By BEN SLOAT Helping to close out the academic school year is a diverse MFA thesis show at Tufts University. With work ranging from painting and mixed media to film and video installation, certain works exhibit an unusual mix of…

By BEN SLOAT The medium of photography has been especially ravenous this past half century. The swelling of the photograph from its key mechanisms of description to include those of performance, appropriation, and construction has not weakened its ability to…

By BEN SLOAT At the Bernard Toale Gallery in the South End is a fascinating exhibition of photographic images, Ambiguous Ambassador, by the deceased photographer Tseng Kowng Chi. Each image is a staged self portrait, a square format black and…

By BEN SLOAT I’ve debated the merits of Edward Hopper over a number of years. Always I’ve thought of him as a Willy Loman figure, an unobtrusive traveler of New York and New England, quietly painting the slow failures of…

By BEN SLOAT In the tradition of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Roger Ballen uses the square format black and white photograph to display the provocative trappings of human theater in heightened environments. Body parts, wire lines, animals, crusty walls enter Ballen’s…