Newest Features
By STEVE AISHMAN I watched a new neighbor move-in over the past few days. Most of her big boxes included multiple types of exercise equipment (abs, arms, cardio), HD TV’s for the living room, bedroom and kitchen (she lives in a one-bedroom apartment), boxes of CD’s and DVD’s, a gaming system (including exercise and karaoke games), two types of iPods, a Blackberry and what appeared to be multiple cell phones. Of course, she had high-speed Internet access and cable with a million channels. I invited her over for dinner, but as you…
By JAMES HULL I have tried for over a week not to respond to the simplistic, one-sided, Op-Ed rant by Ken Johnson about Christoph Büchel’s problematic Mass MoCA installation disguised as a “Critic’s Notebook”. The opinion piece was proudly run in color on the front page of the Arts section of the Boston Sunday Globe (July 1, 2007). The first sentence clearly establishes the biases of the “critic” and irresponsibly places blame singularly on a valuable regional art center that has won accolades for almost everything it has done artistically and economically…
By KATHLEEN BITETTI INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS & THE HEALTH CARE REFORM LAW In 2004, Massachusetts altered the law governing Independent Contractors, unbeknownst to many in this State. Essentially, it is now next to impossible for someone to be paid as an independent contractor – or “1099ed” — in the Commonwealth. Here’s our understanding, at the Artists Foundation, of how this all came about: From what we currently know, it was the MA Carpenters’ Union who backed the legal change because it wanted to control the abuses in the construction industry. (That’s clearly an…
By THOMAS MARQUET #20: Just as an experiment in seeking that elusive demographic interested in comics about art as well as other things for which the internet is far more popular, I’d like to write out here the three words from this comic that will generate maximal search engine hits for this entry: kiera knightley nudity. “The White Cube” comics can be read in series in the Big RED & Shiny Collections section. Thomas Marquet is a cartoonist, sculptor, and critic, based in Brooklyn, New York, which is an admittedly unoriginal…
By CHARLES GIULIANO For many years yard sales and flea markets have been a way of life for my artist friend Harry Bartnick. Over a beer and burger recently, actually he doesn’t eat red meat but likes a single pint of Guinness Stout, he explained that during his annual solo trips to Europe (his wife Mary often joins for at least a part of the time ) he stated that for everything on a “good trip”: Flight, hotels, museum admissions, meals and miscellaneous, he can get by on $85 a day. Of…
By JENNIFER MCMACKON I have a vivid memory of the credenza that housed the record player in my parent’s living room. It was long and low – all dark wood with vaguely Spanish wrought iron details. Its surface was sectioned such that the table top lifted in the middle to reveal a discreet turntable hidden below. The console had a matching cabinet for my Dad’s collection of various symphony orchestras playing this and that – these were only so interesting to me then. Even if the image on the front of the…
By MATTHEW NASH A few years ago, the Wang Center [1] showed the film Apocalypse Now in its original version. Coppola had run way over budget, and in 1979 Paramount released this unpolished version to a limited audience, probably in the hopes of raising the rest of the necessary money. It contained no titling and almost no musical score. I will never forget that opening scene depicting the napalming of the tree-line: great plumes of flame emerging from the lush green of the jungle, a slow billowing beauty that hid a great…
By STEPHEN V. KOBASA Wearing a white linen suit, Theodore Roosevelt sits inside the metal cab of a steam shovel during his visit to the newly dug Panama Canal. The workers in the photograph hardly register – they are edges to the frame of the bright, imperious centerpiece. And those invisible men share their vanishing with the masons who fashioned the retaining walls which survive of the abandoned Farmington Canal in New Haven, Connecticut. Their memory is not entirely restored in the site installation recently created for that space by Matej Vogrincic.…