Two things are surprising about Ethan Hayes-Chute’s project at the List Visual Art Center: it is much funnier than expected, and it is deeply sincere. The show consists of two primary areas: a work bench serving as a backdrop for…
Yearly Archives: 2016
Many didactic art exhibitions refer to events that have already happened, appealing to viewers’ collective memory rather than urging collective action. Not so for ¡CAPICÚ! Let Them Eat Cake, which recently closed at The Distillery Gallery. The exhibition, organized by…
“…the problem lies not whether to reach for either larger or more selective audiences, but rather in understanding for ourselves our own definitions of those groups we wish to speak to, and in making conscious steps to reach out to…
These are glimpses of my experience and thoughts recorded in my journal from my time as an artist-in-residence at the Vermont Studio Center (VSC) last month. While reading my journal I reflected on what I had been feeling at the time…
The question of documentation is rooted in the history of the avant-garde. Think of Dadaist or Surrealists recording their work via sound or the nascent technology of film. Think of Hans Namuth filming Jackson Pollock as he dripped his paintings…
Jamaica Plain-based painter Josh Jefferson has recently received a lot of attention for his brightly colored geometric collages and head series. Jefferson will be showing his work at Steven Zevitas in the SoWa district on September 9 and has shows…
Jonathan Talit recently met with Julia Csekö to discuss her solo exhibition Straight from the Heart – The Rant Series (August 6-27, 2016), made possible with the generous support of the Walter Feldman Fellowship and organized by the Arts and…
“The best art speaks for itself,” someone stated at a recent public discussion about Boston Creates. My immediate internal response was yes, but art also prompts, at times even goads, us to speak or write. I concede that art is,…
Since 2013 I’ve been focused—educatively, academically, artistically—on ‘socially-engaged art’ and the idea of learning in public.(1) Over the course of the last ten years, I’ve grown to understand the the site of my own work (as a curator, educator, artist…
Known for his work that confronts the fragile limits of perception and physicality, British sculptor Antony Gormley has confronted the human body throughout his career. In Chord (2015), a new public work permanently on view at MIT, Gormley challenges the…
From 1759 to 1763, writer Christopher Smart composed the sprawling poem Jubilate Agno while confined to an asylum. The best-known portion of the text is a 74-line segment in which Smart expounds on the ways that his cat is an…
Located in Faneuil Hall, Boston’s tourism epicenter, Pat Falco’s newest installation seems at first glance like the busy hub of any political campaign. Boston Campaign Headquarters, as it is titled, is made up of signs, banners, hats, and pins featuring…
Earlier this summer, Lisa Crossman sat on the grounds of the Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts with Boston-based independent curator Pedro Alonzo. Alonzo is the Guest Curator for the Trustees Art and The Landscape initiative, which begins its program with Sam…
Today, I am in transition. My art, my home, my studio, my day jobs, and my community are all in flux. I recently moved to New Jersey from Boston and then left shortly after to come to Vermont for a…
Since 1895, cultural institutions from around the world have gathered at the Venice Biennale to present the latest developments in their country’s visual arts, performance, and design. With the Biennale attracting over 500,000 visitors last year, prospective contributors vie to…
Each day that you and I choose to venture outside of our dwellings, we navigate streets, sidewalks, and other public infrastructure made not by us, but for us by other people who, assumedly, had our best interest in mind when…
In his quintessential text on vision, Techniques of the Observer, author and art historian Jonathan Crary notes: “The mind does not reflect truth but rather extracts it from an ongoing process involving the collision and merging of ideas.”(1) The nineteenth-century…
The sculptures in VERY’s inaugural show, Sex Not Sex, inhabits the space in much the same way as the patrons at the opening: some sitting, some standing, others propped against the wall. In a gallery that feels more like a…
Curated by Carroll and Sons, No Boys Allowed was developed through a collaboration between two of the exhibiting artists, Sheila Pepe and Carl Ostendarp. The exhibition investigates a variety of abstract artists whose work embodies the feminist perspective in late twentieth-century…
The sixteen busy sculptures, panels, and photographic collages in this strange, compact show hang back coolly in the space, waiting for the viewer to draw them out. Audrey Hope’s and Dan Boardman’s works are so encrusted with information that the…