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Earlier this week, I posted 2 items about the arts policies of Boston’s 4 mayoral candidates. I also sent questions to the candidates and promised post them here. Tonight, Michael Flaherty’s campaign sent a long response which I’ll include in it’s entirety below. As I noted in my original posts, Flaherty is the only candidate to have an arts policy stated as part of his platform, while Thomas Menino stands on his record and Sam Yoon has outlined some proposals. Here are the answers from Jordan Weissberg of Michael Flaherty’s campaign to some…
Following up on my post below about the arts policies for Boston’s mayoral candidates, here is a link to a piece in the Jamaica Plain Gazette. For the most part, the candidates address the usual litany of issues, including education and crime. At the end, however, is the only arts-related policy proposal, from Sam Yoon: Yoon, himself a talented jazz pianist, announced a proposal to create a cabinet-level commissioner of arts and culture position in his administration. He said he also would aim to create more affordable housing specifi-cally for artists and…
I just got off the phone with Kathy Bitetti, who called to tell me about some big moves involving the national debate around health care, and what artists have done here in Massachusetts. She will have a column for us in an upcoming issue. During the conversation, she reminded me that there is a mayoral election coming up, and prompted me to check out the arts policies of the four candidates: Tom Menino, Sam Yoon, Michael Flaherty and Kevin McCrea. Menino, the sitting mayor and longest-serving mayor in Boston history, does not…
By KEN BOUTET & DAVE ORTEGA A large, sparsely detailed diorama by Sam Durant depicts the English-speaking American Indian, Squanto, teaching a grateful pilgrim how to fertilize a cornfield with fish. One nearly dismisses this display of aesthetic plainness and iconic familiarity, but when the scene rotates ever so slowly it reveals a not-so-familiar story: an outraged Miles Standish has just upturned a table and is about to beat a member of the Pequot tribe to death. According to text accompanying the piece, Standish will later lead a charge to wipe out…
By ALISE UPITIS In 1977, Richard Serra proposed that all drawing is the physical trace of doing, famously stating that “drawing is a verb.” Let’s call this our thesis. In 2002, curator Laura Hoptman claimed that, at the turn of the 21st century, “drawing is a noun,” that works, at least those distilled for her MOMA exhibition Drawing Now, are “finished and autonomous.” This will be our antithesis. And in a beautifully Hegelian moment of synthesis, enter the exhibition Expanded Marks. Including works of 15 member-artists from the Philadelphia-based, artist-run nonprofit Vox…
By MATTHEW NASH Performance artists Phil Fryer and Sandrine Schaefer are the duo behind “The Present Tense”, a series of festivals promoting performance art. Recently, they have joined forces with Vela Phelan, Dirk Adams, Alice Vogler and Brad Benedetti to create MEME, a gallery for performance-based art in Cambridge, MA. We met to talk about the new space, and its impact on performance art in Boston. —- MN: Can you tell me about MEME, and how it got started? SS: In November, we did a show together called “Congratulations On Your Empire”…
By JAMES A. NADEAU Last week, Artadia announced the seven winners of their Boston awards. In light of this, I sent a couple of questions to the winners, to get a sense of their experiences. Four artists responded: Amie Siegel, Claire Beckett, Joe Zane and Raul Gonzalez. Below are their thoughts. 1. Having gone through the whole process of application, finalist, and awardee, what are your thoughts on the experience? I realize that this is a somewhat inane question so I’ll flesh it out a bit. I am curious about your thought…
By BIG RED August 7, 2009 Candid snaps from a Big RED night on-the-town at MEME Gallery for the closing reception of Jesse Kaminsky’s “Bubbleraft 2.” MEME All photos and text by Big RED’s Christian Holland.