Newest Features
By NATALIE LOVELESS Print this article Let me begin with a quotation: What abstraction once tried to pull off is in fact being accomplished before our very eyes: the end of REPRESENTATIVE art and the substitution…of a PRESENTATIVE art…. (a) mise-en-abime of the body, of the figure… (in which) the intelligence of REPRESENTATION …gives way to the stunned mullet effect of a ‘presence’…that is not only weird but insulting to the mind…To demonstrate or to monstrate that is the question…Whether to practice some kind of aesthetic or ethic demonstration, or to practice…
By BIG RED Print this article TOM RIDGE’S THE VILLAGE by MATTHEW NASH MOTION SICKNESS & THE BOURNE SUPREMACY by JASON DEAN SPIDERMAN 2: THE CHRISTIAN HERO by BEN SLOAT SCI-FI TRADITION & THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK by MATTHEW NASH BOORISH RHETORIC OR FAHRENHEIT 911 by CHRISTIAN HOLLAND A season we secretly love, though publicly hate, has nearly left us. This season is not necessarily weather related, but the heat characteristically can often bend our minds enough that we are often lured easily into a cavernous, cool interior — a tempting refuge.…
By BIG RED Print this article Many former industrial towns over the past fifty years have experienced slow deaths. When the main employer for the town shuts down it slowly tugs the supporting social and economic climate into its vortex, leaving the town’s morale, not to mention its tax base, flatlined. Located in western Massachusetts is such a town: North Adams. However, according to William R. Wilson Jr., the president of the Bershire Visitors Bureau, the area has experienced a recent resusitation: “The city has been transformed. Shops have opened. Restaurants have…
By BIG RED PUBLISHER Print this article That’s right, more new editors for Big RED! Starting with Issue #9, we are proud to announce that the team of Christophe Perez and April Julich Perez will be joining Big RED and Shiny. Already known for their great work with Whitecubes.org, Christophe and April bring a lot to Big RED. Over time we plan to merge the thorough listings of Whitecubes.org with the writing and reviews of Big RED. It promises to be a wonderful marriage! Say hello at perez@bigredandshiny.com. Links: Whitecubes.org Matthew Nash…
By NATHAN LEWIS Print this article This season at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, a large-scale exhibition of the work of Matthew Ritchie is an astounding accomplishment of mental power, organization, and breadth. The exhibition is comprised of canvas paintings, wall and floor paintings, window paintings, sculpture, installations, digital projections, a digital craps table, drawings, short stories, and sound based work. Ritchie’s work can be misleading- it is so pleasing to look at formally, one can easily overlook the conceptual framework that is the greatness of his art. It is enjoyable…
By CHRISTIAN HOLLAND Print this article I first met Fereshteh Toosi and Carolyn Lambert after a presentation they gave at the The Berwick Research Institute in late June. During this presentation, they handed out a numerically based questionnaire, asking all attendees to rate the experiences they had with the transportation they used getting to the Berwick that evening. Upon completion of the questionnaire, each participant was given a gift (perhaps as an incentive) of the automotive variety; I received an air freshener. The end result of this survey of sorts was a…
By ROY STANFIELD Print this article Marjetica Potrc’s Urgent Architecture at the MIT List Visual Arts Center is so practical and so “green” that it would be very difficult to distinguish this exhibition from what one would find in a display on energy conservation. Upon entering the List the only objects that put this art viewer at home were the marker drawings, rough architectural sketches with cryptic captions that half illuminate each sketch. Suspiciously, the drawings are beautiful, colorful, and laid out on toothy paper. They are not the loose notes that…
By CHRISTOPHE PEREZ Print this article Two current major exhibitions in Boston feature artists that can be regarded as outsiders: Kai Althoff at the ICA, Boston, and Barry McGee at the Rose Art Museum, Waltham. Although it is not obvious that Althoff and McGee can be lumped together, their shows display similarities that go way beyond both artists’ same age (38) and raise the question of relationship of a fringe of today’s art with folk art. Both Althoff and McGee are inveterate homies who still live and work in the city where…