Newest Features
By JENNIFER MCMACKON Toronto artist Lisa Neighbour speaks with Jennifer McMackon about life and death, sculpture and the resistance language of electrical wiring: JM: Lisa Neighbour, I seem to recall a big shift in your work about ten or maybe twelve years ago. It seemed like you were sailing along and then you said, “Let there be light!”. What started you working with light? Was it a matter of slow evolution or an epiphany? LN: The first time I remember using lights was in 1982. I was having a crisis of sorts,…
By LAUREL SPARKS The Boston Artist Laurel Sparks asks the former America’s Next Top Model contestant from Boston, Mila Bouzinova, a few questions about life and modeling. Laurel Sparks: What inspired you to start modeling? Mila Bouzinova: People always assumed that I was a model and would ask what agency I was with, what campaigns I was in, what shows have I do, etc. So I figured I might as well actually get paid for looking like a model. LS: By being a model, how do you think you contribute to society?…
By KAREN SCHIFF “Art is never a commodity,” declared Peter Schjeldahl, at Boston University on October 4, “though it can be treated as if it is one.” Schjeldahl, the senior art critic at The New Yorker, was trying to reassure a questioner who was concerned about the influence of money in the art world. His first responses to the question (he’s all for it! money motivates artists to produce, and then it lets them earn a living!), combined with his further, more thoughtful reflection, represent the evening’s tone: chatty yet erudite. Schjeldahl…
By CARL GUNHOUSE Why has the installation of the Museum of Modern Art’s New Photography series created so little interest in the photography world? Last time I checked, there were no reviews in the Village Voice, New York Times, not even Alec Soth’s blog, nada, nothing. The largest contemporary museum in an art epicenter can put on an annual show of new photography, and no one notices. How can this be? Do museums no longer matter, are annuals of all kinds passe, does MoMA have the street cred of your mom? No,…
By MATTHEW NASH Chris Tonelli is a poet, musician, and the motivation behind The So And So Series, a regular poetry event in Boston and Cambridge. They can often be found at The Distillery, The Lily Pad and Porter Square Books. Recently, The So And So Series has partnered withRope-A-Dope Press to produce a series of hand-printed broadsides, placing poetry alongside the work of artists. MN: How did the So And So Series get started? CT: After grad school, I started getting reading opportunities in NYC. My friends started getting reading opportunities…
By BEN SLOAT The medium of photography has been especially ravenous this past half century. The swelling of the photograph from its key mechanisms of description to include those of performance, appropriation, and construction has not weakened its ability to speak with sincerity. As the contemporary population is ever adoring of information (and the nature of its dispersal), the interest to communicate and re-examine has become if nothing else, a physical need and a compulsion. Imagine the trauma of a single week where you read no news and saw no images. Photography…
By MATTHEW NASH I’ve been down this road before. It begins with the uncomfortable feeling of leaving culture you understand, glancing nervously at the rear-view mirror as it fades further and further behind you. Eventually, when the city and the suburbs fall away, there is nothing but the vast rural openness that comprises much of this country. It washes over you in great torrents: a tide of sweeping vistas and dying fields, of rusted tractors and crumbling silos, of hope and despair, and the only thing that one can count on in…
By CAROLYN FRANKLIN I first saw Nick Rodrigues work in the form of a postcard, which showed him in a suit and tie, walking down the street talking on a cellphone with his “Portable Cellular Phone Booth” over his head. It was immediately funny and easy to understand, but each time I looked at that postcard tacked to my wall I realized that there was a lot more depth than I had initially perceived. In many ways, the “Portable Cellular Phone Booth” is the key to understanding Rodrigues whole body of work.…