There are those pieces of writing that you are so grateful exist. I remember my excitement the first time I read this conversation between Kaja Silverman and George Baker; the excitement in now knowing that someone out there is…
“Poïesis is etymologically derived from the ancient Greek term ποιέω, which means “to make”. This word, the root of our modern “poetry”, was first a verb, an action that transforms and continues the world. Neither technical production nor creation…
There has been a lot of talk about the Foster Prize lately, which is better than no talk at all. In the process of putting my thoughts about the whole thing into some sort of shape, I came across…
The Art Institute of Boston’s low residency graduate program culminates this year in two group shows (one on each campus) featuring 15 artists. As a low residency program, it attracts established artists who have both life and studio experience,…
TEN YEARS, 2013, Self Portraits by Katrina Umber made 2002 through 2012. See more here. This quote by Trinh T. Minh-ha has been with me since undergrad: “There will be much less arrogance, much less it-goes-wihout-saying assumtion, much less taken-for-granted…
Every week, BR&S picks out a series of gallery events, screenings, exhibitions, performances. Here are our choices for you to go & see this week: • Events Tuesday 25 — Thursday 27 June Boston University, Kenmore Classroom Building, Room 101,…
The Westerly Public Library, in Westerly RI, resonates with old money and civic virtue, both of which can seem as quaint and bygone as the dinosaurs. It’s a mansion-sized pile, faced in yellow brick, dating from the 1890s, and…
The Berkshires are well-known in Boston and New York for incredible natural beauty as well as a vibrant arts and culture scene. Mount Greylock is the highest point in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at approximately 3500 feet, and overlooks the…
Brutalism is arguably one of architecture’s most challenging styles. This mid century aesthetic is typified locally in buildings like Boston’s City Hall, built in 1968, and the campus of Southeastern Massachusetts University (now University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth), which…
Xu Bing: Phoenix, currently on exhibit at MassMoCA, is poetic and political. The artist’s beautiful installations make a traditional artistic statement at first glance. However, an unexpected use of materials gives these works deeper meaning, with insight into Xu’s…
Welcome to the next installment of Studio Sessions with guest Melissa Murray. Melissa earned her BFA from the State University of New York Purchase College in 2006. Her mixed media pieces often place highly-refined drawings of wild animals into interior…
Every week, BR&S picks out a series of gallery events, screenings, exhibitions, performances. Here are our choices for you to go & see this week: • Exhibitions Monday June 3 — Thursday August 8 Montserrat College of Art, Montserrat…
By Stephanie Cardon June 17, 2013 This conversation with John C. Gonzalez followed his participation in Odd Spaces, last month’s day-long performance art event at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, curated by Liz Munsell. With Family Meal Gonzalez initiated…
The Columbia historian Eric Foner has written that freedom in today’s neoliberal world is largely defined by “a series of negations—of government, of social responsibility, of a common public culture, of restraints on individual self-definition and consumer choice.” In the…
You’ve stumbled across some sort of back alley entrance to a virtual digital theatre. The digital back lot that makes screen stare-stumblers of us all. There is something overwhelmingly familiar and disorienting in Derek Larson’s piece. Can one call…
i. Experience We are fascinated by this word “experience.” Just how to describe it? Something which cannot be touched by description, documented by exposure, or reduced by critique. You weren’t there… Experience is a lodestone of authenticity. The word keeps…
What happens when an artist retreats? I don’t mean to some plush residency program with three square meals and unfettered studio time, free from the worries of everyday life, but retreats by building up defensive walls to buttress against social…
What is queer photography? Do we know it when we see it? Or does the definition hold a certain slippage, the paradox of any deconstructive category? By the late 1980s, amidst a mounting backlash from conservative political factions, photographers were…
In David H. Wells’ Foreclosed Dreams at Providence’s Yellow Peril Gallery, we see the material residue of dreams deferred, if not entirely scuffed out. The photographs, presenting a kind of archeology of the recent past, document houses in limbo,…
]Every week, BR&S picks out a series of gallery events, screenings, exhibitions, performances. Here are our choices for you to go & see this week: • Exhibitions Friday June 14 — Thursday August 15* Raul Gonzalez, Every step you take…