This morning The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston announced that Bill Arning has been named as their new director. Arning has been the curator at the List Visual Art Center at MIT, and while we are very happy that Arning will…
THE FUTURE: BOSTON LACKS ALTERNATIVE SPACES? By Greg Cook A month back, Matt Nash of Big Red & Shiny wrote an essay lamenting that in Boston the “alternative gallery scene is non-existent.”It struck a chord with thinking I’ve been doing about…
MARKETWATCH By Micah J. Malone Within the Blogosphere of art, I cannot count the number of times in the last week I’ve read some version of the phrase “the tanking of the economy will refocus the art world on interesting ideas…
R.H. QUAYTMAN: CHAPTER 12 : IAMB AT MIGUEL ABREU GALLERY By Alan Reid The sly objects in R. H. Quaytman’s demanding show at Miguel Abreu Gallery (Op art images screen-printed on plywood, with few exceptions) provoke retinal and philosophic feedback. The…
“THE WHITE CUBE” By Thomas Marquet #41: Everyone’s always talking about the good old days in the good old ways. Thomas Marquet is a cartoonist, sculptor, and critic, based in Brooklyn, New York, which is an admittedly unoriginal place to be…
SEVEN DAYS IN THE ART WORLD BY SARAH THORTON By James Nadeau Noted cultural sociologist Sarah Thorton (she has written on rave culture: Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital as well as for the BBC, and NPR) has turned her…
OBAMA AND THE ARTS By Matthew Nash During the heat of the election, and now in the interregnum period before the inauguration of President Obama, there has been a lot of talk about the arts and what policies the new president…
THE 2008 BOSTON ART AWARDS BALL By Big Red A few weeks ago, critic Greg Cook announced on his blog, The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research, that he was taking nominations for the best art exhibitions of 2008. His move…
ON LEMONADE & STORAGE LOFTS: A CONVERSATION WITH DOUGLAS WEATHERSBY By Matthew Nash Douglas Weathersby creates projects that merge labor with art in complex ways, and present the results under the guise of his company, Environmental Services. Weathersby was the winner…
A REPORT FROM THE PHANTOM ZONE By Steve Aishman A crossword puzzle for some of the Boston Art scene. Click on it and then print it. Most of the answers can be found using Google. The solution will be available on…
THERE ARE NO NEW IDEAS. PART 2 By Christian Holland Part 2 of a 3-Part Series. Click here for Part 1. Plato believed that any idea was attainable by an individual, but only because he thought knowledge is innate. In The…
A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR By Matthew Gamber Consider the top image on the right. Admiring its pastness, one might ruminate on the good old days of fishing, when the activity was more pure. However, rather than depicting a lucky catch,…
EXINE BY PAUL MORRISON AT THE RISD MUSEUM By Jon Petro Possibly the most impressive self-actualizing apparatus of the art world today is just how it manages to reinvent itself. Year after year, idiom after idiom and dialect after dialect, artists…
ANDY WARHOL: OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS @ THE WEXNER CENTER FOR THE ARTS By James A. Nadeau I have never been a huge fan of Andy Warhol (and this is my second Warhol exhibition review – go figure). His presence as…
WHO STILL USES SNAILMAIL? (OH, & A NEW FEATURES UPDATE) By Big Red At Big RED & Shiny we encourage anyone with an event listing or announcement to post their info in our Listings section, since that is the quickest and…
LOOKING BACK ON 2008 By Matthew Nash I have little doubt that, when we look back on the year 2008, it will be remembered for one thing above all others: change. Some of this change was for the better, some for…
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR (AND ANOTHER NEW FEATURE) By Matthew Gamber For the past few issues, there has been a flurry of comments along the tails of articles. The discussions have ranged from considered to caustic to comical. If you have…
NEW IDEAS. NO, I MEAN IDEAS THAT NO ONE HAS HEARD OF BEFORE. By Christian Holland Part 1 of a 3-Part Series. I regret to inform you, but there are no New Ideas. I checked. When I began my quest to…
A REPORT FROM THE PHANTOM ZONE By Steve Aishman When I was little, I remember watching “The Terminator” with my father and saying “Wow, that guy was really strong.” My father replied, “Well, that’s one type of strength. There are many…
“THE WHITE CUBE” By Thomas Marquet #40: No one lives forever, except on Facebook. Thomas Marquet is a cartoonist, sculptor, and critic, based in Brooklyn, New York, which is an admittedly unoriginal place to be pursuing any of these things.Get The…