cave dwellers x the light in me x i was a warrior x passage
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A Pair of Bloody Hi-Tops
When: Friday May 4th, 2012 6-9PM
Where: Anthony Greaney, 450 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: Ian Jeffrey – “The photograph is of my friend Dan’s shoes. Converse high-tops, off-white, and spattered with blood. He is standing on a grey linoleum floor with his right foot positioned just in front of his left. For some reason, if I am thinking about this picture, I imagine him standing with his feet apart in a wide v-shape. Athough after looking at it again, if anything, they are pointed slightly inward. The frame ends just above his ankles. I don’t think I actually took the picture myself, I think I asked his girlfriend to take it for me. We had been out all night, and had just gotten back to his apartment where we were standing around in the kitchen, talking.
The club had been packed with people. The dance floor was really more of a long corridor, a digestive tract, connecting the bar up front with the toilets in the back. All night, it was body pushing past body, moving back and forth to drink or piss.
When the DJ played Bigmouth Strikes Again, he built it up slowly, repeating the guitar intro over and over again, cutting it in-and-out rhythmically with a Latin percussion break. The anticipation stretched, and then it broke, causing one of those rare moments when the night peaks, when everything is perfect, and you can sense this burning metallic energy being shared by everyone dancing together. The room was in a frenzy. Everyone was singing along, “Now I know how Joan of Arc felt!” In the midst of this, there was a girl who wouldn’t stop dancing, even though she had a piece of broken glass stuck in her foot. She didn’t care—she just kept dancing—bleeding all over the crowded floor.
Later, back in the kitchen, Dan was saying he had seen her right as it happened. He had noticed the girl on the other side of the room. She was missing one of her sandals, and was standing elegantly on one leg like a flamingo, her bare foot propped up against her knee to protect it from the broken glass on the floor. She was scanning around for it using the dim light of her phone, but then, as she heard the intro toBigmouth, she slapped the phone closed and mouthed an exaggerated “fuck it,” slamming her foot down right as the drums came in.”
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Cave Dwellers
When: On view through May 27th, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday May 4th, 5:00 – 7:30 pm
Where: Kingston Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave. #43, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Over the past eight years, Barbara Moody’s work has focused on animal imagery, piles of debris, and unusual ecosystems. For her most recent solo show, opening in May, 2012, she has combined these interests to explore the dark world of caves, caverns, and tunnels. This new series includes large-scale cave/graffiti drawings, paintings, and collages printed on vinyl. Manipulating and collaging old animal engravings, Moody subtly offers clues to the history of the caves’ former inhabitants. Bits of fur, skin, teeth, and claws suggest predators and prey snaking through tunnels and cohabiting in a confined space. The layers of mark-making suggest memories once etched into cave walls and still present.”
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Passage
(Untitled)
When: On view May 6th-July 7th, 2012
Where: Peregrine Gallery, 150 Waterman St #6, Providence RI
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Peregrine Gallery is pleased to present “Passage”, a solo exhibition by the New York City Based photographer Zev Jonas. The exhibition runs from May, 7th, 2012 – July 5th, 2012 at 150 Waterman St #6, Providence RI. Please come out for the opening reception May 17th from 6-8pm to meet the artist.
In the exhibition Jonas explores relationships with the mass produced media images that surround us. He is particularly fascinated by how these static images become distorted by the effects of light, the elements and time. As media presents an idealized form, Jonas’s photographs show that this form takes on new meanings when subjected to these omnipresent realities. In one of his untitled works, light hits an image (a photograph? a magazine page? it us up to the views imagination) highlighting a face with etheric light while leaving the rest obscured as a textural skin. By capturing the decay and natural manipulation of the images around us Jonas manages to humanize them, to give them context and life.”
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Green Street Jungle
(exhibition view)
When: Saturday May 5th, 2012, 12PM
Where: 252 Newbury Street, Boston, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “The Green Street Jungle is a retail experience catering to the innovators, trendsetters, forerunners and free thinkers in the city of Boston. Two of Boston’s best young businesses are coming together for a limited run of 8 weeks to bring our vision of the future to the people.”
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Arnold Trachtman: Memories of Lynn, MA
When: On view through May 2012
Opening Reception: Friday May 4th, 6-8PM
Where: Galatea Fine Arts, 460B Harrison Ave., #B-6, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Mr. Trachtman surveys the vaults of memory in these paintings, most of which are based on his childhood in Lynn, MA., and the denizens of his growing up. One finds in these works a reflection of the familiar and the family, steeped in deep recollection of their environments. Consequently, in addition to his rendering of family members, is the documentation of the buildings and businesses, and general high energy of a stunning day on the street. The viewer can hear the honks of the horns and the conversations of passers by.
The artist is well known for his works centering on subjects of social consciousness; those that deal directly with the Reagan Administration and the Holocaust, etc. In the works of his upcoming exhibition at Galatea Fine Art we find an inner reflection of the artist’s roots; memories of what shapes the content of his early forming consciousness and direction of thought. The social awareness of the artist is not lost, nor is it hidden; it is translated in terms of personal sojourn and the memoirs of those he holds righteously sacred.”
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2012 All Senior Show
(interpretation of Brooklyn Zoo by Old Dirty Bastard, Eamon Smyth)
When: On view May 7th-25th, 2012
Ceremony: Wednesday May 9th, 11:30am
Where: Montserrat College of Art Galleries, 23 Essex St., Beverly, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “A showcase of artwork by each student earning a BFA in either December 2011 or May 2012. Artwork includes a wide range of media, including animation + interactive media, book arts, graphic design, illustration, interdisciplinary arts, painting + drawing, photography + video, printmaking and sculpture. Awards, including cash prizes, will be presented by Juror Trevor Smith, Curator of Contemporary Art of the Peabody Essex Museum.”
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Of Masterpieces and Manure: The Garden as a Work of Art
(Landscape with an Obelisk, Govaert Flinck)
When: Thursday May 10th, 2012 7PM
Where: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum / 280 The Fenway / Boston MA 02115
How: Official Website
Cost: $15 Reserve tickets here.
What/Why: “The first of two Masterpiece Lectures at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in May happens next Thursday, May 10, at 7pm, with Vittoria Di Palma, Associate Professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University. Members now receive lecture tickets for free. All lectures are in Calderwood Hall and tickets are limited.”
What does it mean to call a garden a masterpiece? How is a garden like, and unlike, a work of art? Why might one want to design a garden so that it looks like a painting? The eighteenth-century picturesque garden engages with these sorts of questions by using painterly devices to blur the relationship between nature and art. Framing, composition, perspective, line, color, and chiaroscuro are deployed to provoke particular sensations and produce certain effects, making the garden visitor acutely aware of the ubiquity of artifice, and of the impossibility of experiencing nature free from a cultural frame.
Vittoria Di Palma, Associate Professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, specializes in modern European architectural history and theory, with a particular concentration on eighteenth-century architecture and landscape. Her research focuses on connections between landscape and epistemology; ideas of the natural and the artificial; and, more broadly, brings art historical issues to bear upon architectural history, examining the ways in which visuality, aesthetics, and perception inform our understanding of buildings and environments. After receiving her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1999, she spent 1999-2003 at the Architectural Association, London, where she was co-director of the Histories and Theories of Architecture graduate program. She then taught at Rice University in Houston, before returning to Columbia to join the faculty in 2004.”
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Somerville Open Studios
(The Light in Me, Holland Dieringer)
When: Friday, May 4 from 6pm – 9pm and Saturday and Sunday, May 5 and 6, 2012 from noon to 6 pm
Where: Somerville, MA // List of participating artists here.
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Visit nearly 400 artists in over 100 venues who will open their homes and studios for the 14th Annual Somerville Open Studios Event on Friday, May 4 from 6pm – 9pm and Saturday and Sunday, May 5 and 6, 2012 from noon to 6 pm. During this free showcase for the arts, mid-career and emerging artists working across a broad spectrum of fine art styles and craft media will exhibit and sell their work to the public.”
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Michael Zigmond
(Nasturtiums in Jar)
When: On view May 27th, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday, May 4th, 2012, 6 – 8pm
Where: Chase Young Gallery, 450 Harrison Avenue #57, Boston, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Opened in August of 2010 by Jane Young, Chase Young Gallery is dedicated to the exhibition of exceptional contemporary painting, sculpture, and photography.”
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2012 School of Visual Arts BFA Exhibition
When: On view through May 11th, 2012
Opening Reception: May 4th, 6-8PM
Where: 808 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “The Boston University School of Visual Arts presents the work of students receiving Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degrees in Painting, Sculpture, and Graphic Design. The students featured in this exhibition have spent the past four years in rigorous studio training that has been enriched by an outstanding liberal arts education. In addition to gaining these core skills, each student has been encouraged to develop an individual artistic vision, contributing to the richness and variety of this exhibition as a whole.”
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Drawn to Water – Set in Sun
(Wind Pile)
When: On view through May 26th, 2012
Opening Reception: May 4th, 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Where: Soprafina Gallery, 55 Thayer Street, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Soprafina Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new watercolors by Susan Demchak. Ms. Demchak received her B.F.A., cum laude, from the University of Michigan. She has also studied in Florence, Italy. Her work has been exhibited in gallery exhibitions throughout the United States and additionally she receives commissions nationally for portraits and murals. She currently teaches watercolor classes for a wide range of students at the DeCordova Museum School in Lincoln, MA.
Susan Demchak is perhaps best known for the watercolors which she creates during her extensive travels. This collection captures the beauty and dynamic interplay of nature using one of its most essential materials, water. Ms. Demchak states that… “I treat my subjects with reverence for the life that they have and the evolution of their purpose.” Her watercolors are intelligently executed with a detailed virtuosity. The use of the white paper and the abstraction of her shapes engage the viewer’s eye in a compelling manner”
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Western Avenue Open Studios
(pincushion ring Vanilla-Mint, Liz of MadeinLowell)
When: Saturday May 5th, 2012 , 12:00-5:00PM
Where: 122 Western Avenue, Lowell, MA 01851
How: Official Website
What/Why: “The fifth floor of Western Avenue Studios opened its 31 studio doors to working artists on September 1, 2005. The opening of the 4th and 3rd floor in 2006 and the opening of the A Mill’s 2nd and 3rd floors in 2007 and completion of the 2nd floor studios in the main building, brings the total of working studios to 143 and the number of artists at Western Avenue to more than 215.
Since opening day, Western Avenue Studios has become an integral part of the cultural life of the city of Lowell. In addition to participating in the annual citywide Lowell Open Studios and holding monthly First Saturday Open Studios, WAS artists partner to offer numerous events throughout the year. The summer of 2009 marked the fourth year of the Summer Art Program for Children. In 2009 WAS welcomed the Revolving Museum which provides educational programming to local high school aged artists and the Miracle Providers NorthEast who support children infected or affected by HIV/AIDS through performance based fundraising. Also in 2009, The Space opened its doors in the B-Mill, providing music rehearsal space and a cafe.”
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Getting There: Design for Travel in the Modern Age
When: On view through September 01, 2012
Opening Reception: May 10th, 2012, 5:30-8:00pm RSVP here.
Where: Grand Circle Gallery, 347 Congress Street Boston, MA 02210
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Design has shaped and continues to transform our travel experiences. The moment you step into the airport, station, or port you’re entering a world that is curated and planned by designers. From the layout and signage of the airport, to the form and function of your suitcase, to the style and dimensions of your seat; every aspect of the experience is designed.
Getting There shows designers’ efforts to create a comfortable, efficient, and exciting travel experience. We invite you to view vintage travel advertising from a time when leisure travel was made more feasible by technological advancements in transportation. Compare images, plans, and artifacts of the past, present, and future — and ask yourself, “How do we define the Golden Age of Travel?”
The exhibition chronicles the design evolution of traveler accessories, such as noise-canceling headsets, as well as designs of airline seats, train interiors, and vintage cutlery. Drawings, models, and prototypes from design firms such as Bose, Samsonite, Teague, and IDEO, will highlight projects that have creatively addressed design challenges posed by the constraints of human travel.”
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150×150
(The work of Scott Listfield)
When: Saturday May 12th, 2012 -12PM
Preview: Friday, May 4th, 5:30-8:30pm
Where: Laconia Gallery, 433 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Please come to the public previews first to get a good look at all the amazing artwork by well-known local artists.
The Saturday event is a race for art, and artwork can be purchased by being the first one to grab the tag beside the work of art that you choose – if the tag is gone move on to your NEXT choice! (Artwork can be purchased by cash or check only – sorry, no Credit or Debit cards. Payment is made at time of purchase.)
Doors open at Noon on May 12 - be there on time for the best selection.”
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Alex Lukas – Recent Works
(Untitled)
When: On view through June 2nd, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday May 4th, 2012 -5:30PM
Where: Steven Zevitas Gallery, 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Recent Works consists of five new large-scale paintings on paper (the largest measures at twelve feet in length) and a group of work utilizing appropriated book pages. This body of work continues the Lukas’ exploration of our current cultural condition through the lens of the landscape. Executed primarily in ink, acrylic, watercolor and gouache, the artist also uses the process of silk-screening for certain elements of each work.
Thomas Cole’s well-known painting “River in the Catskills,” which depicts a pastoral landscape with a small train slicing through the scene in the middle ground, is a harbinger of things to come in the story of man’s attempt to gain control of nature. In many ways, Lukas’ landscapes, which combine sites real and imagined – with a healthy nod towards Hollywood and art history – tell the end of the story, as man-made structures yield back to nature. The works pivot on series of dichotomies: violence and quietude; the manmade and the natural; hope and a profound sense of despair. They also grapple with ideas about national
morality and societal fragility.”
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Needham Open Studios
(A Glimpse of Paradise, Anne Nydam)
When: May 5th-6th, 2012
Where: Needham, MA / List of participating artists here.
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Come take a behind-the-scenes look at Needham’s community of award-winning visual artists. Tour and visit the artists in their studios, see how they make their art, and find unique hand-made treasures.
This annual non-juried event is open to all artists and craftspeople living and/or working in Needham, Massachusetts. Last year over 50 local artists and craftspeople participated at nearly 15 different locations.”
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Lisa Olson : “The Children’s Home “
When: On view through May 26th, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday May 4th, 2012 6-8:30PM
Where: Bromfield Gallery, 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “As a child, my grandmother was placed in a small orphanage in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was a situation typical of the time, her widowed mother did not have the safety nets necessary to keep her children at home. I have often wondered about the psychology of a child who found him- or herself moved from a parent and a home in to an institution. My grandmother often spoke of the experience with a combination of affection and bitterness, emotions that somehow seemed comfortably married in her mind.
As I began to read about the history of orphanages and the social and child care philosophies of the time, I also began to wonder about the complex relationships that must have developed between caregiver and child.
How does one who takes the job of caring for a displaced child balance the tangle of necessary distanced authority and personal emotional involvement? Perhaps no amount of well-intentioned organization or care could prevent what the child must have felt—loss, fear, grief, loneliness, isolation, regimentation and confusion. These are issues that I hope to address with this body of work.
Sugar of Milk, Sugar of Lead considers the intertwined psychologies of child and caregiver, Child Keeper addresses the idea of individuality in the midst of congregate institutionalization, and the various Transitional Objectsaddress emotional relationships to objects, place and people that make up a “home.” “
Also on view..
Carol Greenwood : “The Last Cabinet…”
What/Why: “This body of work, which began shortly before the death of my last surviving parent, is made mostly with sewing notions—blanket and seam binding, bias and hem tape—and fabric salvaged from the family fabric business when it was closed. These simple materials are common in everyday clothing construction, and I had handled them all my life in that context.
Using this random palette limited by what had been saved, I explore issues of transition, closure, and the tension between how we see ourselves and how we think others want to see us.
Framed by formal elements of texture, scale, color and movement, these pieces hang in free space away from the wall and comprise one or more layers. They share the same physical space as the viewer in order to encourage the perceptual and emotional changes experienced through the distance-dance of “come here/go away.”"
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Trepanation
When: On view throughout May 25th, 2012
Where: NK Gallery, 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “I was a warrior, once. Young then, well educated and trained by the best the Army had to offer in all of the skills that distinguish the infantryman, airborne and Ranger, from the rest, I humped, with my fellow grunts, the frozen mountains along the DMZ in Korea and the steaming, dank jungles of Vietnam. Always alert and ever vigilant to the slightest anomaly that might suddenly end or alter a life, those of us who went outside the wire down range were, in fact, changed forever, yet unaware of the alterations within us. The changes, invisible, save to a close few, who knew us both before deployment, frequently burrowed deeply, hidden in the dark folds of quotidian chores and obligations where they might remain submerged and suppressed. Or they might erupted to manifest themselves unpredictably. Mine found a voice in the form of sculpture.
Much has evolved since I retired from the battlefield. In subsequent wars, the terrain, the missions, the equipment, and the enemy are all different. What has been a constant of warfare for millennia and remains so for the warriors of any society who are sent to act where diplomacy fails is the personal toll, the aftereffects and the protracted personal and social consequences of combat duty.
No one who has “seen the elephant” is unchanged by it. No one.
This work tries to focus attention on some facets of that toll. The links from Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), to concussive injury (TBI), to trepanation, to tinnitus are real. The toll is real. It evanesces out into the ether to infinity.”
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Party on the Harbor
When: Friday May 4th, 2012 – 9:00PM
Where: ICA Boston, 100 Northern Avenue Boston, MA 02210
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Start summer on the Boston waterfront with the ICA’s annual Party on the Harbor – an unforgettable evening of art and celebration at the city’s most exciting museum. Breathtaking views of Boston Harbor, festive cocktails, and music by some of the country’s premier DJs will keep you dancing all night long.
Proceeds from the event support the ICA’s exhibitions, performing arts, and educational programs.”
Note: The event is now sold out. But you can go press your face up against the glass.
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Boston LGBT Film Fest
(A Word (Mila), Yoav Inbar)
When: Film screenings through May 13th
Where: Learn more about the films/showtimes here.
How: Official Website
What/Why: “The Boston LGBT Film Festival is the longest running and largest LGBT media event in New England. Founded in 1984 by film programmer George Mansour, the festival has been hosted by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston since the early nineties. In 2009 the festival expanded to include screenings at the Brattle Theatre in iconic Harvard Square, Cambridge, and the brand new Fenway Health Center on Boylston Street in Boston. In 2011 we screened over 100 films from 25 countries. In 2012 we will be opening the film festival at the Institute of Contemporary Art on the Boston waterfront. This event marks a return to the ICA after an absence of almost twenty years.
The Boston LGBT Film Festival celebrates, displays and distributes work by and for LGBT media makers – work that entertains, enriches and enlightens all audiences in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and allied communities. The annual Festival screenings showcase international, US, and local film, video, and other media, fostering a greater sense of awareness and community among LGBT and LGBT-friendly audiences.
As New England’s premiere LGBT film organization, the Festival reaches out to the culturally rich and diverse communities of the region through Screenings on Tour and Festival Partnerships, in collaboration with other film festivals. With its Young LGBT Filmmakers program, the Festival provides education, outreach and exposure for emerging filmmakers.
The Boston LGBT Film Festival aims to stimulate thought and encourage dialogue while offering exposure and continued presence for filmmakers, artists and community organizations. ”
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Bits
When: Friday May 4th, 2012 7:00-11:00PM
Where: Lot F Gallery, 145 Pearl Street, Boston, MA 02110
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Bits; a study of the smaller things in life. Featuring the works of Bob Conge, Todd Robertson and Will Long; Bits will be comprised of mixed media paintings, collage, prints, sculpture and toys. The idea that everything in our world is made from many components is the basis for the show. These everyday components align and form themselves into bigger and most times different forms. For example our bodies are comprised from cells, although the human body does not resemble a cell. Bits will also examine individual toys and how they group together to form a collection.
While it has been some 4000 years in the making, if you believe the backstory, PLASEEBO was finally founded in 2004 as a shop dedicated to creating unique one of a kind collectable figures and Ultra Limited editions. “I remember, as a young boy, my most prized possession being a small box in which I kept colorful or uniquely shaped stones, butterfly wings, bird’s feet, dried flowers, a skull I had carved from wood, a small red plastic A-Bomb, and a wavewashed piece of deep blue glass. This first collection was a micro cosmos of my world at that time.” says Bob Conge of Plaseebo. Whatever the direction or medium of expression, the drive is to bring to life a personal vision in the form of a new figure, hence the tag line, “PLASEEBO / its not what you think”. “
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SoWa Open Market Opening Day
When: Sunday May 6th, 2012 10AM-4PM
Where: 460 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “The SoWa Open Market offers a shopping experience like no other in Boston. With an ever-changing group of artisans, a hip location and the chance to feel the sun on your face while you browse, it’s a trip worth making. The market offers the opportunity to meet the artists, vendors and farmers behind the work. Every week offers shoppers something different and unique – you won’t want to miss it!
The market hosts a wide variety of vendors, whether you’re looking for hand-crafted accessories, original art, indie designer clothing or just a fresh loaf of bread, you’ll find painters, sculptors, photographers, clothing and jewelry designers, milliners, handbag designers, house wares, florists, bakers, local farmer’s produce and much more every week!”
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Amazing. 20+ events this weekend. That’s how it always should be.
Did I miss one? Let me know..
♂/☺/♫
A bit of housekeeping.
Have you added me to your listserv? You should. My inbox is where I find out about the majority of events I share on FLUX.
Also, I’m on pinterest! Let’s be friends and..pin things together?
I’m still figuring it all out, but I imagine I will include Boston related content shortly. For now it’s primarily a repository of images of things I can’t afford, and black & white photos of deceased film stars.
Sneak out early and have a great weekend! ♥
