Newest Features
By ARTHUR WHITMAN Currently up at the DeCordova, Big Bang! Abstract Painting For The 21st Century, surveys the current state of the venerable genre. The best work in the show feels classic but not pedantically backward-looking, mindful of history while displaying a range of fresh and individualistic approaches. Some of the work tries too hard for a new millennium feel, often faltering despite its strengths. The work of Reese Inman is arguably the most non-traditional here. Both her compositions—grids of variously arranged dots on flat backgrounds—and color choices are generated with assistance…
By BEN SLOAT Stephen Shore is a prominent photographer and photographic educator. A pioneer in the field of color photography, Shore has published numerous books of photography, included his seminal book, Uncommon Places, published in 1982 (reissued in 2004). He has also been director of the photography program at Bard College since that same year. On occasion of the recent printing of a second edition of The Nature of Photographs, published by Phaidon Press, is Stephen Shore’s primer on the understanding of the photographic object. Big Red writer Ben R. Sloat interviewed…
By MATTHEW NASH Axiom Gallery is a survivor. The past two years have seen them in three different venues, and while their exhibition record only boasts nine or ten shows, they are becoming the most talked-about space in the city. Their recent move to the Green Street T station, after James Hull ended the run of Green Street Gallery, has given Axiom a stable and visible gallery space, and an opportunity to pursue their agenda in a larger format than their previous spaces could support. Axiom began in a loft in Allston,…
By MARIA LACRETA Femke likes to work for a specific space, and having been in Boston only eight months, she nearly immediately became the Associate Curator at Space Other on Wareham Street, working with Director and Curator Gamaliel Herrera. Space Other has continually shown provoking, original work that intrigues. She has continued to work independently as well, including “Great Apes” at Second Gallery, a collaboration she orchestrated for artists, scientists, and engineers to form a dialogue and create works together. Her most recent show is “Encounters”, at the Mills Gallery. This show…
By CATHERINE D’IGNAZIO & JANE D. MARSCHING On Friday, March 9th, 2007, in the South End, iKatun and Jane D. Marsching convened twenty-five Boston artists, curators and art professionals for a conversation about art and activism. There were a few intentions for the evening: to bring together a community of people who share a set of concerns as well as to identify those concerns. We chose to focus on the act of questioning as a way to map the territories of art and activism, to point to their shared spaces and shifting…
By BIG RED Friday, March 23rd, 2007 Candid snaps from a Big RED night on-the-town from galleries at 38 Newbury St., including ACME Fine Art, Pepper Gallery, Martha Richardson Fine Art and Robert Klein Gallery. Photos by Ben Sloat and Matthew Gamber. Robert Klein Gallery Pepper Gallery ACME Fine Art Martha Richardson Fine Art
By BIG RED NEWS EDITOR The Berwick Research Institute has announced their artists-in-research for 2007. Each AIR artist will work with the Berwick on a project that will developed during their residency. Notable past AIR artists include Kelly Sherman, Morgan Schwartz, Liz Nofziger,Pam Larson, Veronique D’Entremont, Kirsten Forkert, The Busycle, and many more. From the Berwick’s announcement, here are the new AIR artists: April-June: Jon Taylor is interested in exploring clothing as an adaptive interface to the outside world. His work is a witty commentary on social norms, and especially those of…
By CARL CHIARENZA Carl Siembab January 5, 1926 – February 27, 2007 Half a century ago Carl Siembab began exhibiting photographs in his Newbury Street gallery in Boston. It was the beginning of a pioneering effort that developed into a force — a force in the flowering of photography in the world of art. Before devoting his gallery exclusively to photography, he exhibited photographs along with paintings, sculpture, and prints. He barely made a living. In 1959 he put up major one-person shows by Aaron Siskind and Berenice Abbott. That was the…