Newest Features
By CHRISTIAN HOLLAND The ubiquity of the grid in our culture may explain the fascination with it. Unconsciously, consciously and self-consciously, artists, designers, mathematicians and just about everybody who’s ever sat in front of a computer employs the grid to make sense of their work. The grid seems to be the best way to organize information, aesthetic or other, on a two-dimensional plain. After Abstract Expressionism, the grid became a popular structure for painting, and shortly thereafter, Andy Warhol seemed to use the grid just to show how much we take ‘the…
By BENJAMIN SLOAT William Eggleston has the distinction of being among the most emulated of color photographers. Made famous by his groundbreaking and controversial solo show at MOMA in 1976, his images carry with them the confusion of being simple, formal, colorful, serene exercises; likewise, his many imitators pattern their own worlds into shapes and colors, and shush them into silence. As Jurgen Tueller, the fashion photographer, has stated: “Often there is something morbid about his images that’s mysterious and compelling, and unique to him. Everyone, including me, has at one time…
By KATHRYN ADA DUTOIT “Braun Celebrates 50 Years of Industrial Design: 1955-2005” is currently on view at MassArt’s Bakalar Gallery. Boston is the exhibition’s only US destination; before traveling to Massachusetts, the exhibition was on view at Royal College of Art in London and Braun HQ in Kronberg, Germany. Although Braun’s roots are in pre-World War II Germany—company founder Max Braun began producing components for radio sets in Frankfurt in 1921—the show marks the fiftieth anniversary of Braun’s minimalist display at the 1955 Düsseldorf Broadcast Exhibition, where a new line of Bauhaus-inspired…
By MATTHEW NASH Driving home tonight, after watching my friend’s band play at TT’s, I took a detour by the Museum of Fine Arts. Illegally parked in front of that grand building, I started to think about its role in our city, and why so many conversations are dominated by what happens inside its walls. We at Big RED & Shiny have not been very kind to the MFA. Our pink pages are filled with negative stories, bad reviews, and stern commentary about the actions of the Museum and its director. We…
By MICAH J. MALONE God, I love lists. Every year publication after publication does it’s “best of” or “Top 10” to be sure everyone knows what important events occurred during the year. Over time I have become enamored with these lists and read them religiously. It isn’t that I think they are accurate or always indicative of what I think was “the best”, or believe that it is even possible to say unequivocally what was indeed great. It’s the ease in which things can be placed in categories to project a kind…
By BIG RED Candid snaps from a Big RED night on-the-town at the walkthrough/opening of Boston Art Windows, curated by James Hull. Photos by James Manning
By BIG RED December 11, 2005 Candid snaps from a Big RED night on-the-town at Art Interactive for the closing of GLOWLAB: OPEN LAB. —- Links: Art Interactive Photos by James Manning.
By BIG RED NEWS EDITOR via NEWSgrist, via BoingBoing: Friday, December 2, 2005: France about to get worst copyright law in Europe? France may soon enact the worst copyright law in Europe, sneaking it through in a legislative session scheduled for December 22 and 23. Europe’s equivalent to the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a controversial directive called the EUCD. Each EU state is responsible for implementing the minimum set of EUCD restrictions (which are far from minimal!) but each state can exceed the minimum, and the entertainment lobby pushes…