Newest Features
WILLIAM POPE.L: CORBU POPS By Christian Holland In his exhibition Corbu Pops, artist William Pope.L launches an assault on the show’s venue, Harvard’s big sandy-gray Modernist bastion, the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts. The building is the only structure in North America designed by architect Le Corbusier, and Pope.L, who is known for his confrontational and interventionlist performances, aims below the belt. At the center of the show are several breadbox-sized models of the building that Pope.L created. In each plaster-cast replica, a foot-long, phallic rod extends from a crotch formed by one…
BIG RED ON-THE-TOWN: NEW YORK ART FAIRS By Big Red March 6th – 8th 2009 Candid snaps from a Big RED weekend on-the-town at the 2009 New York Art Fairs LaMontagne Gallery Samson Projects Volta NY Photos by James Manning
CONNECTIONS @ MIT MUSEUM By Megan Driscoll The Connections exhibition by the Sociable Media Group at the MIT Museum is part research, part art –turning theories and data sets into interactive portraits and installations that explore recent technological developments in human communication. The group explores many common themes in art and culture today, and tries to address questions, including “How do social conventions develop in the networked world?” and, “How do we perceive other people online?” What’s interesting is that the projects are created as a means of scientific research, which obscures…
ZOE | JUNIPER @ THE ICA By French Clements There’s a chance you’ve already seen the collaborative work of performance artist Juniper Shuey and choreographer Zoe Scofield, in a music video for Dave Matthews’ 2007 song Eh Hee. Matthews, seated in a barber’s chair, grimaces and mugs while demonic figures dress him in Mozart’s wig and Chaplin’s hat, cover his face in all kinds of muck, clean him off, and dress him up again. At his side is a coven of dancers, Scofield among them. In quasi-Butoh regalia, they creep through drifts…
A REPORT FROM THE PHANTOM ZONE By Steve Aishman When I travel, one of my favorite things to do is to visit smaller, less well-known museums. The reason why I love to visit smaller museums is that I can really enjoy visiting them without any expectations. When I visit MOMA or the Guggenheim, the work had better be good. In fact, the quality of work had better be fantastic if they are going to claim that they are two of the high water marks of exhibiting art in the world. With regional museums,…
WATCHMEN & THE LIMITS OF ADAPTATION By James Nadeau “Who watches the Watchmen?” is a catchphrase from the film Watchmen directed by Zach Snyder. It is graffiti sprayed across an alley wall and it signifies dissatisfaction with the actions of the group of heroes known as the Watchmen. In the context of the film it questions the power of a group of superheroes in a world where the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are on the brink of nuclear war, but I think the question begs asking of the very film itself. Who is…
THOMAS NASON @ THE FLORENCE GRISWOLD MUSEUM By Joe Leduc “You talk about the decay of New England. It’s a compost heap.” – Robert Frost to Donald Hall By the time of his death, the affinity between the prints of Thomas Nason (1889 – 1971) and the poetry of Robert Frost had become such a critical commonplace that the compiler of Nason’s collected works felt free simply to match the two: “Frost evoked New England in poetry, Nason in pictures.” A shared subject of rural life suggested the connection, while the engravings Nason…
ASSESSMENT ALASKA @ THE DISTILLERY GALLERY By Karen S. Fegley In the months leading up to the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Alaska received considerable public attention when its governor was chosen to run for vice president on the Republican ticket. But that’s not all that was going on in the Last Frontier that summer: 100 miles north of Anchorage, six artists were engaged in a more thoughtful endeavor–the inaugural season of The Homestead AK artist residency. The Distillery Gallery’s current exhibition presents work by Chuck Chaney, The Homestead AK’s artist-owner, and other…