By MATTHEW NASH Art Interactive, the Cambridge-based alternative space focusing on new media and interactive art, has recently announced that they will be moving to an as-yet-undecided location, and that there have been some significant changes to their Board of…
By MATTHEW NASH On August 11th, a group of artists gathered at the Design Center in Boston for an over-the-top photo shoot. The Superheroes Project, created by Brian Burkhardt and Tanit Sakakini, gathered 18 artists to dress as superheroes in…
By MATTHEW NASH Summer is a time for escaping. We escape on vacation or to the beach, we escape into books, we escape to the movie theatre. Issue number sixty-seven of Big RED & Shiny is devoted to escaping. First,…
By MATTHEW NASH A few years ago, the Wang Center [1] showed the film Apocalypse Now in its original version. Coppola had run way over budget, and in 1979 Paramount released this unpolished version to a limited audience, probably in…
By MATTHEW NASH Mobius Artists Group has been a major part of the arts in Boston for nearly thirty years. This past week, they announced that they will be moving new a new space in the South End, through the…
By MATTHEW NASH In his new body of work, titled “Bathyscape,” Andrew Mowbray attacks the notion of hegemonic masculinity, and employs the critical devices of post-feminism within a series of questions about his own role as a male. Through a…
By MATTHEW NASH After nineteen months and twelve shows, Second Gallery will be closing this summer. Rebecca Gordon, the 23-year-old director of Second Gallery, will be heading off to Chicago for graduate school, and will be turning over the space…
By MATTHEW NASH The 2007 Boston Cyberarts Festival has come to a close, and when looking back on the variety of shows, the range and complexity of new media works were as impressive as the diverse array of venues hosting…
By MATTHEW NASH Looking at the websites and publications from artists and organizations throughout New England, one is struck by the consistent recurrence of the LEF Foundation logo. From large arts organizations like the Boston Center for the Arts, to…
By MATTHEW NASH Sometimes it seems as if there is a deep divide in the ways we discuss art in our current moment. On one hand, there is a form of dialogue that begins with ideas and intentions, exploring how…
By MATTHEW NASH Currently on view at the Portland Museum of Art is the 2007 Biennial, a juried exhibition that fills the entire ground floor of the Museum, and spreads out onto the lawn and onto the eaves. Featuring 61…
By MATTHEW NASH Thomas Edison’s landmark 1903 film “The Great Train Robbery” ends with a famous shot of a bandit firing his gun at the camera. Wikipedia notes that “(a)udiences at the time, for whom moving pictures were still very…
On Friday, April 12th, The Berwick Research Institute hosted a dinner at the studio of artist Jill Slosburg-Ackerman in Somerville. The purpose of the dinner was to discuss the state of public art in Boston, and the conversation was led…
By MATTHEW NASH “Are you here for the art, or for the property?” This question was overheard several times during my visit to the latest incarnation of Arthouse, this time at 73 Spring Park Ave. in Jamaica Plain. Like its…
By MATTHEW NASH Axiom Gallery is a survivor. The past two years have seen them in three different venues, and while their exhibition record only boasts nine or ten shows, they are becoming the most talked-about space in the city.…
By MATTHEW NASH Print this article After reading and reviewing the new book “Critical Mess,” and reading others’ responses to it, I am left with the lingering question of what, exactly, we expect from art criticism. As an artist, not…
By MATTHEW NASH Print this article Part I: The Crisis In the new book Critical Mess: Art Critics on the State of their Practice, edited by Raphael Rubinstein, the heavyweights of contemporary art criticism each take a turn at defining…
By MATTHEW NASH Print this article In the autumn of 2002, I was starting my second year of teaching at the Museum School in Boston. Among the graduate students, and some of the faculty, there was an intense energy that…
By MATTHEW NASH Print this article The Berwick Research Institute is in a time of transition. Director Meg Rotzel has stepped down from her leadership role, and although she is still working on several projects at The Berwick, much of…
By When Colin Rhys announced that he would be moving Rhys Gallery from his loft on Northampton Street to a plush new space on Harrison, adjacent to the SoWa complex, there were a lot of questions. Would the gallery continue…