Newest Features
By STEVE AISHMAN View Steve Aishman’s video. Quicktime, 2mb A few months back, I was standing at the West entrance to the MFA Boston on a Wednesday at 3:50 waiting to get into the MFA for free at 4:00 when I was forced out of boredom to look at the big brown sculpture in front of the museum. “This thing looks like shit.” I said, meaning it quite literally. (Take a look at the piece. Really, doesn’t it look like shit?) “It’s a de Kooning,” a mother with a teenager and…
By CHARLES GIULIANO The first patent for a mechanical sewing machine was awarded to a British inventor, Thomas Saint, in 1790 but it is not known if he built a prototype. In 1834 Walter Hunt built America’s first, somewhat successful sewing machine. He lost interest in seeking a patent because of concern that it would result in unemployment. Instead Elias Howe secured a patent in 1846 for a “process that used thread from two different sources.” Sewing machines were introduced to mass production by Isaac Singer in 1850 but Howe sued for…
By MATTHEW GAMBER Here ’tis, the 46th installment (or episode, as Mr. Warmouth referred to it – you are looking at a screen). This issue of Big RED, by default, has become an unofficial ICA issue with an evaluation of the Institute’s history as unique cultural institution for not only Boston, but worldwide – along with a report previewing the interior of the new ICA building on Fan Pier in the developing WaFrodistrict. August is noted as being a rather quiet month on the circuit, but as you will see in this…
By JASON DEAN Recently I went to the Art in General artist talk at Sara Meltzer Gallery of Eteam’s project “Montello International Airport.” I had briefly looked at Eteam’s website before I went, and saw a photo from the project of the rolling stairs used for boarding aircraft, in the middle of the mountains with passengers waiting on it. I read that they were trying to construct an International Airport in Montello, Nevada, and started to get all kinds of crazy ideas in my head… was this was a huge performance piece?…
By AVANTIKA BAWA grey|area, curated by TJ Norris at the Guestroom Gallery in Portland, Oregon is an aptly titled show, which exhibits the work of thirteen West Coast artists. The works in the show include a range of media that either deliberately or unknowingly resist immediate and easy categorization. Instead they confidently straddle established genres, revealing in the process the scope of overlapping territories. By drawing attention to serendipitous details, a tactile minimalism and the often unseen, this overlapped grey area becomes a huge platform that initiates thought and provokes debate. What…
By JEREMIAS PAUL When I was child, my family traveled extensively, not just around my country of birth, Germany, but also throughout the surrounding countries that stretched from the North Sea south through the Alps and down to the Mediterranean Sea. As a child these travels made me feel that the world was infinite. Every country we visited led to new experiences with people who lived their lives much different than I did. When we moved to America, once again, the world became even greater in scale than I could have ever…
By SANDRINE SCHAEFER The performance art group, TEST has once again activated our perceptions of time, space, and action with its 10th event that occurred on July 21st and 22nd at the Devanaughn Theatre in Boston. Like so many TESTS before, the weather provided a prologue for those who came to witness the first installment of the two evening event. The audience was greeted both evenings by a cheerful Alice Vogler who numbered each body and conducted bag searches on anyone wearing tennis shoes (night 1) or a watch (night 2). Alisia…
By CHRISTIAN HOLLAND I was informed that there are two types of people who go to the annual (this year being the 33rd) SIGGRAPH conference, technology people (the ones who build the hardware and write the software) and industry people (the ones who sell and buy technology) as well as a few who fall somewhere in the middle. Similarly, there are two types of artists (and many more who fall somewhere in between) who are chosen to be shown in the Art Gallery section of the exhibition: artists who find ways to…