By JAMES A. NADEAU Last week, Artadia announced the seven winners of their Boston awards. In light of this, I sent a couple of questions to the winners, to get a sense of their experiences. Four artists responded: Amie Siegel,…
THE HURT LOCKER AND THE CONTEMPORARY WAR FILM By James A. Nadeau War films serve many functions in our society. On a superficial level they are entertainment. They follow the conventions of their genre, which were well established in the early…
NEW MUSEUM, CHELSEA & FRANCIS BACON @ THE MET By James A. Nadeau This past weekend I spent the day roaming around New York City. I plotted out the day so I could make the most of one big show,…
A CONVERSATION WITH LILA KANNER, DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS @ ARTADIA By James A. Nadeau Artadia Boston’s cycle has come around again. This is the second year for our city and I had the chance to speak with Lila Kanner, who is…
101 WAYS TO MAKE A “B” MOVIE – X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE By James A. Nadeau There is a scene in Robert Altman’s film The Player where a group of studio executives sit around a conference room discussing moviemaking. Larry Levy (played…
ACTING OUT: SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS IN VIDEO @ THE ICA By James Nadeau There is a trend in contemporary video art to include so-called “real people” or non-actors. I like to think about this shift in two ways. First of all it…
Observations on Cyberarts. The Boston Cyberarts Festival is upon us. This biennial festival began on Friday the 24th and is taking place in and around Boston over the course of 10 days. I have a confession to make. I have…
GALLERY HOPPING IN NEW ORLEANS By James A. Nadeau This past week I spent some time in New Orleans for a conference. As I like to do whenever visiting a new city (or even an old one) I find the local…
AGNÈS VARDA: LES VEUVES DE NOIRMOUTIER @ THE SERT GALLERY, CARPENTER CENTER FOR THE VISUAL ARTS By James A. Nadeau The feeling is one of acute sadness. You enter into the gallery and are confronted by fifteen images, one large projection…
WATCHMEN & THE LIMITS OF ADAPTATION By James Nadeau “Who watches the Watchmen?” is a catchphrase from the film Watchmen directed by Zach Snyder. It is graffiti sprayed across an alley wall and it signifies dissatisfaction with the actions of the…
CARLSON/STROM: NEW PERFORMANCE VIDEO @ THE DECORDOVA By James A. Nadeau “There are, therefore, common patterns in various experiences, no matter how unlike they are to one another in the details of their subject matter. There are conditions to be met…
By James Nadeau I had the opportunity to sit down with Nicole Cherubini and Taylor Davis as they installed their show Davis/Cherubini, In Contentionat the List Visual Arts Center at MIT. The work is truly a collaboration between the two, which…
By James A. Nadeau As February dawns it seems like a good time to take a look back at the first month of the year. January brought many surprises and unfortunately not all of them were good. The good stuff entailed…
SEVEN DAYS IN THE ART WORLD BY SARAH THORTON By James Nadeau Noted cultural sociologist Sarah Thorton (she has written on rave culture: Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital as well as for the BBC, and NPR) has turned her…
ANDY WARHOL: OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS @ THE WEXNER CENTER FOR THE ARTS By James A. Nadeau I have never been a huge fan of Andy Warhol (and this is my second Warhol exhibition review – go figure). His presence as…
ANDY WARHOL: POP POLITICS @ THE CURRIER MUSEUM OF ART By James A. Nadeau This year has been chock full of Warhol. In 2008 Warhol would have celebrated his 80th birthday. This milestone (if one can call a dead man’s birthday…
2008 ICA FOSTER PRIZE FINALISTS: A CONVERSATION WITH JOE ZANE By James A. Nadeau On November 12th, the 2008 James and Audrey Foster Prize exhibition opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Joe Zane is one of the four artists…
THIS IS BOSTON NOT L.A. @ LAMONTAGNE GALLERY By James A. Nadeau There is a story about the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer that I often think about. It is believed that Schopenhauer was a dour and glum person. He was…
TALKING ABOUT PLACE WITH RACHEL WHITEREAD By James Nadeau Rachel Whiteread was in town for the opening of her U.S. premiere of her new piece Place (Village) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. I was lucky enough to spend…
RACHEL WHITEREAD @ THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON By James Nadeau “The house, even more than the landscape, is a ‘psychic state,’ and even when reproduced as it appears from the outside, it bespeaks intimacy.” – Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics…