Newest Features
“May you live in interesting times.” – Chinese curse With the fate of the planet hanging precariously in the balance, there’s at least one thing about which we can all be certain: we are living in interesting times. While it’s not the sort of interesting any of us would have asked for, nevertheless here we are, and every academic discipline, and anyone who does anything in the way of cultural work in any field, is left with a nagging choice. It’s a choice of conscience, really, but also one of meaning. For…
Drive-By Project’s Who Am I? The Sequel successfully deals with the anxiety of Trump’s America. On view through November 11, a year after the 2016 election, the thematic group exhibition provided a response to our volatile political climate. Like the previous Who Am I exhibition (presented in September 2010), the “Sequel” revolves around questions of identity and identity politics. However, the implicit question in the show’s title is more urgent and confrontational in the current social context. From varying ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds, each artist here sets forth a different angle…
Anchoring the SoWa district of Boston on Harrison Ave is Samson, a veteran gallery venerated for showing contemporary and meaningful exhibitions over the last 14 years. Their current (and final) show, “Immigrancy” focuses on the concepts of mobility and movement as well as showcasing intimate perspectives into the experiences of artists across cultures. Curatorial decisions, in both the selection of artists and method of display, contribute to a rich, topical exhibition. The exhibition space is is demarcated into several intersecting partitions of unfinished plywood sheets, either connected to the wall via hinges,…
Slip the straps of the eight-pound backpack over your shoulders, buckle it around your waist, and try not to tense up as an attendant tightens your virtual-reality headset. In a moment, the large, mostly empty room at the MIT Museum is gone. You’ve entered The Enemy, an immersive, interactive exhibition developed by photojournalist Karim Ben Khelifa in collaboration with MIT professor of digital media D. Fox Harrell. Take a tentative step into the first of its three white-walled galleries, each dedicated to a different combat zone: the Democratic Republic of the Congo,…
Painters & Photographers, curated by Jamilee Lacy, starts the gears turning with it’s title. Are these paintings or are they photographs? Yes, most of the artists presented use traditional photo processes to create their images, film, camera, enlarger, etc., but the image content is often one we associate with brush and canvas: color fields, abstract and geometric shapes, spatterings of color and smears of pigment. The artists are each expanding our traditional notions of photography as medium for strict representation and blurring the lines between their photography and other mediums like painting,…
“Identity intersects other times and places to survive histories we’ve come through.”- Awam Amkpa Curated by Awam Amkpa, Professor, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, WOLE SOYINKA: Antiquities Across Times and Place is the first exhibition composed of African art since the Cooper Gallery first opened its doors in 2014. What started as an idea generated from conversations about aesthetics between a student and his mentor have blossomed into a gallery filled with wonder. In an effort to challenge the boundaries of history’s impact on the present, Amkpa juxtaposes works of contemporary…
Artists take new directions in their work all the time: inspired anew by an idea, a medium untried, current events, or perhaps another artist’s work. Acclaimed international artist Annette Lemieux, known for decades for her conceptual, politically charged art, turned from two-dimensional to three-dimensional provocations out of necessity, at least initially. In 1983, while on the job as assistant to artist David Salle in New York City, Lemieux was struck by a car, resulting in a month-long stay in the hospital. The accident left her with a reduced capacity for the fine…
Those crazy female foreigners are alive and kicking. So claims—in texting-slang—the title of Scottish artist Claire Ashley’s current solo exhibition at Boston University’s 808 Gallery, (((CRZ.F.4NRS.AAK))). It’s an attention-grabbing statement, and much the same can be said for the art itself. Giant, neon-bright inflatable sculptures are visible to passers-by on Commonwealth Avenue through the gallery’s floor-to-ceiling, street-facing windows. Those who enter the gallery to get a closer look will not be disappointed, yet they should not expect a straightforward explanation. Like the exhibition’s title, the artwork exists in Ashley’s playfully coded world.…