Newest Features
By CHARLES GIULIANO Print this article George Nick: An Artist’s Conscience Concord Art Association 37 Lexington Road Concord, Mass. Through December 23 Gallery Naga Through December 18 Since his first one person exhibition, in 1964, at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, in Pittsburgh, just a year after earning an MFA degree from Yale University, George Nick has been a consistent presence, as an exhibiting artist, and influential teacher. Most of those years have been spent in Boston where he has shown at regular intervals at Gallery Naga which has networked to produce…
By BEN SLOAT Print this article From the photographic capture of commonplace social artifacts by Eugene Atget and Walker Evans to the lifestyle documentation in the “snapshot aesthetic” by Nan Goldin and Wolfgang Tilmans, photographing “ordinary” life is at once a historical gesture and a contemporary one. Collecting “ordinary photographs”, on the other hand, is fraught with a different set of issues and concerns, the primary one being: do the values and motives of the collector replace those of the artist? First, a few words about Rodger Kingston, the editor, the collector,…
By MATTHEW NASH Print this article Is it alright to review the opening of a show? Is it somehow demeaning to gauge the qualities of an exhibition based on the response of the group that turned out to herald the launch of a new configuration of artworks? For an exhibition at a space called Art Interactive, for a show titled “Intimachine” that is billed as “The Art of Intimacy, Expectation, and Behavior” it seems most appropriate that the work be discussed in the context for which it was meant: experience through interaction.…
By JOANNE PASILA Six months after its opening in May of this year, there isn’t much that hasn’t already been asked or said about the Interventionists exhibition at Mass MoCA. I’ve asked the MASS MoCA Security staff – the people who spend the most time with the exhibition and the visiting public – what are the most frequently asked questions about the show? Then I have asked these very same questions to Nato Thompson, the exhibition’s curator. The following are short descriptions of 10 works taken from the exhibition catalogue, FAQs…
By MATTHEW NASH Print this article On October 16, 2004, members of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD) met to discuss Futures for the Terminal Professional Degree in Art and Design. The purpose of this discussion, according to the NASAD website was “to begin an exploration of the issues from a policy rather than an accreditation standards perspective” regarding the creation of a PhD degree for the arts. That’s right, the MFA may not be top dog much longer, and the consequences could be enormous. Many of us…
By CHARLES GIULIANO Print this article These are tough times for bleeding hearts, tax and spend, liberal Democrats from Massachusetts. You know, the ones, way back when, who voted for Mike Dukakis, when he carried just his home state in a presidential race against George The First. The devastating image, that time, was Mike in a tank looking like a ninja turtle. There were other Republican dirty tricks like the specter of Willie Horton on early release raping and murdering your loved ones. Crimes for which Dukakis, famously, would not impose the…
By JED WILLARD Print this article The November 5 cover story of the UK’s Daily Mirror exclaimed in hyperbolic terms what billions of people around the world are probably thinking now: that America has voted for “carnage and isolation and the unreserved contempt of most of the rest of the world.” Polling data shows this to be untrue. The vast majority of Americans, including Bush supporters, embrace the Democrats’ internationalist platform. The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations finds that 87% of Americans support “working through the UN to strengthen international laws against…
By BIG RED Print this article November 5, 2004 Candid snaps from a Big RED night on-the-town at SOWA First Friday. Photographer Thomas Gustainis The Big RED publisher makes a scene The crowd @ Bernard Toale Gallery More Bernard Toale “German Indians” @ Bernard Toale The many faces of Abe Lincoln More Lincoln @ Bernard Toale No opening is complete without the wine James Hull (of Green St. Gallery) @ Allston Skirt Pia Schacter surrounded by fans at Allston Skirt Gallery Ellen Wetmore (left), Larry Johnson (hat) and the Big RED Publisher…