fertile solitude x emergent behavior x a novel of relentless terror x future self
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*FERTILE SOLITUDE: FINAL WEEKEND
(Dana Filbert with Cig Harvey lurking in the background)
WHEN: On view through December 18, 2016
Gallery Hours: 12/16 + 12/17 12-9PM, 12/18 12-5PM
WHERE: Mills Gallery at Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont St, Boston, MA 02116
HOW: OFFICIAL WEBSITE
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS: Piper Brett, Caleb Cole, Emily Eveleth, Dana Filibert, Cig Harvey, Kyle Hittmeier, Annette Lemieux, Megan and Murray McMillan, Noritaka Minami, Hao Ni, Steven Pestana, Shelley Reed, Erin M. Riley and Sarah Wentworth
WHAT/WHY: “In the rush of everyday life, we occasionally need to hit pause (and reset), but even a moment’s peace can be hard to come by. This frenzy is often furthered by our mutually enabling relationship with technology and a self-inflicted state of constant connectivity. Unwilling to put down our phones to see a sunset, sharing our daily comings and goings with the ghosts in the machine, we self-sabotage our peaceful pursuits and further separate ourselves from ourselves.
Fertile Solitude hopes to offer a reprieve from the madding crowd, an oasis that coaxes us to look inward and take steps towards overcoming our widespread aversion to introspection.
Within the physical framework of a maze, exhibition visitors are left to go their own ways. Their journeys will take them through the works of 15 artists whose histories and visual languages tell their own stories. The exhibition has no singular origin. Rather, its narrative is a compilation of external observations of human behavior, the curator’s ongoing personal quest to achieve homeostasis, the notebooks of French philosopher Albert Camus, the musings of British psychoanalytical writer Adam Phillips, and even a recent study finding that, to an overwhelming degree, people would rather shock themselves with an electrical current than sit in quiet contemplation for even 15 minutes.
With an emphasis on the individual, Fertile Solitude presents art in an unexpected environment that encourages wanderlust, rewards curiosity and contemplates the restorative properties of simply being alone with your own thoughts.”
:’)
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LandForms: Richard Farrell, Anna Kristina Goransson, and Katherine Miller
When: On view through January 7, 2017
Where: New Art Center, 61 Washington Park, Newtonville 02460
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Join us as we celebrate two new exhibitions opening at NAC!
In the Holzwasser Gallery, three artists working in a variety of media harness the pervasive power of the landscape. For NAC faculty member Katherine Downey Miller, vistas near and far inspire bright gestural oil paintings. Kristina Goransson, also an NAC faculty member, takes a different approach creating 2- and 3-dimensional hand-dyed felted pieces that explore the horizon line. Similarly, NAC student Richard Farrell straddles the line between sculpture and painting, creating functional ceramic works burnished with jade and ochre mountainscapes.”
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APATHiE
(The work of Melissa Malik)
When: On view through January 15, 2017
Where: Distillery Gallery, 516 East 2nd Street, South Boston,MA 02127
What/Why: “‘APATHiE’ is a group exhibition showcasing the work of Marissa Malik, Sarah Gay O’Neill, Jennifer Murphy, Olivia Portegello (Flatline Zines), and Dael Mundy.
The artworks in ‘APATHiE’ consider the constructs of femme identity through methods of coping with anger and outrage resulting from western patriarchy. How do femmes maintain their motivation to combat oppression in the wake of constant exhaustion due to stagnant societal progress?
The artists in this show are in constant dialogue with this question; each addressing it through the context of their personal narratives. The range of topics discussed include trauma, rape culture, feminism, and biracial identity. Together, ‘APATHiE’ creates a body of work displaying these intersectional feminist issues. “
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Small Treasures
When: On view through December 25, 2016
Where: Lincoln Arts Gallery, 289 Moody St, Waltham, Massachusetts 02453
How: Official Website
What/Why: “You’re invited to our first annual small works show and holiday celebration, Small Treasures: an affordable art show. All work displayed is $200 or less! Join us to mix, mingle, and discover unique items for your holiday shopping list.
Over 25 artists have contributed to the exhibit in honor of Lincoln Arts Gallery’s initial year. Both the Lincoln Arts Gallery and the Monique Rancourt Artisan Gallery will be open with a generous selection of treasures. We will groove to blues from Session450 and be sipping drinks sponsored generously by Premier Bartending Services. Loads of parking behind building.
The Monique Rancourt Artisan Gallery will feature two special exibits, “Ornaments for the Ear,” an exhibit of earrings created by 20 of the top jewelry artists in the country as well as “The Great Wall of Mugs,” Showcasing the wild range of handmade ceramic design.
Stay tuned for our list of artists and glimpses of the work on view.”
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New Works
When: On view through January 22, 2017
Where: Gold Gallery, 460C Harrison Ave, #18, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Gold Gallery is pleased to announce our newest exhibition, featuring work by gallery newcomers Michael Azgour and Bryan Grose.”
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Fred Sandback: Editioned Sculptures and Related Works on Paper
When: On view through January 21, 2017
Where: Barbara Krakow Gallery, 10 Newbury Street, Boston, MA
How: Official Website
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Samuel Morse : Gallery of the Louvre
When: On view through January 08, 2017
Where: Peabody Essex Museum, East India Square (161 Essex St) Salem, Massachusetts 01970
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Struggling to secure his reputation as a great American artist, Samuel F. B. Morse sailed to Europe in 1829, and embarked on a period of intense study and prodigious copying of great works of art that culminated in his grand painting Gallery of the Louvre (1831–33). Measuring approximately six by nine feet, the painting depicts an imagined installation of forty artworks in the Salon Carré at the Musée du Louvre in Paris. In the scene, individuals study, sketch and copy from great works of art, just as Morse did in order to complete the painting. With its emphasis on copying as a technology of transmission and creation, this ambitious work anticipates Morse’s later experiments with photography, the electromagnetic telegraph and the invention of Morse code. PEM’s presentation of Samuel F. B. Morse’s Gallery of the Louvre and the Art of Invention is accompanied by an installation of over sixty-five works drawn from PEM’s collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American, Asian, and maritime photography. Inspired by Morse’s role as the “father of American photography,” the selection of these images reflects the strengths of PEM photographic holdings, while echoing the spirit of curation, storytelling, and cross-cultural affinities embodied in Gallery of the Louvre.”
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Artist’s Museum
When: On view through March 26, 2017
Where: ICA Boston, 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA 02210
How: Official Website
What/Why: “The desire to collect objects and images of personal significance, and to make connections between them, is a nearly universal human experience. For centuries, artists have collected artworks, along with diverse cultural artifacts and natural materials, as vital sources of inspiration and to create highly individualized models of their world. The Artist’s Museum begins with this impulse to collect and connect, bringing together large-scale installations, photography, film, and videos that employ artworks from the past as material in the present, animating existing artworks, images, and histories to reveal art’s unexpected relationships and affinities. Each of the artists in The Artist’s Museum reimagines the lives of artworks and charts recurring forms and themes across cultures and history. They tweak the language of museum display and organization to engage a variety of disciplines and subjects, from dance, music, and design to gender, sexuality, and technology.”
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Paper Chase
When: The works will be on sale through December 23rd.
Where: FPAC Gallery, 300 Summer Street M1 Boston MA 02210
What/Why: “FPAC Exhibit and Silent Auction: All drawings are only $100.00 and proceeds help support FPAC! The event is accompanied by a silent auction.”
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Sarah Meyers Brent: Plant Monster
When: On view January 1, 2017
Where: Kingston Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Pushing the boundaries of the landscape as we know it, Sarah Meyers Brent presents works on paper and three-dimensional assemblage paintings that explode into the gallery space and creep along the wall. In studies on paper, the decaying forms—curly twists, hairs and protruding sticks—have a life-like quality even as they waste away. Assemblage paintings apply dirt, sand, dried leaves and flowers to surfaces built up with heavily impastoed paint and polyurethane foam. A flower explodes from the canvas and dirt oozes down the wall. Organic forms grow as they fall apart. Brent presents a landscape at once growing and decomposing, abject and beautiful.
Brent’s works on paper are studies for larger paintings that will be presented during her inaugural exhibit at the Kingston main gallery in June.”
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ABC/123
When: On view through December 31, 2016
Where: Steven Zevitas Gallery,450 Harrison Avenue #47 | Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Featuring: Suzan Frecon, Xylor Jane, David X. Levine, Jonathan Lasker, Chris Martin, Andrew Masullo, James Siena, Cary Smith, Richard Tuttle, Dan Walsh and Chuck Webster”
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Thomas Jackson: Emergent Behavior
When: On view through December 23,2016
Opening Reception: Friday December 2, 5-8PM
Where: Miller Yezerski Gallery, 460 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA, 02118
How: Official Website
Also on view..
Kay Ruane: Two Drawings
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The Salon Show
(Samson, Benjamin Flythe)
When: On view through January 29, 2017
Where: Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, 460 Harrison Ave, C7, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “ELISA ADAMS
ADRIA ARCH
KEENAN DERBY
NINA DINE
BENJAMIN FLYTHE
LISA A. FOSTER
WILLIAM VAUGHN GRIFFIN
HOLLY HARRISON
NICOLE PATEL
JULIA S. POWELL
JENNY SWANSON
CARON TABB
MARK TORTORELLA
KATIE WILD
NATALIA WRÓBEL”
(Plunk, Adria Arch)
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Members’ Holiday Exhibition
When: On view through December 30, 2016
Opening Reception: December 2, 6-8pm
Where: Galatea Fine Art, 460 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
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The Beauty of Tyranny
When: On view through December 31, 2016
Where: Worcester Art Museum, 55 Salisbury St, Worcester, MA 01609
How: Official Website
What/Why: “YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES’ provocative multimedia installation, THE BEAUTY OF TYRANNY, is a contemporary reconsideration of Alfred Stieglitz’s The Steerage. Stieglitz’s iconic photogravure depicts impoverished steerage passengers, some of whom were rejected by U.S. immigration officers, on a ship leaving New York bound for Europe. Considered a canonical work of early American photography, The Steerage has also become synonymous with the immigrant experience at the turn of the 20th century when waves of Jewish and Eastern European immigrants arrived in the U.S. to avoid war and persecution.”
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BFA Graduate Thesis
When: On view through December 18, 2016
Where: Lesley University Lunder Arts Center ,Roberts Gallery, 1801 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “The BFA Graduate exhibition highlights the work and accomplishments of graduates of Lesley University College of Art and Design’s Bachelor of Fine Arts program.
The exhibition features painting, photography, sculpture, digital media, installation and more, charting the many ways contemporary artists engage with contemporary practice.
BFA Graduates from all Departments – Animation and Motion Media, Digital Filmmaking, Fine Art, Graphic Design, Illustration, Photography, and Interdisciplinary Studies– will exhibit their work in a series of departmental shows in the Roberts Gallery at the Lunder Arts Center.
“Our BFA and MFA exhibitions present the achievements of our graduating artists and designers who represent all Departments in the College of Art and Design,” comments the Director of Exhibitions, Bonnell Robinson. “These shows are a culmination of their years of learning and experimentation across media, their exploration of social, political, and cultural issues, as well as personal inquiry.” Every year College of Art and Design students expand the possibilities of contemporary practice as they prepare for careers in the arts and arts-related fields.”
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Allison Bianco: Atlantic Time
When: On view December 1, 2016–February 22, 2017
Opening Reception: Thursday December 1, 5:30-8:30PM
Where: Weil Gallery, Watson Fine Arts, Wheaton College, Norton, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Printmaker Allison Bianco mines her experiences on New England waterways to create a series of vibrant, evocative prints that speak about nostalgia—that longing for a certain place and time that may no longer exist as we remember it.”
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Plastic Imagination
When: On view through January 15, 2017
Where: Fitchburg Art Museum, 185 Elm Street, Fitchburg, MA 01420
How: Official Website
What/Why:“Plastic – a product inextricably tied to the manufacturing history of North Central Massachusetts – has many characteristics that make it fantastically unique. This multi-purpose material can be luminous, colorful, lightweight, strong, durable, practical, playful, affordable, and aerodynamic. It can conjure associations with industrial accomplishment, foment feelings of nostalgia, and trigger very real fears about consumption and waste.
FAM’s Fall 2016 exhibition, Plastic Imagination, explores the work of 10 contemporary New England artists who create extraordinary things with all kinds of plastics. Lisa Barthelson, Tom Deininger, Dana Filibert, Joseph Fucigna, Lynne Harlow, Niho Kozuru, Margaret Roleke, Dean Snyder, Bill Thompson, and Brian Zink all find inspiration in the fillers, films and moldable plastics made popular throughout the last century. Some shave, sand, sculpt, and paint different densities of foam. Some play up the translucent or opaque qualities of Plexi or Fiberglass, and some recycle plastic toys, treasures, and trash. Some present readily accessible, everyday plastics as strictly formal studies, while others crave the layers of meaning (social, political, cultural, environmental, and economic) that result from a focus on this ubiquitous and arguably indispensable material.”
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John Crowley: Moving Forward
When: On view December 21, 2016 through March 21, 2017
Opening Reception: Wednesday December 21, 2016 7:00PM
Where: FP3 Gallery, 346 Congress St, Boston, Massachusetts 02210
How: Official Website
What/Why: Learn more about the exhibition here!
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latinx@americañaza
When: On view through January 28, 2017
Where: samson projects, 450 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Inspired by feminist and decolonial politics exploring possibilities of poetics and play as means to re-empower the political imagination, reclaiming meaning from a trivialized capitalist version of infinitely more qualified and able female candidate.
“Despite these issues that will remain at large and must be addressed by the left, this boiling resentment has fueled a moment where white victimhood is thought to be as pressing an issue as the institutionalized murder of black people in America. Many white men today feel themselves under attack, usually because of the burn of growing equitability. It is becoming clear that “when you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” (The attribution of this quote is unknown, but it has gained quite a bit of momentum on the internet.) Thus, we have a breed of white males who believe they are persecuted while being the aggressor, and are powerful while maintaining a sense of painful fragility. This kind of cognitive dissonance cannot be brushed off.” – Ajay Kurian from The Ballet of White Victimhood: On Jordan Wolfson, Petroushka, and Donald Trump empowering and unapologetic representations of Latin@x culture informed by the feminist and decolonial aesthetic traditions of the Americas
Am I to move forward when I’m constantly working within my own pastness, yearning to create a tangible relationship?
These circumstances increased interest in postcolonial theory as one of the means to understand neocolonial dynamics.
…issues of representation in culture and the role of language in the construction and dissemination of meaning.
dictatorship sponsored and supported by the United States.
narratives and rhetorical devices that build the ideas of the self and reality, from the personal to the historical.
we get to see how the almost exclusive U.S./Eurocentric perspective flattens Art History, obliterates criticality, silences diversity, and reiterates already-made thoughts and hegemonic narratives.
reflecting on the liminal space between our colonial heritage and our experience as immigrants.”
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Gillian Wearing
When: On view through January 2018 (NOT A TYPO.)
Where: ICA Boston (Lobby), 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA 02210
How: Official Website
What/Why: “In a world oversaturated by images, Wearing explores the complexities of identity. Best known for her photographic and video works that intimately capture aspects of our familial and personal histories, Gillian Wearing (b. 1963, Birmingham, UK) continues to explore the nuances of identity, the intersections of public and private, and the performativity of self. Wearing’s monumental photographic installation Rock ‘n’ Roll 70 (2015) is a site-specific commission for the Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall, and the first presentation in Boston of the celebrated artist’s work. Using a self-portrait, Wearing asked individuals working with age-progressing technology to digitally enhance portraits of the artist to see what she might look like at age 70. Printed as wallpaper, these aged portraits show the diversity of possibilities of the artist’s future self. They differ slightly or immensely from each other, revealing the limitations of pioneering technology, and how identity can be pictured. On top of the wallpaper hangs a framed triptych of photographic portraits, consisting of the artist at her current age, an enhanced portrait, and a blank last space, as Wearing intends to make a self-portrait when she turns 70. In a world oversaturated by images, particularly “selfies,” Wearing explores the complexities of identity as mediated through technology.”
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Salon Show
When: On view through January 14, 2017
Where: Clark Gallery, 145 Lincoln Road, Lincoln, MA 01773
How: Official Website
What/Why: View images from the exhibition here
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Say hi:
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And that about does it for #bosarts happenings this year!
As always, let me know if I missed anything.
More from my Basel series soon, YE 2k16 state of the union, and then I’m due for a long winter’s nap.
❅ ❄ ❆ happy holidays ❅ ❄ ❆ ♥
