insider x seeing & being seen x welcome to control x shift in time x outsider
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Insider/Outsider
(The work of Jodie Goodnough)
When: On view through December 1st, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday November 16th, 2012 7-10PM
Where: Lincoln Arts Project, 289 Moody St., Waltham, Massachusetts
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Insider/Outsider features photographs, videos, and other traces of live art pieces originally created in non-art contexts. This exhibition addresses the ethics of making art in public, private, and intimate space; investigates art’s role within various social and political structures; and examines the interstices between art action and contemporary life. Local artists show beside artists from China, Australia, The Czech Republic, Israel, Canada, and other parts of the United States, offering a diverse range of perspectives around the concept of place and its power to shape experience.”
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Prilla Smith Brackett – Promises to Keep: Monoprints
(Reverie 19)
When: Artist will be in the Gallery Saturday November 17th from 12-3pm (Exhibit on view through December 1st, 2012)
Where: Bromfield Gallery, 45o Harrison Ave. Boston MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “My approach to landscape is conceptual; I use landscape to convey more than a description of a place.
“I explore the intermingling of the domestic man-made with the natural, in monoprints, mixed media paintings on panel, and drawings: forest images & semi-transparent old furniture from a house my mother’s family lived in for 90 years. Everyone from my great grandmother, widow of a young painter who died in 1882, down to my children contributed to the rich ambiance of that house. Placing furniture from previous eras in forests I have known creates a narrative uncertainty I find fascinating.
“In both monoprints and paintings I play with the furniture’s transparency and its location in the forest: floating above, embedded within, or buried below. Over time the furniture has become less substantial and less grounded. The prints in my two current monoprint suites have a quiet quality in which the furniture sometimes disappears into an etherial forest.
“Over time I have alternated doing monoprints and paintings. The monoprints have greatly influenced the paintings. In the latter I have layered transparent colors with the (often surprising) color results found in my monoprints, “printed” with paint, and used paint applied linearly, influenced by small drypoint marks. Similarly, the distilled quality of a group of mostly black and white drawings led to large, mixed media works on panel using drawing materials and limited thin acrylic and oil paint. These works remaine open in feel and explore how scale contributes to meaning.
“Old growth forests show the whole life cycle of trees. Trees struck by lightning or fallen trees with their branches making wild gestures show nature’s violence. The domestic in such settings seems jarring, although our traditions see forests as places of make-believe, of solace & spirituality, of refuge & hidden secrets.
“But in the dreams of old furniture made of forest wood might there also be dark scenes of family discord? How do these disparate domestic & natural elements resolve shared conflict to arrive at peace at last?””
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A Generous Medium – Photography at Wellesley 1972-2012
(Untitled (Bus Riders), Cindy Sherman)
When: On view through December 16th, 2012
Where: Davis Museum, 106 Central Street, Wellesley, MA, 02481
How: Official Website
What/Why: “This fall, the Davis honors the extraordinary legacy of collecting and pedagogical leadership in photography at Wellesley College.
Mined from the extensive photographic holdings, this innovative exhibition features works selected for interpretation by sixty-five participants—Davis directors and curators, Wellesley faculty, alumnae in the field, and major patrons—all of whom have had an instrumental role in the shape and pedagogical use of the collection over the last forty years. The selections are organized unconventionally, by date of acquisition, to allow for serendipitous and revealing juxtapositions, surprising connections, and startling revelations.
The exhibition and the accompanying catalogue feature an eloquent range of pictures, from unattributed early photographs to works by renowned contemporary artists. This diversity reflects the impassioned engagement of many contributors over time, and the aspirational ambitions and exuberant inventiveness of the photographic project at Wellesley writ large.”
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Seeing and Being Seen
When: On view through December 16th, 2012
Where: Boston Sculptors Gallery, 486 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Joyce McDaniel’s solo exhibition, “Seeing & Being Seen” at the Boston Sculptors Gallery, takes on a double meaning as she returns to the Boston Sculptors Group after a hiatus of ten years.This new work continues to incorporate her signature pattern paper and metal mesh, but in a more diminutive scale. Transforming fragments of art history, McDaniel incorporates digital images of eye portraits and frames them in gilded embroidery hoops, thereby conflating precious fine art with women’s domestic tools.
Other art historical images represent eyes as subject matter and a third group presents details of well known paintings that incorporate mirrors. As the viewer examines these small digital images mounted on mirrors, the viewer’s reflection becomes a part of the image – giving new meaning to “seeing and being seen.”
Also on view..
Caroline Bagenal : Word and Line
What/Why: “Animating space with delicate linear sculptures made from marsh reeds covered in newspaper, Bagenal’s new work challenges the viewer to think about landscape and architecture in new ways. The tall mass of vertical columns of Toron bristles with bamboo skewers, suggesting both winter trees and the exterior scaffolding of sticks projecting from the walls of African mosques. Newspaper covered forms create a collage of fragments of words and phrases punctuated with jolts of florescent color.
A large work made from completed crossword puzzles celebrates the handwritten word and
newspapers as physical objects to be touched. Newspaper also introduces a political and cultural component to the work and alludes to the passage of time. Drawings made from florescent tape reinforce the themes of time, pattern, architecture and space.”
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This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s
When: On view through March 3rd, 2013
Where: ICA Boston, 100 Northern Avenue Boston, MA 02210
How: Official Website
What/Why: “The 1980s—from the election of Ronald Reagan to the fall of the Berlin Wall—were a transformative decade for culture and society. The ICA presents a monumental new exhibition, This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, the first major U.S. museum retrospective devoted to the art of this period. Featuring over 100 works by some 90 artists—including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, the Guerilla Girls, Jeff Koons, Robert Mapplethorpe, Richard Prince, Gerhard Richter, Doris Salcedo, Cindy Sherman, and Tseng Kwong Chi with Keith Haring—the exhibition offers an overview of the artistic production in the 1980s while situating our contemporary moment within the history of the recent past.”
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Brickbottom and Joy Street Open Studios
(Why Cant It Last Forever, Pauline Lim)
When: Saturday and Sunday, November 17th and 18th, 2012 from noon to 6pm
Where: Brickbottom Studios, 1 Fitchburg Street, Somerville, MA 02143
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Our 25th Annual Open Studios Event will take place the weekend before Thanksgiving, Saturday and Sunday, November 17th and 18th, 2012 from noon to 6pm.
Over 60 artists will be showing at Brickbottom and, just two blocks away, more than 50 artists will be showing at Joy Street Studios.
Don’t miss it. See both up-and-coming and established artists’ artwork in the studios where they were created. All media are represented from painting and sculpture to photography, digital art and environmental and performance art. Genres range from abstract to realistic and everything in between. Glass blowing, ceramics, printmaking, animation, sound, theatre and music will round out the multi-media event. Bring a photo to Brickbottom to add toReciprocity Stream, our open photo show — a new event in honor of our 25th anniversary!”
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Plenty
(Hummingbird, Ann Smith)
When: On view through January 11th, 2013
Opening Reception: Friday November 16th, 2012
Where: 13Forest Gallery, 167A Massachusetts Avenue, Arlington
How: Official Website
What/Why: “PLENTY to celebrate at the opening reception of our 5th annual holiday show! This year’s roundup features exciting work in all categories from over 50 local artists, a third of whom are new to our walls. Hope to see you Friday night!”
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Extended Absence
(Amsterdam Awesome (collaboration with Anthony Smyrski), prior work of Isaac Lin. process photo of Blanc install here.)
Reception: Saturday November 17th, 2012 6PM-12AM Opening Reception
Where: Blanc Gallery, 110 Brookline Street, Cambridge, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Exhibiting Artists: Isaac Tin Wei Lin, Alex Lukas, Thom Lessner, Crystal Stokowski, Kris Chau, Andrew Jeffrey Wright, Jesse Geller, Dan Murphy”
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Shift in Time
When: On view through December 2nd, 2012
Gallery Discussion with Denise Marika: Saturday, November 17 at 4 PM
Where: Kingston Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Why string? Why wrapping? What is it that draws me to this? Having time on your hands with nothing to do. How often do we hear that phrase? What does it mean? Can we contemplate without feeling that we are empty?
Winding these balls has been over the years a marking of time, a catharsis, calendar, performance, sharing, meditative, a way to document a time span. They were also an entry to a discussion. It could be a discussion on art or on politics. Their physicality opened up topics that could be hard to broach with others.
For the November show at the Kingston, Kawada will sit in the gallery winding one ball of string to mark time. There will be another chair for viewers to sit and wind their own ball or carry on a conversation with the artist. The live, real-time video of this project is viewable here 12noon-5pm EST Monday-Friday. It is clock #11 in Frank Floyd’s The Clocks series.”
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Welcome to Control
(Scrolling Cut-Up Oracle of Control, Mitchel K. Ahern)
When: On view through November 24th, 2012
Where: Atlantic Works Gallery, 80 Border Street, Top Floor, East Boston
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Welcome to Control” an Installation of Typographic Monoprints, Mechanical Mind Control and Fiber Performance Art
There is a pervasive international, pan-dimensional organization know as Control respoinsible for cultural manipulation and management. Although the goals of the organization remain secret, Control has established a visitor center designed by artist Mitchel K Ahern. Featuring work in large-format typographic linoleum monoprints on fabric, he incorporates his pieces into performance and mechanical devices including the Cut-up Oracle of Control and a working Dream Machine Cone of Silence.”
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Desire and Compulsion
(Sabbatine Heart, Marjorie Kaye)
When: On view through December 28th, 2012
Where: LynnArts, 25 Exchange Street Lynn, MA 02902
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Lynn Arts Inc is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting cultural activity in the city of Lynn, as well as to encouraging community interest and involvement in the arts in the Greater Boston area. It is the firm belief of this organization that the arts enhance the quality of life and the economic vitality for both residents and businesses of a city”
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HAUNTED: Sculpture by Carolyn Wirth
When: On view through January 20th, 2012
Where: Pine Manor College, 400 Heath Street, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Carolyn Wirth’s sculpture asks the question of how much gesture can a figurative sculpture shed and still retain emotional meaning. Open or closed eyes may be the only clue we have to a subject’s state of mind, like the altered portrait “I Read Emily Dickinson All Last Winter” in which the protagonist is literally mummified under layers of wax, half-closed eyes scanning the stack of manuscripts on which she sits. Wirth does her own casting, and her work is about this process as much as the creation of a realistic figure: armatures, mold seams, and pieces of the mold itself are revealed and become abstract elements in the finished work. Mold flashing is kept in place like a corona around a head; holes and scratches are left unpatched. The finished figures give the impression that they are still in the process of being made, or else are on the verge of further decay, a continuum in the never-ending creation and alteration of an inner self.”
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Boston International Fine Art Show
(Portrait of a Young Woman, Margarett Sargent)
When: On view through November 18th, 2012
Where: BCA Cyclorama, 551 Tremont Street, Boston, MA
How: Official Website
Cost: $15
What/Why: “40 Outstanding Galleries from the United States and Europe.Paintings, Works on Paper, Sculpture,Photography, Fine Prints, Mixed Media ”
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Food, Water, Life
(OrtaWater-Fluvial Intervention Unit)
When: On view through December 16th, 2012
Where: Tufts University Art Gallery, Aidekman Arts Center, Tufts University, 40 Talbot Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
How: Official Website
What/Why: “The sculptures, drawings, installations and videos by this French wife-husband duo, Lucy+Jorge Orta, collectively explore major concerns that define the 21st century: biodiversity, environmental conditions, climate change, and exchange among peoples. These models and machines, constructed by the Ortas, suggest ways to purify, prepare and transport food and water, or launch a world-wide humanitarian effort. These humorous, jerrybuilt contraptions are poetic metaphors for these processes, and demonstrate the importance of art as a creative agent for awareness and change. This show is the first major traveling exhibition in the U.S. of the Ortas’ work; it is guest curated by C2|curatorsquared and organized by the Tufts University Art Gallery. Partial support provided by the Cultural Service of the French Consulate in Boston.”
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Lynn Open Studios
(Cat de Leon)
When: Saturday November 17th, 2012 10:00AM-4:00PM
Where: Lynn, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “On November 17th, 2012, Lynn, MA will hold its first city wide open studios event. With participating organizations, artists and businesses throughout the city, we welcome you to see Lynn’s creative side! All locations are open to the public.”
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Jill Slosburg-Ackerman – In Rome: The Pine Grove. And. Natura naturans; natura naturata.
When: On view through March 31st, 2013
Where: Worcester Art Museum, 55 Salisbury Street, Worcester, MA 01609
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Jill Slosburg-Ackerman’s drawing project, In Rome, was initiated while she was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome in 2009. Roman pine cones inspired her initial observational drawings and led her to draw other forms, in particular, the patterned stone floors she encountered in medieval Roman churches. As she explored connections between these two representative forms of nature and civilization, Slosburg-Ackerman’s project evolved in ways that expose the fluidity of boundaries between two- and three-dimensional experience, organic and geometric structure, intimate and architectural scale, sculpture and furniture.
Occupying floor and wall, the installation is composed of hundreds of elements – drawings, photographs, paintings, sculptures, video, furniture, hand-carved frames – grouped into visual “episodes.” The prominent roles of the pine frames are dual: emphasizing the exquisitely drawn details within their borders and acting as intermediaries between adjacent elements. With basic materials, Slosburg-Ackerman has created an unusually immersive and participatory perceptual experience, one which invites both detailed and leisurely exploration.
Cambridge-based, Slosburg-Ackerman (b. 1948 in Omaha) trained as a jeweler and a sculptor, earning a BFA and MFA from the Boston Museum School and Tufts University. She is Professor of Art at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.”
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Timothy Kadish and Sterling Mulbry
(Four Seasons: Summer, Sterling Mulbry)
When: On view through December 1st, 2012
Where: Clark Gallery, 145 Lincoln Road, PO Box 339, Lincoln, MA 01773
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Clark Gallery is honored to announce the exhibition of new paintings by Timothy Kadish and Sterling Mulbry from November 6 through December 1, 2012. All are welcome to join the artists for a celebratory reception on Saturday, November 10th from 4-6 pm.
Timothy Kadish has an insatiable curiosity and keen awareness of the world around him. His newest body of work builds on his ongoing goal to create a visual language that seeks to codify the endless stream of stimuli that defines our contemporary lives. Using simple geometric forms as the building blocks for his textural paintings, he is able to create richly woven, pulsating mindscapes. His sparing use of color activates key elements forcing the viewer to pause and absorb his iconographic symbols. Applying mixed media materials to a range of surfaces, Kadish embraces the multi-media approach so prevalent today. Calling himself “the markmaker,” Kadish says “I respond to the varied visual phenomena with forms and ways of marking. To be clear, it is the organization of the elements that I am interested in. To arrange and record is to acknowledge and to reconcile. And as a student and product of Art History, I tend to combine numerous (informed) techniques.”
Kadish is a recent recipient of the prestigious Traveling Scholar Fellowship from the SMFA and was featured at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in the Traveling Scholars Exhibition in Spring 2009. His work was the subject of a solo show at the Alphonse Berber Gallery in Berkeley, CA in November 2009, and has been included in solo and group exhibitions at such venues as the Smithsonian Institutions in Washington, DC and the Center of Contemporary Art in Seattle. This is his second one man show at the Clark Gallery.
Sterling Mulbry’s newest body of paintings captures the bold patterns and lush colors of Allende, Mexico, where she recently traveled. Her still life compositions blend vibrantly colored tilework and wallpaper with lush tropical fruit and birds. The play between two and three-dimensional objects vying for transcendence animates each work. The same attention to pattern and design is evident in her landscapes featuring local architectural motifs. In addition, Mulbry has several works from her Open Book series on display. The palpable surface and luscious color of Mulbry’s paintings transport the viewer to another realm, one where the animate and inanimate become blurred.
Mulbry graduated from The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, where she was awarded a Fifth Year Traveling Scholarship. This will be her ninth solo show at Clark Gallery. Her work can be found in numerous private and corporate collections.”
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Gregory Gillespie – Transfixed Selected Works 1995 – 2000
(Self Portrait with Banana)
When: On view through December 15th, 2012
Where: Gallery NAGA, 67 Newbury Street, Boston MA 02116
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Our primary focus is painting, and we represent many of the most highly regarded painters working in Boston and New England. In addition, exceptional contemporary photographers, printmakers, and sculptors exhibit with us, as well as the international doyenne of holography, Harriet Casdin-Silver.
We also specialize in studio furniture, presenting work by many of the premier makers of unique and limited edition furniture in the country.”
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Heroes & Villains
When: On view through February 24th, 2012
Where: Norman Rockwell Museum, Norman Rockwell Museum, 9 Route 183, Stockbridge, MA 01262
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Heroes & Villains is the first museum exhibition celebrating the artwork of Alex Ross, today’s foremost comic book artist. Ross, acclaimed for the photorealism of his work, is often referred to as “the Norman Rockwell of the comics world.” Heroes & Villainsfeatures over 130 paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures from Ross’s personal collection. The pieces range from a crayon drawing of Spider-Man that he created at the age of four to paintings from his early career on projects like Marvels and Kingdom Come through to his more recent work on Flash Gordon and Green Hornet. This exhibition outlines Ross’s career of redefining comic books and graphic novels for a new generation of followers of Superman, Batman, Spider-Man and other classic comic book superheroes.
Showcasing the strong influence of American illustration and Pop Art on Alex Ross, original works by Norman Rockwell, Andrew Loomis, J.C. Leyendecker, and Andy Warhol are included. Artworks by Ross’s mother Lynette Ross (a successful commercial illustrator in her own right) are on display as well. A selection of comic books and related paraphernalia collected by Warhol throughout his life are showcased within the exhibit.
Heroes & Villains is the first museum exhibition of Ross’s work and comprises four galleries. Ross has graciously prepared an original artwork for Norman Rockwell Museum which is available to the public in poster form exclusively at The Museum Store, and online at store.nrm.org*, in November. Ross will also make a rare appearance for the opening celebration on November 10, 2012.”
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♂/☺/♫
I have been busy busy in my offline FLUX. life that will hopefully translate into online content in coming weeks. I’ve shifted from “curator” mode to once again educating myself, researching and chatting up everyone I can. Active to receptive.
In the meantime, I’ve been speaking off the top of my head here, if that’s your thing.
Once I can seize a quiet moment to let osmosis do its job, I look forward to spewing it out sharing all my upcoming endeavors with you.
Until then, we’ll always have this:
Oh, and I’ll have new posts next week. See you Monday. ♥
