Artist David Buckley Borden and Harvard Forest Senior Ecologist Dr. Aaron Ellison, along with an interdisciplinary team of scientists and artists, created Warming Warning, most recently on view on Harvard’s Science Center Plaza, to place climate change data in the…
Part of what makes us unique is that we contain bits of memories that belong to our histories and experiences. Yet we connect with each other and find solidarity through our being in the world. Even as people have become…
A panorama opens as you approach the crest of Prospect Hill in Harvard, Massachusetts. The vastness in graduated shades of distant blues and greens, immediately loosens one’s hold on time and space. A 180-degree view encompasses noteworthy peaks, from left…
*signage encouraging social interaction, held aloft by assistants at the entrances to Art Basel Returning from the commotion of Art Basel, its “region-wide art week,” and an exploration of Vienna, I’m encouraged to consider the interactive public and private art…
Maria Molteni is a Boston-based artist who was a part of the Boston Artist in Residence program from 2016 – 2017. She is also the founder and team captain of the New Craft Artists in Action, a collective that looks…
The Minuteman Bikeway passing through Arlington teems with activity throughout the day and into the evenings. Whether it is a cyclist racing to get to work in the morning, or a young child who is still finding their footing while…
One beautiful July morning in 2013 Boston woke to discover green paint had been thrown against the Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Regiment Memorial that sits across from the State House in the Boston Public Garden. Outrage followed but…
When we aren’t seeing new work and writing about it, we’re probably reading. Here’s a selection of some articles that we’ve read in the past couple of weeks and found particularly engaging. Some are recent, while others are older and…
In college, she studied painting. She had wanted to be a writer. Her father was a writer. But in college, she transitioned from drawing fictions on a page to painting pictures onto canvases. She was committed to painting when she…
Thirty years ago prominent critics, historians, and artists testified in court on behalf of sculptor Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc, a seventy-three ton steel slab made for the Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan. What Serra considered an opportunity for aesthetic challenge…
In an effort to provide an in-depth look at single works of art on view across the region in permanent collections, temporary exhibitions, and installations, the staff at Big Red & Shiny will be reviving Art for Breakfast, a series…
In case anyone was wondering what Boston—its artists, its technical whizzes, its city agencies and “urban mechanics” (thank you, Tom Menino), its property owners, its neighborhoods, its private sector—was capable of regarding art in public places and collaboration, the answers…
The MIT List Visual Arts Center recently launched an audio guide for its public art collection that focuses on 51 notable works and offers varied insights into the collection. When visiting the mostly outdoor collection in person, each of these…
In the heart of Boston, the New England Holocaust Memorial has stood quietly since 1995. On the Freedom Trail, adjacent to Boston City Hall, and near Faneuil Hall, this memorial is virtually unavoidable by Bostonians and tourists alike. While…
Now this is a guaranteed first date win. I jest but it’s true: Halsey Burgund’s new public art piece, a participatory soundscape encompassing the whole City of Cambridge, is an engaging and memorable way to while away an evening. You…
I spent much of today wandering around Boston with Pixnit, David Boeri and the production team of Radio Boston talking with people about public art. We talked to a number of interesting people about how they see and understand public…
Part I: Futility A few weeks ago I received an email from an artist named Matthew Hincman. It was only a few short lines about a sculpture he had installed at the Jamaica Pond, and a picture. “The sculpture…