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Into the wake of the 2012 Creative Time Summit, held almost exactly one year ago, was cast An Open Letter to Critics Writing About Political Art. According to its co-writers Steve Lambert and Stephen Duncombe, the letter’s addressees were shirking their duties when they bothered showing up at all. Lambert, an artist, and Duncombe, an academic, who together run programs such as the Art Action Academy, and Imagining Utopia, through their Center for Artistic Activism, lamented the underwhelming “surface commentary” of the Summit. ” We don’t seem to have a developed vocabulary…
Full disclosure: I am a huge fan of Lucy Kim—the work and the woman—so I was stoked to be asked to write this essay and to have this chance to rave about what I love about her work and what interests me about her practice. All is not what it seems. Lucy Kim plays with our perceptions, our expectations, our disconnects, and our stereotypes—then she distorts them. She takes our current society’s love of popular culture, especially its showy advertising and luxury images, and explores it and fucks with it and ……
Memory and the built environment are inextricably linked, and most potently so in places where historic events—and the need to remember them—collide. The memorial, the time tested place-marker for moments of significance, is a particularly challenging form for architects and viewers. For the designer, a perfect pitch must be achieved in order to bring attention to an event without appearing saccharine. The more thoughtful memorials of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries therefore often focus on the void, the absence of a thing, calling to mind opportunity or loss or disaster without theatrics.…
“In my opinion, the best way for the West to see Asia is to study the individual. Each one is totally different from any other.” —Chen Zhen1 This summer, thanks to Xu Bing’s Phoenix Project at MASS MoCA (on view through October 27, 2013), an installation of two enormous flying phoenixes made from heavy equipment and debris from construction sites around Beijing, a piece of China has come to New England. This essay, by way of comparison, brings back into view a much lesser known artwork that in its own way brings…
Fall in Boston is also a great time to visit some open studios, talk to artists and even bring home some art. Here are some of the upcoming Fall Open Studios in and around the city: September 21-22 United South End Artists September 21-22 Jamaica Plain Open Studios (Jamaica Plain Arts Council) September 29 Hyde Park Open Studios October 5-6 Lowell Open Studios October 4-5-6 Roxbury Open Studios October 19-20 Dorchester Open Studios October 18-19-20 Fort Point Open Studios November 2-3 Roslindale Open Studios November 2-3 South Boston Open Studios November 2-3…
It’s impossible to stop the flow of time. A year ago, BR&S innocently jumped into the various local art ecosystems hoping that our experiment would last longer than a few months and we’d have some level of support. Well, we lasted longer than a few months and are ready to makes some adjustments in our second year, but there is no question that our readers have provided us with a great level of energy and support. We thank you for that. Internally, Anulfo Baez, the lead on our award winning blog, has…
I am extremely pleased to have been asked by Katherine Vetne and BR&S to contribute to Inside Out. Getting validation, as you’ll see in a moment, is a wonderful and very helpful experience. Always. Thanks Katherine and BR&S. I have chosen to be an artist scientist, and it’s an experiment like all art and science. When I say artist scientist I literally mean that I make art and do science, I produce sculptures and perform research, I have two careers. I am neither unique nor novel (see footnote), especially not in this…
Like beer? Love art? Want to support a great cause? Got $10? Then the Big Red Shindig is a MUST. Happening Friday, September 27 from 7-10pm at the Mills Gallery. In addition to all of the amazing artists, DJs and performers already announced and listed below, we’ve now confirmed work by 2012 Rappaport Prize recipient Suara Welitoff—who will also be in the forthcoming 2013 deCordova Biennial—and artist Hoda Kashiha. Work by Susan Metrican, JR Uretsky, Anthony Palocci Jr., Jesse Kaminsky, Nabeela Vega, and Jeff Keough Music by Jesse Kaminsky, Wayne and Wax,…