Newest Features
By MATTHEW NASH Print this article Brands distinguish things from one another. In marketing, essentially anything can be considered a brand, from a pack of gum or a tube of toothpaste to a magazine, a school, an airline, a hospital, or a country. NBC is a brand. So is Newsweek. Harvard, as one of the world’s most prestigious universities, has done well marketing its brand image and licensing its name for use in a variety of merchandise. When Florida, Mexico, New York, or Paris advertise for tourism, they are positioning these locations…
By STEVE AISHMAN Print this article I remember walking by the teacher’s lounge when I was nine years old and I saw some teachers preparing a birthday cake. The teacher who was apparently in charge of the candles, told me it was a secret birthday surprise for my teacher and that I should not tell anyone. As soon as I got back to classroom, I took the first person I saw behind the crafts table and told him my secret. He said that I was his best friend. Ever since then, I…
By MARINA VERONICA Print this article Henri Rousseau, the self-taught French artist, influenced early modernists, like Matisse and Picasso, with his “naive” style – predictably childlike, brightly colored, and imaginary, with a non-scientific perspective. A group exhibition at OSP gallery entitled ”My Perspective” promotes the emergence of contemporary “faux naive”, while provoking us to question why each artist, individually, has chosen to depict scenes in a“naive” style – despite their academic training. To begin with, all works in this exhibit are paintings. After experiencing the growth of noisy, electronically-projected art, we may…
By JONATHAN FARDY Print this article Animal art. That’s a pairing of words whose particular combination can send many in the art world running for the door. But that’s because we normally associate it with the world of cutesy kitsch. There are in fact a good many contemporary artists who have taken on this hairy subject and opened it up to new insights, Rebecca Norris Webb is one such talent. What interested me initially while sifting through the press releases was that rather than photographs of animals either wild or domesticated, Webb…
By ANNEKA LENSSEN Print this article The Allston parking lot setting for the most recent TEST 7, felt like a throwback to some long gone American summer. Students were milling, music was playing, and the macadam could have still been hot although the air was getting really cold. There were U-hauls and other vehicles, a set of dumpsters, and a small crowd. Sandi Schaefer was already in mid-mince in “combing out the (k)nots (Yee Haul).” Schaefer had stuffed her denim trousers and gingham top with potatoes and was producing them one-by-one from…
By JAMES NADEAU Print this article Does an artist have the responsibility to explain his/her work? Can the work exist as an entity unto itself? We are trained as artists to think critically about what we make, what we see and the world in which we involve ourselves. This is all very internal. These intellectual investigations are not made evident until the work of art is constructed and displayed. But is this enough? Is it not our job to explain our work, to explain the conceptual processes that have taken place? What…
By KARINE JOUENNE & REESE INMAN Print this article As part of a continuing series proposing an interpretation of ‘Synthetic Art’, this issue presents a conversation between gallerist/curator Karine Jouenne and artists Reese Inman and Brian Knep. — Synthetic: Relating to or involving synthesis. Synthesis: the composition or combination of parts or elements so as to form a whole / the combining of often diverse conceptions into a coherent whole – also: the complex so formed (Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary). — The Synthetic Art proposition references the synthesis of computer programming with digital…
By BIG RED Print this article July 7, 2005 Candid snaps from a Big RED night on-the-town at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center for the opening of ph15: cameras, communities, connections. This exhibition featured photographs created by teenagers living in Buenos Aires, Argentina.