Sometimes, after leaving a show, I feel a tinge of regret in the pit of my stomach. The regret stems from the feeling that there was only so much I was able to grasp of the work; that there’s more…
“Athabasca is an ice field,” the artist Mira Cantor explains. ” Water flows down from the field in both eastern and western directions, eventually ending up in both oceans.”1 In the painting Athabasca (2012) a strong gestural stroke bisects…
Forget objectivity; LaToya Ruby Frazier is an activist at heart. Frazier operates on the inside, and her photography cannot be adequately judged within the category of journalism. Although her photographs invite comparison to the iconic WPA photographs of Dorothea Lange…
Walking into the first floor of the Society of Arts and Crafts on Newbury Street, visitors enter into a storefront filled to the brim with work designed and fabricated by local and national artists working in glass, metal, fibers, jewelry,…
The second group show of contemporary Cuban art to take place in Boston this fall, Cuban Virtualities: New Media Art from the Island (at Tufts University Gallery September 5 through December 8) was also the first exhibition of Cuban new…
“History is a malleable enterprise subject to the whims and desires of its writers.” And, arguably, of its artists. Scott Patrick Wiener’s curatorial statement for All Our Tomorrows and Yesterdays reveals his partiality, as an image-maker, for the documentary…
Orly Genger’s Red, Yellow and Blue, a monumental installation of hand-knotted rope, was recently moved from its summer home at Madison Square Park in New York City and reinstalled at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, where it will remain until…
At Brandeis University’s Women’s Studies Research Center through December 18, Vivian Maier: A Woman’s Lens may be the first exhibition of the elusive (some would say, reclusive) photographer’s work in the Greater Boston area, but it coincides with Self-Portraits…
Andrea Lynn Santos’ work evokes the spareness of this time of year, as leaves fall to the ground, windows are shut tight, and the sky is emptied of birds. As in the collograph print, My Bed, My Burden, it speaks…
Over the last twenty-three years, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has enjoyed a lasting, reciprocal relationship with French artist Sophie Calle. While exhibiting work at the ICA/Boston in 1990, Calle took an interview with Parkett magazine in front of one…
The deCordova Biennial includes twenty-one artists from all six New England states. In terms of media, it is richly diverse. Generally speaking, the work has a noticeable trend towards very strong colors and reflexively abstract compositions. From Rachel Gross’s…
Over the last few years I’ve developed sympathy for those who organize large, all-encompassing exhibits like biennials. If you hold on too tightly to a curatorial vision, you can create an autobiographical list of your favorite artists or styles. If…
Boston City Hall is the building Bostonians love to hate the most. As one of architecture’s “ugly” ducklings, Boston City Hall symbolizes the city’s coming of age in the late 1960s. It began in 1961 with a nationwide, juried competition…
Fellow commuters, when was the last time you were excited about using your Charlie Card? Probably not when you are scrambling for the last seat on the Red Line, or while cramming yourself onto an overcrowded bus. Most likely not…
It comes as no surprise that a photograph’s value is about access. While some art has the luxury of being unique as an object, a photograph is only as unique as what it represents. It’s a window into a moment…
It’s hard to believe, but Amy Sillman: one lump or two, opening today at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, is Sillman’s first museum survey show. Comprising over 90 of Sillman’s paintings, drawings, ‘zines and films, one lump or two resists…
BR&S’s editors are beginning a regular blogpost highlighting events and exhibitions we’ve seen and enjoyed, but, for any number of reasons, weren’t able to cover. Usually, that reason is time; we feel fortunate to live in a city where…
In retrospect, it seems only fitting that I should see Finnish artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s video installations at the Davis Museum. It’s been years since I last uttered the words “esse is percipi,”1 but those conversations (arguments, really) involving Bishop Berkeley…
Omer Fast’s 30 minute video work 5,000 Feet Is the Best takes its title from one of the lines in its dialogue. It is spoken by a jumpy former U.S. Air Force Predator Drone operator, reclining on a bed in…
Into the wake of the 2012 Creative Time Summit, held almost exactly one year ago, was cast An Open Letter to Critics Writing About Political Art. According to its co-writers Steve Lambert and Stephen Duncombe, the letter’s addressees were shirking…