Reischwitz, Gail Samuelson and Alysia Macaulay. Each artist presents work skillfully sourced and crafted from family archives and the currency of their memory banks.”

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Porter Mill Open Studios

When: Saturday June 4th, 11 AM – 5 PM

Where: Studios at Porter Mill, 95 Rantoul Street, Beverly, MA 01915

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “Our Open Studios is coming to Porter Mill! Come in and explore the historic Porter Mill building- see the studios of a multitude of amazing artists of various media, purchase unique works of art, and stop by our gallery to see the “Art of Porter Mill” show! Porter Mill is located on 95 Rantoul Street, Beverly MA 01915! “

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Coolidge Corner Arts Festival 

When: Saturday June 4, 10am-6pm

Where: 345 Harvard St Brookline, MA

How: Official Website

What/Why: “Spend the day perusing the work of over 75 artists at the Coolidge Corner Arts Festival.”

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Fort Point Festival 

When: Sunday June 5, 12-4pm

How: Official Website

What/Why: “Friends of Fort Point Channel is proud to present the first annual Fort Point Festival. We are celebrating everything Fort Point, featuring food tasting from local restaurants, an outdoor Trillium Brewing beer garden, arts & crafts, live music, plus a corn hole competition!

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Emerge

When: On view through July 9th, 2016

Where: 13 Forest Gallery, 167A Massachusetts Ave, Arlington, MA 02474

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “3FOREST Gallery is pleased to presentEmerge, an exhibition featuring work by contemporary artists Dena Bach, Christopher Frost, Raúl Gonzalez III, Nancy Popper,Michael Seif and Mark J. Stock. Emerge seeks to explore the changing identities, thoughts and forms that take shape in an unpredictable world.

Through various media, Emerge presents the work of six artists and their unique interpretations on the theme of transformation—be it mythical, cultural, intellectual or physical. Inspired by the Japanese legend of “kitsune,” foxes of exceptional intelligence that could shape-shift into human forms, Emerge is a meditation on metamorphoses in settings both commonplace and supernatural.

While Emerge considers dualities such as environmental versus human manipulation of materials, it also investigates more nuanced spectra of private and public personas, and form and formlessness. This exhibition is dedicated to unity with an eye toward truths that remain hidden and others that emerge.“

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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (The Shrug Show)

When: On view June 17, – July 9, 2016

Closing Reception: Saturday, July 9th, 6-8pm

Where: Dorchester Art Project, 1486 Dorchester Ave, Boston, MA 02122

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “The symbol   ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄ expresses something that has always been with us, a combination of human expression and movement that predates the written word. But this symbol is also very much of its time, a representation of the current zeitgeist. Because it is sited in multiple languages,  ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄  is difficult to type if one has not downloaded the appropriate alphabets, but the symbol is replicated instantly through copy and paste.This lifting and re­fitting of text from different sources makes it something that can only exist in our global, internet­ inflected world.

Although it is only line, we each come to individualized understandings of   ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄ , artists and viewers alike. The meanings encompassed in   ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄ run from apathy to zen, with many potential interpretive stops along the way.  ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄ is a jumping ­off point, not an absolute definition. The artists of   ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄ each respond to the symbol in their own way, through media ranging from sculpture, painting and video to the hand drawn image.

Artists: Allison Cekala, Aaron John Bourque, Cody Justus, Greg Lookerse, Tim McCool, Michael McMahon, Christian Meade, Samara Pearlstein, Gianna Stewart, Julie Weaver”

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In2016

When: Saturday June 4th, 5:00PM

Where: iartcolony, 42 Broadway, Rockport, Massachusetts 01966

How: Official Website

What/Why: “the invasion of Cape Ann has begun. new visions. 
new visionaries

Ola Aksan
Aaron John Bourque
Brian Burkhardt
Stephen St. Francis Decky
Andrew Houle
Cody Justus
Sawool Kim
Greg Lookerse
Andrew K. Pepper
Molly Segal”

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Conversation: Art in the Public Space

When: June 7, 2016 6:00PM

Where: Le Laboratoire Cambridge, 650 East Kendall St., Cambridge, MA

How: Official Website

What/Why: “What is the role and impact of art in public spaces? What are the implications for contemporary artists creating work for spaces that are “always open?” The Trustees’ landscapes, rich in cultural, historical and natural context, provide platforms for inspiration and meaning. This year, The Trustees will launch a multi-year initiative called Art & the Landscape with contemporary art installations at four of its most iconic sites. Led by Guest Curator Pedro Alonzo, the Art & the Landscape project presents compelling contemporary art in the context of a public landscape. Join us for a conversation moderated by Jared Bowen, WGBH Arts Editor.Guest Curator Pedro Alonzo will preview two of the four projects planned, while also talking about how organizations present unique and new opportunities for visitors to experience contemporary art.”

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Extraordinary Playscapes

When: On view through September 5, 2016

Opening Reception: June 8 from 6:00–8:00 pm.

Where: BSA Space, 290 Congress Street, Suite 200, Boston, MA 02210

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “Don’t miss the opening reception for Extraordinary Playscapes, on June 8 from 6:00–8:00 pm.

Today, outdoor play faces tough competition—from electronics, overscheduling, declining recess time, and lack of access to safe play spaces. Additionally, safety and liability concerns overshadow the conversation around play’s central role in enhancing children’s physical, emotional, and social development. Concerned that unstructured play might become a thing of the past, many architects, designers, and play advocates continue to explore the importance of well-designed public spaces that allow balanced, creative, and active play.

By examining the history and science of play—including 40 notable examples of playground design by international leading experts—this exhibition will explore how designers translate play objectives into innovative environments.

Curated by Design Museum Boston, Extraordinary Playscapes will include playable installations, videos, scale models, and hands-on elements for viewers as they explore the art, history, and science behind the world of play. Come find your inner kid and heart, and try your hand on some of the climbable, playable playscapes within the space!

Exhibition visitors are encouraged to experiment with a massive Imagination Playground foam block set in BSA Space. Imagination Playground sets include modular bricks and cylinders accented with chutes, channels and parts that suggest motion or connectivity. They inspire children (and adults) to design their own inventions, environments and activities.

In addition, don’t miss the temporary PlayCubes installation now featured at Chinatown Park, also featured in the exhibition! Playcubes are flexible and innovative play objects offering endless opportunities for open-ended play.

Exhibition programs include public discussions with playscape design experts, workshops for adults and children, and a Playground Passport promoting actual play spaces in the neighborhoods of Boston.  Kiosks at each playground will tell the story behind some of greater Boston’s most amazing playgrounds: who designed it, what strategies it is using, and more. Pick up a playground passport at the exhibition or a participating playground and take the tour this summer!”

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Arthur Henderson @ VERY

When:  June 11-12 and June 18-19, noon- 5pm, or by appointment throughout June

Opening Reception: Friday June 10, 6-10 pm

Where: VERY, 59 Wareham Street, Boston, MA

How: Website currently being built by Penny.

What/Why: “Boston’s newest gallery VERY opens its doors for the first time Friday, June 10 from 6-10 pm.  Featuring new sculptural work by Arthur Henderson. 59 Wareham Street, Boston, MA.  Hours: June 11-12 and June 18-19, noon- 5pm, or by appointment throughout June.”

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Friday Face

When: On view through July 1, 2016

Where: French Cultural Alliance, 53 Marlborough St, Boston, MA 02116

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “FRIDAY FACE – a year in Boston is the result of a year-long experiment in spontaneous paintings and interviews led by French artist Aurélie Galois. The project was conceived in late 2014 after Aurélie Galois had completed her one-woman exhibition United Icons of America at the Sloane Merrill Gallery in Boston. Once a week, the artist would do a quick, small-palette portrait of whichever person she happened to be most interested in at that moment, accompany it with a brief handwritten text explaining who the person was, and post it online. The process was rapid, informal and an immediate success. Using a Brookline’s coffee shop as the first centre for her operation, Galois had no problem finding subjects, and her subjects had no problem telling her who they were. They began to appear one every Friday to become the Friday Face.”

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Stephen Wilkes –  Day to Night

When: On view through July 1 , 2016

Where: Robert Klein Gallery, 38 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116

How: Official Website

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Charlotte Andry Gibbs

When: On view through June 18, 2016

Opening Reception: June 3, 2016 5-8PM

Where: Beth Urdang, 460 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118

How: Official Website

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In Progress: Performing Grief 

When: On view through June 11, 2016

Closing Reception: June 3, 5-9pm

Where: How’s Howard, 450 Harrison Ave, Suite 309c, Boston, MA 02118

How: Official Website

What/Why: “How’s Howard? is pleased to present a solo project by Leah Craig. In Progress: Performing Grief is an examination of grief: its potentialities, performances and progressions.

Given Craig’s cultural disconnection from religious ceremonies and rituals around grief, she has found her personal experience within contemporary U.S. secular society to be stifling. Specifically, Craig sees mourning (the public expression of grief) as often limited to formal sacred spaces and practices.

In Progress: Performing Grief unitizes Craig’s personal experience with grief. She invites a dialogue about what warrants public mourning, and which performances are socially acceptable. As a means of processing loss, Craig weaves cuttings of her hair and clothing, along with a deconstructed burial shroud, into a tapestry that is at once a mourning cloth and a repository of grief artifacts. Craig believes in the potential of ritual to heal and of shared vulnerability to humanize. She seeks collaboration through intimate transactions of cutting hair and clothing from her body. These improvisations create meaningful space for progression through and performance of grief.

The death of Craig’s father was the point of departure. All materials and details in this exhibition are directly tied to her experience of her loss. In Progress: Performing Grief was derived from the phrase “Quiet please, life transition in progress”, a sign which was taped to the door of his hospital room as he was in the process of dying. The clothing Craig wears in the performance has gone unwashed and unworn since the hours Craig spent wearing them beside her father until his final transition. The loom and warp thread installed in the gallery are sized to allow for a tapestry that is the approximate height and breadth of her father’s body. Craig’s hair (uncut since this significant loss) is an artifact of this transitional experience and the period that follows – a tangible reminder of that swath of time.”

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Stephanie McMahon | Close to Me

When: On view through July 31,2016

Opening Reception: Friday June 3, 6-9PM

Where: T+H Gallery, C19 + C20 460 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA

How: Official Website

What/Why: “T+H Gallery is pleased to present Close to Me, a solo exhibition of new work by Stephanie McMahon, comprised of intimate and electrifying small to large-scale oil paintings.  This is her first show in Boston, on view at 460 Harrison Ave, C19 & 20.

Close to Me refers to the gestural nature and immediacy of the paintings, but also to the environment around the artist’s home in rural Alfred, New York.  McMahon explores an abstract language informed by the natural forms and structures that populate the landscape and the history and experiences that shaped that particular place –from the surrounding fields and undulating hills and ravines to the hidden treasures left behind by the original landowner who made sculptures and land art.  Weaving in and out of referential forms and colors, McMahon allows space for new ideas to emerge in the painting process.  Geometric and organic forms merge as gesture and color create tension, revealing both transitory and measured time.  The finished pieces not only reference the event of painting, but they are active spaces for visual exploration.

McMahon’s effect is striking; her works are layered with vibrant color fields and shapes, with paint that is delicately and lightly applied, but manage to provide tremendous depth.  Each painting can shift abruptly as it develops, challenging one’s sense of time and resolve.  The result is both tangible and fleeting as unexpected and precarious relationships emerge between the thin, translucent layers.  Gestural brushstrokes impart physicality yet glide weightlessly over smooth surfaces as figure ground relationships oscillate and conflate. McMahon’s work encourages intuitive and contradictory responses, creating an active image that fluctuates between deliberate and incidental. The painting that emerges from this process is both raw and refined. Through painting, McMahon extracts and distills her observations in the tangible world while questioning and presenting the possibilities of visual experience and abstraction.”

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Solange Brand, China’s Cutural Revolution, 1966

When: On view through July 1, 2016

Where: Robert Klein Gallery @ Ars Libri, 500 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118

How: Official Website

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Residual Form

When: On view through June 26, 2016

Where: Nave Annex, 53 Chester St, Somerville, MA

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “Julia Curl, Ben Foley, Elizabeth Hatke, Rebecca Henriksen, Sharon Lacey, Edward Morin, Aaron Morse, Ted Ollier, Will Reeves , Rebecca Schnopp, Erika Schwarz, Jordan Stabile, Stephanie Todhunter, Morgen Van Vorst, Liz Welch, and Amelia Young”

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Kelly Goff, Emerald City

When: On view through July 17th, 2016

Where: Boston Children’s Museum, 308 Congress Street, Boston, MA

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “Emerald City” is a multi-media sculpture and video installation by local artist Kelly Goff that explores our relationship with natural and synthetic habitats. Goff presents three unique, life-sized tree forms, including a 6-foot hollow log constructed from thousands of individual pieces of scrap wood, three facsimiles of a large tree stump cast in concrete, and a suspended, 25-foot paper cast of a fallen cedar tree. Within these forms exist light, projected imagery, and a live video feed.

“The multimedia sculptural work Kelly Goff has created for his exhibit invites the audience into this fantastical magical land where anything is possible,” said Alice Vogler, Arts Program Manager.

Kelly Goff is a sculptor who re-imagines and rehabilitates commonplace objects, especially those that exist amid the conflict between our natural and constructed worlds. Raised on the island of Curaçao, a stone’s throw from the transparent Caribbean Sea, an oil refinery, and one of the busiest dry-docks in the Caribbean, Goff is deeply influenced by the tension produced as we consume, re-engineer, and discard the world that nourishes us. His work is often an attempt to elevate the marginalized or remedy symptoms of this conflict, even if daunted by the cause.

“In conceiving this exhibition for Boston Children’s Museum, I was excited by the task of creating new work that could both engage the sense of wonder I admire so much in children while challenging families to consider our place in the natural world,” said Goff. “Each sculpture has been quality tested by my own six-year-old.”

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Inuksuit

When: Sunday, June 12, 3:00–4:30pm

Where: Bussey Street Gate, Arnold Arboretum

How: Official Website

What/Why: “John Luther Adams’ Inuksuit, a large scale work for percussion 

On June 12, the Arnold Arboretum and Kadence Arts host the Boston premiere of Inuksuit —a 75 minute work for percussion ensemble that is designed to heighten awareness of the sights and sounds that surround us every day. 

Composed by Pulitzer Prize winner John Luther Adams and performed in major cities around the globe, this production will feature over 90 New England-based percussionists. The performers will be dispersed throughout the conifer collection of the Arnold Arboretum, and audience encouraged to wander the area. Inuksuit is deeply influenced by John Luther Adams’ belief that “music can contribute to the awakening of our ecological understanding.”

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Fort Point Spring Open Studios

When: Saturday & Sunday June 18-19, 12-6pm

Friday Preview: June 17 4-7pm

Where: Fort Point Arts Community, 300 Summer St, Boston, Massachusetts 02210

How: Official Website

What/Why:“Explore the historic waterfront warehouses that are home to painters, sculptors, ceramicists, jewelers, performance artists, fashion designers, printmakers, book artists, photographers, and more. Meet local artists and craftspeople, and get a behind the scenes look at where Boston artists create their work. Find established artists, and discover new emerging talents. Stroll, ponder, and browse. Buy original art from the people who make it. Visitors can explore artists’ buildings in the Fort Point neighborhood, plus galleries and creative design shops. All buildings are in easy walking distance of each other.”

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Altered Ephemera: Unearthing Histories of Racism and Acculturation

When: On view June 8 – July 9, 2016

Opening Reception: June 18, 7-9PM

Where: Distillery Gallery, 516 E 2nd St, Boston, MA 02127

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “We owe it to ourselves not to re-write history just because we take offense to it. Rather, by continually contextualizing what history has produced, we can better understand its intentional and unintentional impact and intent. Altering the context and format of historical works enables me to highlight the content and meaning of the original expression and provides understanding of the past in our present. I believe there is integrity to original materials and objects produced for/in another age, no matter how offensive I, or others, might find them to be (for example, black memorabilia or hate literature produced throughout the 19th and early 20th century).

Many individuals have denied historical events including the Armenian genocide, Darfur, the Holocaust, and the cruelties of American slavery. Often the only proof survivors and/or witnesses have are facts which can be leveraged in efforts to call for justice. We must for their sake, as much for ours, preserve history and remind others of any attempt to alter it.”

– James Ellis Coleman”

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Explode Every Day

When: On view through July 2016

Where: MASS MoCA, 1040 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA 01247

How: Official Website 

What/Why: “MASS MoCA curator Denise Markonish remarks, “a true state of wonder agitates, mesmerizes, and is almost forcible and shocking. It is a sudden intake of breath, a gaping mouth, a relinquishing of understanding.” As commonly used, “wonder” is sometimes mistaken for curiosity, which centers on the practice of fact-finding and explanation. In Explode Every Day: An Inquiry into the Phenomena of Wonder, viewers experience a purer state of wonder, a state of being poised between knowing and not knowing, and defined by an experience of something truly new.
Harnessing the idea of wonder as a thematic metaphor, the exhibition features both existing and new works by twenty-three international artists, each touching on certain facets of wonder, including: the perceptual/ visionary, the technological/scientific, the philosophical/meditative, time/cosmos, and illusion/fear.

Co-organized by Markonish and Columbus, Ohio-based artist Sean Foley, Explode Every Day was inspired by a course that Foley taught at Ohio State University and a long-running conversation between the co-curators. The title for the exhibition was inspired by the writer Ray Bradbury, who often spoke of the need to retain a sense of wonder: You remain invested in your inner child by exploding every day. You don’t worry about the future, you don’t worry about the past—you just explode.”

Also on view..

Alex da Corte: Free Roses

What/Why: “The New York Times dives into the immersive world of Alex Da Corte, in which the artist’s “riotous post-post-Pop sensibility” transforms MASS MoCA’s galleries into a “ravishing and terrifying” environment of sculpture and video installations.

Sebastian Smee writes, “Da Corte’s feeling for form and color, and his ability to squeeze a nonchalant poetry out of the most banal-seeming objects, is spellbinding.” Read the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic’s full review of Alex Da Corte: Free Roses in The Boston Globe.

Provocative, puzzling, and visually seductive, in his first museum survey Alex Da Corte’s neon-bright, exuberant works merge the languages of abstraction and modern design with banal, off-brand items, ranging from shampoo to soda to tchotchkes and household cleaning supplies. Acid-hued and organized with a rigorous formal logic, Da Corte’s mash-ups mine products of domestic life—which he finds on pilgrimages to supermarkets, flea markets, and dollar stores—for unexpected visual appeal as well as emotional and libidinous impact. Heir to Pop artists of the 1960s, Da Corte combines common consumer objects with popular culture, personal family narratives—and other artists’ work—in vibrant installations of sculptures, paintings, and videos. Taking over MASS MoCA’s second-floor galleries, Free Roses features a selection of works made over the last ten years, as well as a major new installation, which serves as a conceptual fulcrum for the entire show.”

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In addition to long list of art happenings, it’s been a great season for public art around the city as well!

Off the top of my head..

Caleb Neelon in Allston

Claudia Ravaschiere & Michael Moss on the Congress Street Bridge

Emily Eveleth and Amy MacDonald at the Boston Convention Center

Gianna Stewart on the Greenway

And these artists are all local; given the opportunity and resources to show work in the city they call home. This should always be the case.

My heart glows. Enjoy your June! ♥