Newest Features
By ALAN REID Barb Choit at Rachel Uffner Barb Choit has recently documented the structure and effects of a variety of lamps (and wattage) on a photographic negative; she’s also imaged and archived a collection of broken pottery. Now, in her first solo show at Rachel Uffner Gallery, things broken and the ramifications of light have merged. The result: Nagel Fades, a catchy photography show of sun-damaged prints by the ’80s salon favorito Patrick Nagel. With the work, Choit chronicles the damage a home tanning bed on original Nagel prints. Many of…
By BIG RED Friday, October 30, 2009 Part of MASSART Eventworks for Fall 2009. From the MASSART website: The Iron Pour has a strong history at Massachusetts College of Art, beginning as a fundraiser for the Metals Department, it has grown into a celebration of art, music, and performance. Recently, the Iron Corps., the group that organizes the event, has been working in conjunction with Eventworks, who will be kicking off their annual Art Festival. This spring, we will be invoking themes of outer space and the explosive demise of stars and…
By STEVE AISHMAN Information has evolved into a new species of garbage. The entire concept of someone who is “informed” has changed and now fragmentary 140 character lines of text pass as communication. It is not that this new breed of information is false that is the issue, but rather it is an illusion of knowledge. We are all watching as knowledge is drowning in a river of irrelevance. There is constant stream of data flowing from one communication device to the other without picking up value along the way. Sci-fi novels…
By MICAH J. MALONE I’ve hesitated to comment on the following story, if only because it is still being written. However, the fascinating conundrum that faces Chris Burden and Gagosian Gallery is far too rich to pass up. As was widely reported, Burden’s Beverly Hills exhibition last March was cancelled due to yet another economic catastrophe. The gallery reported that the SEC froze 100 kilos of gold bullions bought by the gallery for Burden’s exhibition while it investigates the improprieties of Stanford Financial Group, the parent company for Stanford Coins and Bullion…
By JAMES NADEAU In addition to the massive gallery hopping in I did in the 798 District I also spent some time in the relatively new gallery area of Caochangdi. This is an old neighborhood farther out of the city that has recently been transformed into another arts district. A lot of the galleries and artists who could no longer afford to be in 798 have moved out here. It is a bit more rough and tumble. The village is compact and teeming with people. Construction is taking place everywhere. The village…
By ERIK GULLARD Alec Soth’s exploration of Bogota stemmed originally from the adoption of his baby girl. The girl’s biological mother made a book full of letters, pictures, and perms and gave it to Soth and his wife. Upon receiving the book, Soth spent the next two months, while waiting for the adoption to go through, photographing Bogota to make his own book for his new daughter. The first thing one notices is the color. The opposite of vibrant, the photographs are filled with muddled blues and faded reds. Soth meant for…
By STEPHEN V. KOBASA In Provincetown, there is a great deal of what no longer is. Who sits in the poet Stanley Kunitz’s garden now, or writes in Norman Mailer’s house? And even in October, the hulking tourist buses angle and reverse at the compact intersections. I was not looking for a subject when I arrived, having long had the sense that you could carry a painting from one gallery to the next here, replacing it at each stop with another, and no one would ever notice the alteration, so absolute is…
With the next round of elections approaching, there has been a lot of talk in Boston about growing the creative economy and fostering new arts spaces in the city. At the same time, there are a large number of college students and recent graduates looking for a way to get their careers started. For some, this means starting an alternative space to show and support the art they care about and to begin a career in the arts with a big splash. Many well-known artists, curators, critics, and dealers started with a…