Newest Features
When we aren’t seeing new work and writing about it, we’re probably reading. Here’s a selection of some articles that we’ve read in the past couple of weeks and found particularly engaging. Some are recent, while others are older and touch on ideas or issues that we’ve been thinking about as we write and commission new pieces. As always, if you have thoughts or comments, tweet us @bigredandshiny! –The BR&S Editorial Team Daniel Kunitz, “‘I’m Not Making Hippie Pottery’:A Q&A with JJ PEET and Tom Sachs,” Blouinartinfo, September 27, 2014 For the…
A gray dance floor is stationed in the middle of the Museum of Fine Art’s exhibit The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris. Its pale color complements the light blue and white hues of Harris’s paintings, which boldly depict the natural landscapes of Lake Superior and the snow-capped Rocky Mountains. Spencer Hack (corps de ballet member of the National Ballet of Canada) walks onto the dance floor to perform the seven-minute solo titled Lake Maligne, choreographed by Robert Binet (choreographic associate of the National Ballet of Canada). Spencer begins the solo by…
I followed Robert Chamberlin’s artwork for about a year when his solo exhibition at Miller Yezerski opened in January 2016. I arrived during the peak of First Friday festivities to find an intimate space of the gallery’s rear space packed with people, causing Chamberlin’s installation of delicate, elaborate ceramics to appear all the more dramatic. Decoration and excess were common themes in the work displayed: in some examples, the clay was frosting-like, with ridges and puffs covering the entire surface of the vase while other vessels sloped at odd at angles, dented in…
When Aaditi Joshi was born in 1980, her hometown was called Bombay and was also home to about 8 million others. Today, it’s Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra and one of the largest cities in the world, with more than 12 million now living in the city. Joshi has spent her entire life in Mumbai. Trained as a painter, Joshi has long incorporated plastic materials and three-dimensional forms into her practice. However, plastic took on a greater significance after 2005, when heavy rains and blockages of plastic bags choked Mumbai’s drainage system…
The idea of site-specific work, manifestly not a dwelling or fortification, is as ancient as any statuary or temple grounds yet discovered. The archeological record suggests that once past the hurdles of shelter and protection, our ancestors turned to monuments tied to religion, governance, and social ritual. Over time, these monuments, ranging from primitive burial mounds to the most ornately designed structures imaginable, were common across all cultures. The urge to describe the world (and one’s place in it) with tangible works that are non-utilitarian and infused with either a spiritual or…
In this installment of Here to Create, Courtney Moy speaks to the women behind Iron Wolf Press. Monika Plioplyte and Raleigh Strott are the founding members of Iron Wolf Press, an artist-run printshop studio inside the South End’s historic Piano Factory. Here, Plioplyte and Strott discuss the importance of community, support, and collaboration as emerging artists, as well as their upcoming anniversary group show, “NEVER NOTHING,” which will showcase work by members including Monika Plioplyte, Donny Morin, Gina Biondo, Raleigh Strott, Ryan Valentine, Allison Hylant, Siobhan Henegan, and Kelly McQuilkin. Tell us how…
After hiatus, Big Red & Shiny is pleased to continue Inside/Out, our artist-in-residence series. Inside/Out last ran during 2012 through 2013, and offered a space in which artists could discuss their studio practice and work. In this new iteration, a guest artist in residence is invited to write about their ideas, research, and challenges, and publish their inspirations, obsessions, creative experiences, and insights. Unlike an ‘Open Studio’ format, which is often predicated on potential sales, BR&S wants to provide the artist-in-residence with an outlet to place their practice in a more public…
As interpretations of history are always subject to revision, how to navigate historical perspectives and objects in the face of new theoretical frameworks emerge as intriguing questions. Elise Ansel–an artist based in Portland, Maine–has for some time been reinterpreting Old Master paintings from the Renaissance and Baroque periods in a brushy, abstract style. Now the exhibition Elise Ansel: Distant Mirrors at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art brings a collection of Ansel’s work together with the painting that served as its impetus. While Ansel skillfully inverts the formal properties of Denys Calvaert’s…