WGBH - Visual Art RSS

Go to Worcester for the Art

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 19:30 PM +0000

October 10, 2012

Inside the Worcester Art Museum

There was a time that the Worcester Art Museum was considered one of this country’s best, but as that city’s luster faded, so did the museum’s. Now it’s coming into prominence once again, however, as a new director with ties to one of the world’s greatest museums takes hold.

It is a shame that for so long, praise for the Worcester Art Museum has gone unsung. It is, without question, world class. The Roman Mosaic in its Renaissance Court is the largest in the Western Hemisphere. Its colonial portraits are by far the oldest. It has the second largest Paul Revere silver collection and a first rate assemblage of European masters.

Matthias Waschek, Director of the Worcester Art Museum (

“We are one of the first museums, if not the first, to have a Gauguin. We’re definitely the first museum at the beginning of the 20^th century to buy – in America – to buy a Monet,” said Matthias Waschek, the museum’s director.

The Gauguin that Waschek refers to was once owned by Degas, and many of the museum’s works, like those by Monet, Hassam and Whistler, were purchased while the canvas was virtually still wet.

“Museums are always the expression of civic pride, and Worcester was an incredibly wealthy manufacturing town. The museum reflects that,” Waschek said.

Sadly though, the Worcester Art Museum has been a sleeping giant—its reputation swallowed up by the city’s economic decline over the last several decades. Attendance took a nosedive. Museum staff was cut down to four-day work weeks and the front doors were shuttered. That’s what the museum’s first new director in 25 years discovered when he arrived.

When asked how much work is this, he agreed that it’s fairly overwhelming. “Yes, but that’s also exhilarating. I mean, what I found exhilarating from the beginning was all the potential,” he said.

Waschek comes to Worcester from the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis. Before that, he was at the Louvre in Paris, where he was director of Academic programs. He arrived here with a splash—this summer he reopened the museum’s front doors and announced two months of free admission. Attendance exploded.

“It went from 5,000 over two summer months — which was pretty lame — to 14,000, and we got a lot of visitors who had never been to a museum. Which was fascinating,” Waschek said.

Image from the Kennedy to Kent State exhibit. (Worcester Art Museum)

His internal focus is just as thunderous. He’s intensifying marketing and fundraising efforts. And he’s placed Worcester Art on a high-profile exhibition schedule starting with the unfailingly gripping photography show Kennedy to Kent State. Longer term, though, he wants to reconfigure the museum’s entire collection to present it more by chronology and less by nationality as mostmuseums do.

“You just say Whistler should be next to all the great French painters that we have. Whistler and Rodan are very good bedfellows, if you will. Or you have some of the American Impressionists, put them together with Monet, and you see that they’re actually in a very interesting league,” he said.

When asked how big a risk it is to introduce very unconventional ideas, he isn’t concerned. “I think the risk is actually not so high because we have to tell a different story from the Met and the MFA. The very moment we tell the same story with less depth of collection, why would you want to go to Worcester?”

There is a definitive buzz here—awakened from its slumber and with new lifeblood. At the moment, the Worcester Art Museum certainly looks the picture of promise.

Paul Klee: Philosophical Vision: From Nature to Art

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 14:00 PM +0000

Paul Klee (1879–1940), Wall Plant (Mauerpflanze), 1922.

September 15, 2012

Paul Klee is the kind of artist who seems to show up in every museum, most memorably in the form of petite, almost childlike paintings featuring richly hued backgrounds, cryptic symbols and oddball figures.

But as a new exhibition at Boston College’s McMullen Museum of Art shows, those works make up just a sliver of Klee’s output. In reality, the Swiss-German artist explored a range of styles, techniques and subject matters throughout his prolific career, from primitivism to cubism to color field; drawing to etching to painting to writing.

Organized by John Sallis, professor of philosophy at BC, Paul Klee: Philosophical Vision: From Nature to Art, aims to highlight Klee’s philosophical leanings. Long a favorite among European intellectuals, with philosophers such as Martin Heidegger particularly entranced by his ideas about nature, art and representation, Klee laid out his ideas in theoretical writings, Bauhaus lecture notes, and, of course, his work.

Central to the exhibition is Klee’s idea that “Art does not reproduce the visible but makes visible.” If the Impressionists aimed to change how we look at the natural world, Klee wanted us to look into it. Painting something, he believed, could give us a glimpse at its genesis. A good example is the show’s centerpiece, Wall Plant (1922), an abstract work in muted blues and purples that Sallis argues “makes visible by artistic means all that belongs to vegetative genesis.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940), Polyphonic Architecture(polyphone Architektur), 1930.

The show is full of heady stuff, and the McMullen does a fantastic job of presenting it. Beautifully laid out in eight thematic sections described by smart, digestible wall texts, the 65 works not only show Klee’s philosophical leanings but also the range and, for lack of a better word, liveliness of his work. I especially loved the works from the end of his life: childlike, but in a much different way than the earlier ones – wiser somehow – and the frenetic, angry drawings into which he channeled his fear and loathing as Hitler came to power in 1933. However much you already know – or don’t – about Klee and philosophy, you’ll walk away with a lot.

Paul Klee: Philosophical Vision: From Nature to Art
Sept. 1 – Dec. 9, 2012
McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College

Bryan McFarlane: My Dragon's Silk Road

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:27 PM +0000

Bryan McFarlane, House of Pyramids, 2011, oil on linen, 47x39.

September 11, 2012

From September 4th - 29th, Gallery Naga will feature recent paintings by Boston-based artist Bryan McFarlane in an exhibition titled, My Dragon’s Silk Road. Though new to McFarlane’s work, I am incredibly intrigued by his artistic, cultural and critical interests, not to mention his striking oil on linen compositions.

In his paintings I see bold, layered and unusual color juxtapositions. I see hearts, rainbows, dice, pyramids, wishbones, eggs, G-clefs and jesters. I see stream of conscious symbols dancing towards abstraction on fields of liquid-looking hues. And I see an artist brimming with ideas and connections that seem as though they could spill right off the stretcher.

The paintings that comprise My Dragon’s Silk Road are selections from the past two years, a period in which McFarlane explored a deep fascination with China and its expanding role in the contemporary art world. McFarlane melds that curiosity with influences from his native Jamaica and formative travels to Brazil, Columbia, West Africa and East Asia, allowing these intermixed experiences and resulting lines of inquiry to shape a pivotal moment in his own painting practice.

Bryan McFarlane, Chocolate, 2011, oil on linen, 47x39.

While McFarlane hints at particular iconographies (literal, universal and spiritual) in these largely abstract paintings, he is happy to have viewers discover, associate, or internalize his multivalent symbols for themselves. Sure, McFarlane can share with viewers the stories behind each specific sign, for as he puts it, his “paintings are based on a highly personal ‘positive psychology’” that derives from his desire to examine both “history and ‘things’” in whatever environment he finds himself. But in no way is an affinity for his work predicated on an exact understanding of the many rich referents found in his paintings. The mystery is most definitely part of the allure.

My Dragon’s Silk Road furthers McFarlane’s journey away from the figurative works of his early years and towards a new and ever more globally engaged contemporary art. These are cross-cultural and multi-national paintings, with traces of surrealism and expressionism all rolled into one. They are surrogates for McFarlane’s travels and creative identity, beckoning viewers to seek out the same for themselves.

Bryan McFarlane
My Dragon's Silk Road
September 4 - September 29
Gallery NAGA
67 Newbury Street
Boston MA 02116
617.267.9060

Ori Gersht: Seductive Art with a Statement

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 13:40 PM +0000

Watch Jared's interview with Gersht on Greater Boston.

In the Museum of Fine Arts' newest contemporary art show, beauty is taken from the eye of the beholder. In this case it’s the artist Ori Gersht who determines the very definite bounds of beauty.

At first blush, the works of Israeli artist Ori Gersht are pieces of painstaking beauty—an elegant cherry tree branch, a verdant Spanish landscape and a traditional still-life. MFA curator Al Miner describes how Gersht’s work has a siren’s call.

“Beauty is what pulls us all into this work. It’s seductive. We can’t help ourselves. But it’s also like a little lullaby. It sort of lures you in, but then when you least expect it, he does bring in comments about violence,” he said.

The Cherry Tree branch is actually a photograph of a tree growing in Hiroshima’s irradiated soil. Look more closely at the landscape and you’ll find the carcass of a dead dog. Notice the still life of the flower arrangement and you’ll soon see it is lifeless. It is all painstaking work imbued with pain, said Miner.

“There have been four world wars in Israel since Ori was born. His whole life has been in the middle of an ethnic conflict. He’s been a witness to so many moments in that nation’s situation. It’s hard for us to think as Americans to understand what it would be like where so much history is embedded in everything and violence really is around every corner. It makes Ori and others more sensitive. They notice things. He sees violence in places where we might not even recognize it right off the bat,” Miner said.

The Museum of Fine Arts’ newest contemporary art show, Ori Gersht: History Repeating is a vastly intriguing and revelatory perspective. It’s the first comprehensive museum survey for Gersht, featuring 17 photographs and eight films dating to 1998.

“What I’m interested in is a kind of tension that exists between attraction and repulsion,” Gersht explained.

In his photographs, it’s a more quiet tension, a sadness brought on by sudden understanding. Much like the cherry blossom, his landscapes, while gorgeous, are pointed. The serene lake in “Boatman” was actually a hiding place for Jews during World War II. The same for a spot in the Pyrenees. It’s something you can only learn by reading the wall text.

“I’m interested in these moment where the viewer become aware what it’s actually looking at and the affect it has on them. From the moment the words are coming into the equation, the experience can never return to its pure, almost innocent initial relationship between the eye and the image,” Gersht said.

Ori Gersht, Far Off Mountains and Rivers, 2009. Courtesy Angles Gallery, CRG Gallery, Mummery + Schell, and Noga Gallery. © Ori Gersht.

Gersht’s moving images force a more direct response. In this play on an 18^th century French painting, the bird suddenly drops into an abyss. A coin and its history harshly melt away. And in Hebrew the word for pomegranate is the same as grenade. We see that disturbing definition unfold.

“Our bodies are constantly dying and new cells are emerging. And so sometimes we will experience, will have personal experiences, which will have great affect on us. And the shift between feeling untouchable and very vulnerable and hopeless is so fine,” Gersht said.

In all of Gersht’s work, in the obvious and in the more ambiguous, he harkens back to the old Masters. Their DNA is part of his own, he believes.

“It’s a questioning of the past in terms of what were these artists doing? What were these moments in history? Why were they important? Why did they create ripples of time that they did,” said Miner. “But it’s also an admiration.”

The Masters rendered life. Now, Gersht adds a modern voice.

Back To School With Original Art

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:37 AM +0000

Photo credit LVAC website.

September 6, 2012

Those of you who went to college in the late 1990s like me may remember certain ubiquitous staples of dorm room décor. International flags, hippie tapestries and concert posters were the cement wall camouflage of choice. It was common to see these trophies hung side by side with a reproduction of Salvador Dalí’s “Persistence of Memory,” Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” a drawing by M.C. Escher, or clever magazine adverts for Absolut Vodka.

My own room was a bit nerdier. I seem to recall hanging a poster that featured various windows of Florence and another that detailed the historic monuments of Ireland. I also may or may not have had an Alanis Morissette poster dressing up my closet door.

Oh, what my eighteen year old self wouldn’t give for a chance to hang an original piece of artwork beside my bed, just as my undergraduate mind was awakening to the joys of fine art!

For students at MIT, it’s not such a wild dream. Thanks to a beloved, decades-strong Student Loan Art Program, MIT co-eds are eligible for a lottery whose sole purpose is to match over 500 students with a work of art from the Institute’s special trove culled from the Catherine N. Stratton Collection of Graphic Arts, the List Student Loan Collection, and the Ronald A. Kurtz Student Loan Collection. The lucky students get to jazz up their dorm rooms with framed photographs, prints and other works on paper by the likes of Alexander Calder, Harold "Doc" Edgerton, Roy Lichtenstein, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, and many, many more. The number of available artworks grows by several pieces annually, thus increasing a student’s chances of scoring an art loan and ensuring an influx of contemporary art for future borrowers to enjoy.

But you don’t have to be a student at MIT to peruse this cool collection or dream about which of these artworks you would select to keep you company all year long. For two weeks every fall, the entire inventory goes on public display in advance of the lottery; all are invited to channel their inner undergrad and imagine the perfect artwork in front of which to study, sleep, and successfully complete another two semesters of college life. Much more than mere decorations, these artworks symbolize the importance of creativity, the symbiosis of art and science, the relevance of art history, and the countless benefits of a well-rounded life.

This year’s MIT List Visual Arts Center’s Student Loan Art Program exhibition will take place from September 4th -16th. Don’t miss this fun way to honor the back-to-school season!

Which work of art would you choose?

Student Art Loan Program Exhibition
September 4-16, 2012
MIT List Visual Arts Center
20 Ames Street, Bldg. E15
Atrium level
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
617-253-4680

LVAC Gallery Hours
12 pm - 6pm DAILY during this two week period

Fallen Cave Paintings at the Fort Point Arts Community Gallery

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:40 PM +0000

August 23, 2012

Fallen Cave paintings on textile (photo credit: Mary Tinti.)

I never realized how much I would be affected by my brother’s decision to join the Peace Corps. His stint in Mali, West Africa a few years back introduced my family to a part of the world and a people with which we had little prior familiarity, and gave me an entirely new lens through which to view so many things–not the least of which was the interconnectivity of art (be it musical or visual) and life. Knowing all I do of his experiences and how they absolutely continue to shape his personal and professional pursuits, I find myself drawn to the stories of other former PCV’s and the ways they weave together their disparate worlds long after their time in the Corps has concluded.

Former Peace Corps Morocco volunteer Terra Fuller (a.k.a. Touria), a self-dubbed adventure artist, takes the concept of interweaving to new extremes. Merging her fine arts background with traditional rug-weaving techniques acquired through her relationships with the women of The Valley of the Roses, Fuller now creates gorgeous Amazigh-inspired textiles with a contemporary twist. (As explained in the Fort Point Arts Community Gallery press release, Amazigh is “the indigenous culture of North Africa and Morocco”).

On view at the FPAC Gallery through August 30th, Fallen Cave Paintings: Mouhou, Touria, and Zahra presents a sampling of recently hand looped and loomed rugs by Fuller and two of her mentors (Zahra Ait Eshu, a cave dwelling nomad and Mouhou Boussine, a subsistence farmer). These beautiful, painstakingly woven rugs are made for practical purposes; they travel easily, provide warmth, are sat and slept upon, and become the backdrop of a family’s daily existence. Fabricated from a magnificent motley of dyed yarn and camel hair, strips of old fabric, rags, ribbon, and even sequins, these utilitarian rugs are fascinating textiles in their own right. But in the context of the gallery, surrounded by photographs, drawings, and a documentary video by Fuller, they prompt viewers to reconsider the distinction between fine art and craft. The poetic title of this show, “Fallen Cave Paintings” similarly stakes a claim for these rugs within the history of art, not just by connecting them to some of the earliest evidence of pictorial representation, but also by playing off the provocative, Day-Glo “Fallen Paintings" of Lynda Benglis from the late 1960s (mounds of colorful latex poured directly on the gallery floor).

Mary Tinti stands on Fallen Cave painting (photo credit: Mary Tinti.)

I’m a sucker for a shag rug, and this exhibit is full of them! Combine that feature with clusters of jumbled colors and textures and I couldn’t wait to take off my shoes and feel their softness beneath my feet. I love the way the abstract patterns in these carpets appear averse to symmetry or rigid repetition and are far more free-form, expressionistic, gestural, lyrical, and open to improvisation than one might assume. And I couldn’t help but conjure photographs of Jackson Pollock in his studio…with a canvas spread across the floor, Pollock literally would dance and spill and drip his Abstract Expressionist paintings into being—the results of which seem to be a not so distant cousin of these sensual Moroccan carpets.

All in all, Fallen Cave Paintings: Mouhou, Touria, and Zahra provides a welcome window into the cultural traditions of the Amazigh, the interesting artistic path of a former PCV, and the continued interweaving of ancient and modern influences in art making the world over.

Note: Thanks to FPAC Gallery Committee member Courtney Rae Peterson for speaking with me about this exhibition and getting me jazzed about it from the get-go!

Fallen Cave Paintings: Mouhou, Touria, and Zahra
Thru September 21st

FPAC Gallery
300 Summer Street, Boston MA 02210
New summer hours:
Monday-Friday 8am-4pm, Thursdays until 6pm

Dorothy and Herb Go to RISD

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 12:35 PM +0000

August 13, 2012

Joel Shapiro, Model for Two Houses, 2000. The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel
Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States. © Joel Shapiro. Museum of Art Rhode
Island School of Design, Providence.

A couple of weeks ago I headed down to RISD’s Museum of Art to see “The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Rhode Island.” While writing this piece up, I learned Herb passed away on July 22, at the age of 89, after falling ill some months ago.

Which makes the exhibition that much more prescient. A postal clerk and librarian, the Vogels spent five decades befriending and collecting the work of dozens of artists, ultimately building one of the most significant troves of contemporary art in the world. (See the fantastic documentary about their life, Herb and Dorothy at the museum 8/16 or on Netflix.)

Dorothy and Herbert Vogel at The Clocktower with a drawing by Philip Pearlstein
behind them, 1975. Photo credit: Nathaniel Tileston. Courtesy Dorothy and
Herbert Vogel, New York, and the National Gallery of Art,
Washington, DC.

The Vogels’ intention was to live with the works, and they kept them all in their tiny Manhattan one-bedroom – on the walls, under the bed – until eventually, strained by increased attention on the collection, they decided to give some a new home. Rather than sell off the works, by then worth millions, they donated 1,100 to the National Gallery of Art, which helped devise a plan for much of the rest: “Fifty Works for Fifty States.” Together the Vogels and the museum, along with the NEA and the Institute for Museum and Library Services, selected one institution in each state – usually an educational one – and 50 works for it to receive. In Rhode Island, it was RISD.

Cozily installed in two smallish galleries, this exhibition of RISD’s 50 works, including knockouts by Edda Renouf, Lynda Benglis, Charles Clough, Nam June Paik, and Lucio Pozzi, is loosely organized into pleasing vignettes. In one corner an angular enamel on paper by Judy Rifka communes with a hanging corrugated plastic sculpture by Steve Keister and Joel Shapiro’s small-scale Model for Two Houses. Framed here, the Rifka was once taped to the back of the front door in the Vogels’ apartment. The Shapiro, standing just 11 inches high (and RISD’s first), was a sculpture scaled just right for their tiny space.

Edda Renouf, Indian Lily, 2001. The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection:
Fifty Works for Fifty States. © Edda Renouf. Museum of Art Rhode Island
School of Design, Providence.

Works by Richard Tuttle, who the Vogels collected in depth (all 50 states got some), occupy an entire wall, and here we see the influence of Herb, who hand-picked these works from among much larger series, creating his own.

The Vogels worked very closely with the artists, “almost to the point of artistic collaboration,” says Alison Chang, a curatoral fellow in Prints, Drawings and Photographs. And the support they gave them – not just by buying their work but also by engaging with them, giving feedback, reassuring them – was crucial. “Artists said they supported them when they themselves weren’t sure their careers were going anywhere,” says Chang.

Herb and Dorothy were visionaries, appreciating and fostering conceptual and minimalist art before it took hold on the market. Which is partly why they were able to collect as much as they did.

Overall, the show is a celebration of one couple’s love of art – and an instruction manual for how to follow in their footsteps: befriend undiscovered artists, engage them, buy what speaks to you, tape it up, live with it, love it.

--
“The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Rhode Island.”
On view through December 2.
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design.

VIDEO: Art for the Public

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 21:26 PM +0000

August 10, 2012

Mary Tinti, a WGBHArts contributor and Koch Curatorial Fellow at the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, took to the streets around Boston and Cambridge to give you a view — and some insight — of some more noticable art you may have seen around town. Take a look at these four videos from her first tour of local public art.

Public Art Tour: Jaume Plensa’s Alchemist
Commissioned and subsequently gifted by an anonymous graduate, Alchemist honors MIT's 150th anniversary, the generosity of its alumni, and—by extension—the students who have researched, studied, and problem-solved there.

Public Art Tour: The Wall at Central Square
The brainchild of Geoff Hargadon and restaurant owner Gary Strack, The Wall at Central Square was unveiled a few years ago as a safe place for everyday folks and renowned street artists alike to come and spray, draw or paint their visions for all to see.

Public Art Tour: The New England Holocaust Memorial
Saitowitz’s memorial accomplishes what many like it strive to do, but often are unable to: it marks a profoundly tragic event in ways that are symbolically loaded without being overtly literal.

Public Art Tour: Art on the Marquee
Thanks to a partnership between the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority and Boston Cyberarts, artists throughout the state have a chance to be a part of a program designed to integrate the arts into a sign system normally used for commercial purposes.

Do you have a suggestion about other public art we should all stop by and see? Leave us your advice in the comments below.

An Os G�meos Painted Giant Comes to Boston

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 15:43 PM +0000

August 9, 2012

The Giant of Boston, Os Gêmeos (photo by Geoff Hargadon.)

BOSTON - Over the past two weeks, Boston has seen a giant grow in its midst. He arrived not in the form of a sports legend, or a political heavyweight, but as a vision in the minds of imaginative Brazilian artists Os Gêmeos (Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo), identical twin brothers known for painting yellow, cartoonish, colorfully clad figures on urban canvases across the globe. With the help of countless cans of spray paint and a whole lot of time on a lift, The Giant of Boston slowly emerged from the artists’ dreams to reality, right on the Rose F. Kennedy Greenway–a site well suited to a public mural of this kind.

Sporting loud, bright blue and brown checkered pajama bottoms with a clashing green and gold patterned top, Boston’s giant does anything but sleep. He is awake, observing (perhaps with a little childlike, mischievous delight) the activity going on beneath him in Dewey Square. He slouches quite perfectly; his bent knees slide up to the right hand corner of the air intake structure on which he is painted, while his head (wrapped in a tangerine tango mask of sorts, fashioned from a long-sleeved shirt) fills the rounded portion on the left.

There is so much to love about this new giant in our midst. His presence brings a sense of culture and vibrancy to this area of downtown Boston whose architecture can seem so corporate, so dark, so cold. It extends the artistic reach of the ICA (currently home to the twins’ first American museum solo exhibition) well beyond the waterfront. It reinforces the beauty of the Greenway as a place to gather, to picnic, to play, to walk, and perhaps even to enjoy internationally relevant, world class public art.

While most citizens greeted our newest neighbor with warmth, fascination, enthusiasm, and hospitality, there were a handful of those who felt a bit threatened by his arrival. They chose to go to a much darker place, one where racism and discomfort (ignited by fear and an aversion to the unfamiliar) prevented them from taking some time to get to know the giant behind the mask (and the motives of the artists behind that giant).

Os Gêmeos and their painted giant bring with them to Boston a new point of view; I, for one, am thrilled to have an opportunity to spend the next 18 months befriending this invited stranger and learning about his roots. I’m curious to follow the public’s evolving reactions to his presence over several seasons and remain hopeful that the overall dialogue he has inspired will be far more constructive, illuminating, and respectful than controversial.

As is the case with exceptional works of public art, The Giant of Boston represents an opportunity. It’s a chance for the people of Boston to articulate how we feel about and pay homage to creativity, out of the box ideas, pluralities of opinions, and the efforts of artists within our society. And it’s another vehicle through which to explore the social and cultural issues that bubble just below the surface of our everyday banter. That pursuit is a healthy one, and with a little luck, the conversations sparked by our new giant will lead to an ever-growing presence of excellent, large-scale, temporary public art in our city in the months and years to come.

(I’d like to say a special thank you to a few people with whom I conversed on-site in Dewey Square on August 8, 2012 and whose comments helped inform aspects of this post: Sasha Pace, Jeff and Jenn Stienbach, Cher Krause Knight, and ICA Teen Arts Council members Izzy Ramirez and Xan Pemsler.)

An Os Gemeos Painted Giant Comes To Boston

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 15:30 PM +0000

An Os Gêmeos Painted Giant Comes to Boston

Over the past two weeks, Boston has seen a giant grow in its midst. He arrived not in the form of a sports legend, or a political heavyweight, but as a vision in the minds of imaginative Brazilian artists Os Gêmeos (Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo), identical twin brothers known for painting yellow, cartoonish, colorfully clad figures on urban canvases across the globe. With the help of countless cans of spray paint and a whole lot of time on a lift, “The Giant of Boston” slowly emerged from the artists’ dreams to reality, right on the Rose F. Kennedy Greenway–a site well suited to a public mural of this kind.

Sporting loud, bright blue and brown checkered pajama bottoms with a clashing green and gold patterned top, Boston’s giant does anything but sleep. He is awake, observing (perhaps with a little childlike, mischievous delight) the activity going on beneath him in Dewey Square. He slouches quite perfectly; his bent knees slide up to the right hand corner of the air intake structure on which he is painted, while his head (wrapped in a tangerine tango mask of sorts, fashioned from a long-sleeved shirt) fills the rounded portion on the left.

There is so much to love about this new giant in our midst. His presence brings a sense of culture and vibrancy to this area of downtown Boston whose architecture can seem so corporate, so dark, so cold. It extends the artistic reach of the ICA (currently home to the twins’ first American museum solo exhibition) well beyond the waterfront. It reinforces the beauty of the Greenway as a place to gather, to picnic, to play, to walk, and perhaps even to enjoy internationally relevant, world class public art.

While most citizens greeted our newest neighbor with warmth, fascination, enthusiasm, and hospitality, there were a handful of those who felt a bit threatened by his arrival. They chose to go to a much darker place, one where racism and discomfort (ignited by fear and an aversion to the unfamiliar) prevented them from taking some time to get to know the giant behind the mask (and the motives of the artists behind that giant).

Os Gêmeos and their painted giant bring with them to Boston a new point of view; I, for one, am thrilled to have an opportunity to spend the next 18 months befriending this invited stranger and learning about his roots. I’m curious to follow the public’s evolving reactions to his presence over several seasons and remain hopeful that the overall dialogue he has inspired will be far more constructive, illuminating, and respectful than controversial.

As is the case with exceptional works of public art, “The Giant of Boston” represents an opportunity. It’s a chance for the people of Boston to articulate how we feel about and pay homage to creativity, out of the box ideas, pluralities of opinions, and the efforts of artists within our society. And it’s another vehicle through which to explore the social and cultural issues that bubble just below the surface of our everyday banter. That pursuit is a healthy one, and with a little luck, the conversations sparked by our new giant will lead to an ever-growing presence of excellent, large-scale, temporary public art in our city in the months and years to come.

(I’d like to say a special thank you to a few people with whom I conversed on-site in Dewey Square on August 8, 2012 and whose comments helped inform aspects of this post: Sasha Pace, Jeff and Jenn Stienbach, Cher Krause Knight, and ICA Teen Arts Council members Izzy Ramirez and Xan Pemsler.)

Note: A quick google search of “Os Gêmeos Boston” will yield a number of key news articles that can round out the background information to which I alluded in this post.

Public Art Tour: Art on the Marquee

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 01:00 AM +0000

August 9, 2012

Mass. artists have a chance to be a part of “Art on the Marquee,” a program designed to integrate the arts into a sign system normally for commercial purposes.

BOSTON — There’s a new digital marquee in Boston, and no, it’s not in the Theatre District. Prominently placed outside the in Boston Convention & Exhibition Center South Boston, this colossal LED billboard features advertisements for all kinds of arts, business, and cultural happenings in the area. But what WGBHArts readers may not know is that it also doubles as a groundbreaking platform on which to showcase the work of some of the region’s best boundary-pushing digital and new media artists (who also happen to be some of the best in the country!).

Thanks to a clever and exciting partnership between the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority and Boston Cyberarts (with funding help from the Massachusetts Cultural Council), artists throughout the state have a chance to be a part of “Art on the Marquee,” a program designed to integrate the arts into a sign system normally relegated for commercial purposes. The initiative (among the first of its kind nationally) has been so successful thus far that those involved are hopeful it will become a model for public art/commercial partnerships of the future.

Because of the sheer size and spectacular brightness of the marquee, the digital artworks on display can be enjoyed both day and night by the tens of thousands of people walking, driving, and/or working in this part of the city (and can be seen from up to a half a mile away). Each call for submissions has been a little different, thus ensuring a plethora of inventive artistic responses. Future calls will likely include collaborations with New England art schools and further explore the range of public media arts best suited to a marquee of this stature.

Please visit the Art on the Marquee website for more information on this innovative partnership, explanations about the artworks currently on display, and the most recent call for participation.

More Links
Art on the Marquee website
Massachusetts Convention Center Authority
Boston Cyberarts
Masachusetts Cultural Council

Public Art Tour: The New England Holocaust Memorial

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 00:46 AM +0000

August 9, 2012

Stanley Saitowitz's New England Holocaust Memorial (1995)

BOSTON — Designed by Stanley Saitowitz and dedicated in 1995, the New England Holocaust Memorial occupies a fascinating site on the Freedom Trail in Boston. This busy location may seem a bit incongruous for a commemorative memorial of this kind, but I believe those characteristics that make it seem most out of place are the very qualities that make the installation so well-suited to this city space. The site caters to tourists and commuters alike–both those with mere moments to spare and others who choose to linger and have a more contemplative experience.

In the context of the Freedom Trail (which marks and celebrates Boston’s unique role in the American Revolution), the New England Holocaust Memorial speaks to a slightly more nuanced aspect of freedom: it invites us to reflect upon the atrocities committed during the Holocaust and recognize that we have a responsibility to ensure such evil and injustice have no place in our society today.

Saitowitz’s memorial accomplishes what many like it strive to do, but often are unable to: it marks a profoundly tragic event in ways that are symbolically loaded without being overtly literal. For example, six glass pillars stand tall at the center of a leafy median. The pillars are etched with six million numbers signifying the Jewish lives lost in the Holocaust (but also referencing the diabolical efficiency of the Nazis and their assigning of numeric tattoos to their prisoners). As visitors walk the linear path beneath the towers, they will see smoke rise from six-foot depressions below the steel grates at their feet (one for each of the six major concentration camps), thus rendering the memorial experience that much more provocative.

With quotes, didactic texts, and significant historical dates peppered throughout this minimal installation, the New England Holocaust Memorial stimulates, educates, honors and—perhaps most poignantly—encourages generations removed from the reality of the Holocaust to remember–often.

Public Art Tour: Jaume Plensa's Alchemist

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 23:59 PM +0000

August 9, 2012

Watch Mary's video about Jaume Plensa’s Alchemist (2010)

BOSTON — MIT is home to a world-class public art collection and the addition of Jaume Plensa’s Alchemist (2010) goes a long way towards keeping that impressive distinction very much intact. Commissioned and subsequently gifted by an anonymous graduate, Alchemist honors the Institute’s 150^th anniversary, the generosity of its alumni, and—by extension—the students who have researched, studied, and problem-solved at MIT.

Based in Barcelona, Jaume Plensa is known the world over for creating artworks that expose aspects of the human figure in fascinating ways. His sculptures (which range in both size and medium) are at once tranquil, meditative, and in tune with both physical and cognitive realms.

With Alchemist, Plensa offers up a tribute to an inquisitive, brilliant, beautiful mind, one that blurs the boundaries between the inner body and the outside world. Viewers will recognize the basic outline of a seated male, traced in a stainless steel skin shaped from numerous numerical symbols and equations—the building blocks of mathematics, science, and engineering. Viewers may enter the piece, and thus surround themselves with abstractions of the innovative ideas, calculated experiments, and ingenious solutions that are the lifeblood of MIT.

WGBHArts readers may enjoy knowing that Plensa is the artist behind Chicago’s acclaimed Crown Fountain in Millennium Park. More locally, an exquisite example of his marble sculpture can be found on the grounds of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. And, perhaps most exciting of all, Jaume Plensa will be giving a free lecture on the evening of Friday, October 12, 2012 at MassArt, so mark your calendars and prepare to be inspired!

>>See Plensa listing on MIT Public Art Page.

Public Art Tour: The Wall at Central Square

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 17:33 PM +0000

August 8, 2012

Part of The Wall at Central Square

BOSTON — There exists in the heart of Cambridge a surprising space known as The Wall at Central Square (or The Wall at Central Kitchen) that serves up bombastic, bold, colorful, ever-changing, and oh-so-contemporary examples of some of the coolest street art around.

The brainchild of Geoff Hargadon (a local artist and fan of awesome public art) and restaurant owner Gary Strack, The Wall at Central Square was unveiled a few years ago as a safe place for everyday folks and renowned street artists alike to come and spray, draw, or paint their visions for all to see. On any given day, passersby can find personal tags, memorial tributes, or fantastical designs–all part of a dynamic, morphing tableau very much suited to the energy for which this neighborhood is famed.

The spirit of The Wall—which is really the spirit of street art—is an organic one, in that once an artwork is added, there is an understanding that it will eventually be enhanced or layered over by another artist sometime down the line. In this way, street artists can be said to create the most temporary kind of public art, a chance-filled category that makes the genre all the more exciting and fosters countless visual connections and conversations.

Because of its international resurgence in the urban realm, street art (some of which is not officially sanctioned) is also receiving fresh attention in the museum and gallery worlds. For example, in August 2012 the ICA Boston will play host to an exhibition by Brazilian graffiti artists Os Gêmeos (Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo) which includes companion site-specific public murals in the Dewey Square section of the Rose F. Kennedy Greenway and on the Revere Hotel Boston Common. And, given that The Wall at Central Square will be celebrating its fifth anniversary this October, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some fun plans in the works to honor the occasion. So make it a point to check out The Wall repeatedly and keep your eyes peeled for unexpected street art in greater Boston in the weeks and months to come!

Additional photography in this video of The Wall at Central Square is by Gregg Bernstein.

To visit The Wall, use the Central Kitchen address
567 Mass. Ave.
Cambridge, MA

Ansel Adams Water Photos at PEM

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:06 PM +0000

August 6, 2012

BOSTON — The summer show at the Peabody Essex Museum is an exhibition of Ansel Adams photography. It’s the legendary photographer’s work as you’ve never seen it before.

We can be reasonably excused for thinking we’re all too familiar with the often over-exposed Ansel Adams. But in its new show Ansel Adams: At the Water’s Edge, Phillip Prodger, Curator of Photography at the Peabody Essex Museum shows us reasons to reconsider.

“There are pictures of water that are almost violent, the muscular energy of some of these pictures of cascades tumbling over waterfalls, swelling with water. Then there are other moments that are more meditative or contemplative, a little more withdrawn.”

In a riveting show, Prodger wades into Adams’ lifelong relationship with water—going all the way back to the beginning—when the seaside San Francisco native was lured by the landscape at age 13.

“His first memories were hearing the slapping of the waves on the sand and smelling the salt air. So something that was very deeply engrained in him. And as our exhibition shows, it is something that he carried with him throughout his career, ” Prodger said.

Adams had a lifelong romance with nature, including recurring dalliances throughout New England and especially Cape Cod. At the onset though, Adams’ work was radical. It was the 1920s and Adams had no allegiance to Victorian tradition.

“Those pictures tend to be very nostalgic, soft focus. Often the pictures are very colorful, deep sepia color often in the prints. Ansel did away with all that,” Prodger said. “He was part of a generation that felt things in a picture should be sharp focus, the things in the picture should be neutral black and white and really created a sort of unconventional, confrontational and direct style of photography that we now know and love so well.”

What’s more, he challenged himself—especially with water.

“With a waterfall or a raging rapid or crashing waves on a shore, you never know exactly what you’re going to get. Ansel didn’t know exactly what he was going to get. So I think it was more of the virtuosity of anticipating the scene before it happened, and of knowing where to be finding the right place and right time to fire the shot,” Prodger said.

The show frequently reminds us that photography we might easily take for granted today was staggeringly complicated for Adams. In 1953, he invented the developing process for these 10 by 12 foot murals.

“He had to stitch together three different sheets of paper because the commercial papers available then didn’t reach that scale. So it was really a technical feet. Shooting across the room, on three separate sheets of paper, developing them rolled up in troughs mounting them together perfectly so you couldn’t see the seams, they’re really something special,” Prodger said.

Always versatile, Adams worked with an array of formats and equipment. Consistent, though, was the emotion he brought to his work and hoped would be conveyed in return.

“When Ansel took a picture of, say, a waterfall, if he was happy or sad or full of energy or was dragging that day, he hoped that an element of his experience of that scene would enter into that picture. And then he further hoped that later on when we looked at it, we would get some of that feeling back out of it,” Prodger said.

And what we get from this show is a refreshing look at a legendary photography we only thought we fully knew.

Balancing the Arts in the Fort Point Channel

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:34 PM +0000

July 18, 2012

Arts Imbalance, 2012 (photo credit: Mary Tinti).

I love making chance, serendipitous arts discoveries over the course of my daily routine. Those unexpected encounters and the fascinating, little-known stories behind them are what inspired me to start my own visual culture themed blog and they energize and excite me still. Take the following example:

Late in the afternoon on Sunday, my husband Dave and I were driving home to South Boston via Summer Street. Just as we were about to cross the Channel, Dave noticed a new work of art suspended over the water and I promptly pulled the car over so that we could take a closer look. As luck would have it, the artist, Peter Agoos, was still on site and I spoke with him briefly as he was preparing to place the artist statement panels that will accompany and identify this sculpture.

Arts Imbalance is an intricate tightrope that hangs between the Summer and Congress Street bridges. Atop this cable, an aluminum figure (with an almost identical companion attached just below the rope) moves back and forth according to the whims of the wind. But fear not, this intrepid wire walker is also a whirligig, and if the top figure starts to fall, the bottom figure will rise up and take its place (and on and on it goes).

On view over the Channel for the next few months, Arts Imbalance serves as a buoyant and poignant reminder that in our society, the arts simply are not as valued, funded, or protected as they should be – and that issue is a national one. In spite of this persistent problem, artists – who are ridiculously resilient folk – always seem to figure out ways to bounce back. These larger points come further into focus when we consider the perhaps not-so-coincidental location of this public sculpture.

Hanging above the water that separates the Financial District of Downtown Boston from the Fort Point Arts Community, Arts Imbalance invites viewers to be stimulated by the clever ways in which artists like Peter Agoos take it upon themselves to create meaningful gestures often in the face of limited funding and all manner of red tape.

For me, Arts Imbalance is a temporary monument to all the plucky, innovative artists in our midst and a call to action for their community to provide the kind of support that will allow them to walk on a few less wires in the future.

For more information about Peter Agoos, please visit his website: http://www.agoos.com/

Kindness is Contagious at FIGMENT Boston

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 17:30 PM +0000

July 18, 2012

Boston Hoop Troop, 2010 (photo credit: Dan Rajter).

FIGMENT, that “free, annual celebration of participatory art and culture where everything is possible,” is returning to the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston this July 28th and 29th, offering some alternative artistic stimuli to the live music performances happening in Copley Square for Boston’s first Summer Arts Weekend. Clearly, it’s going to be a very entertaining few days in the city.

The spirit of FIGMENT is fantastic, and its aim is as pure as they come: the entire interactive arts/performance event is planned and executed by volunteers, without any assistance from corporate sponsorships. It’s free and very family-friendly, inclusive and welcoming of all, super eco-conscious and self-reliant, designed to foster civic/communal participation, and remind everyone that imaginative, creative play is not just for kids. These are ideas for which we should all be cheering! That said - I feel compelled to confess that the overall aesthetics of the event can be pretty hit or miss. As long as attendees manage their own expectations, and come seeking messy creativity at work rather than polished participatory public art projects, a good time will be had by all.

Mary Tinti at FIGMENT, 2011 (photo credit: Mary Tinti).

My favorite FIGMENT moment last year consisted of fashioning my very own tutu from a box of colorful, feather-light tulle. There was something incredibly joyful and freeing about seeing men, women and children alike skipping about the park with their custom tutus cinched around their waists. While I don’t believe Tess Aquarium’s tutu booth will be present at this year’s celebration, I do want to highlight a few projects that would be well worth seeking out…

I suggest beginning your FIGMENT experience with artist Neil Horsky, who will be happy to draw you a personalized event map based upon your preferences, mood, and sense of adventure. Make sure to have Horsky include Heather Mulloy’s Salon Hairtastic Sculpture on your map where pipe cleaners, glitter and more will enable you to transform your coiffure into a whimsical artistic statement (think this year’s tutus). I’d also be on the lookout for both the Boston Hoop Troop, so you can join in a giant hula-hooping extravaganza, and the happiness-spreading artist Jessica Gath, who will be roaming the event while giving out free postcards for attnedees to mail to someone they love, and reminding everyone that, just as her stickers say, “Kindness is Contagious.”

FIGMENT Boston 2012 will take place on July 28 and 29 at the Rose Kennedy Greenway.
For maps, tips and other helpful details, visit the Figment Website: http://boston.figmentproject.org/

The Paintings of Paul Goodnight

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 18:24 PM +0000

July 14, 2012

Cousins by the Dozens, Paul Goodnight.

If you have a thing for original art and you live and work in the city of Boston, you’ll really want to add a visit to Color Circle to your list of summer art stops. It’s a fully stocked distributor of museum-quality paintings and prints by the artist Paul Goodnight and his circle of friends.

Goodnight might be there when you stop in to this nifty two-room operation located in the historic Piano Factory. If you get to meet the artist featured in the newly published 100 Boston Painters, you’ll understand why he is being recognized as one of the 100 painters making the city of Boston a major contributor to international art.

The Smithsonian Institution owns a Paul Goodnight painting. Hollywood knows him very well. His works have appeared on The Cosby Show, Seinfeld, Arli$$, ER, and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Samuel L. Jackson, Wesley Snipes, and even Bishop Desmond Tutu have his paintings in their homes.

Getting his work into the living rooms of rich and famous people was not difficult for Goodnight, though he is humble about it. “I just needed to agree to the print release of my paintings. I was a purist at first, and I wasn’t into making prints of my work,” he told me on my visit.

Goodnight didn’t think that people would see his paintings on television either. But a good representative convinced him to allow one of his paintings to appear on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. “After that, the orders started coming in by the gallons,” he explained.

Goodnight’s work spills out of every corner of Color Circle, in bursts of color fine-tuned to the human body and motion. Color Circle is a haven for art lovers seeking African Americana images.

Trained in classical art, Goodnight attributes his distinct style to his use of unusual techniques and tools like volcanic ash, which he learned from an artist in Brazil.

“I’ve also been using a very fine faucet, which is another technique that I picked up from someone. My work is a combination of many styles.”

His urban scenes are highlighted with the golden trim of a tropical sun. His figures dance and shake off the radiance of the spectrum. His people are every shade of brown, some with red and golden tones. “I like the pastels of the Caribbean, and I use those colors in a lot of my work,” Goodnight said.

There is a story behind every painting. Ham and Egg Sandwich, for example, was inspired by a conversation that he had with his mentor, the American artist John Thomas Biggers.

Ham and Egg Sandwich, Paul Goodnight.

“He had asked me if I was committed,” said Paul, standing in front of this dreamy portrait of a woman sitting in a chair with a chicken and an egg at her head and a pig at her feet.

“I couldn’t believe that he was asking me that. I told him that I believed that I was. Then he said to me, ‘the difference between involvement and commitment is like a ham and egg sandwich.’ I pretended to know what he was talking about, even though I had no idea what he was saying. He often spoke in statements like that. But think about a ham and egg sandwich,” Goodnight proposed.

All I could conjure up was an image of a few slices of ham and an egg fried hard in between two slices of wheat bread. Of course, I didn’t tell Goodnight this. “I see,” I said. (In reality, I was lost.)

“The chicken was involved; she laid the egg,” said Goodnight, “but the pig was committed; gave his life.”

Color Circle is owned and operated by Paul, his wife, Bernice Robinson, and their daughter, Aziza Robinson-Goodnight. Located at 791 Tremont Street in, Color Circle is open Monday through Fridays, from 9am to 5pm and by appointment.

Playing Ball And Riding Bikes at Atlantic Wharf

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 17:45 PM +0000

July 12, 2012

Baseball ephemera by Laura Davidson.

Most passersby the Atlantic Wharf building may not know this, but there is a wonderful little atrium space next to the parking garage and the offices of the Boston Society of Architects (BSA) that often plays host to an array of small art exhibitions. Commuters and Greenway strollers alike should take note and plan to duck in this summer to reminisce about playing baseball and riding bikes – two beloved pastimes, particularly popular this time of year that also just happen to be the subjects of two adjacent shows.

Play Ball! is a quirky amalgam of baseball-themed prints, paintings, collage, photographs and drawings pulled together in a kind of homage to a century of baseball in Boston. While references to Fenway Park and Red Sox hometown heroes are plentiful, the vibe on display here is also tinged with a general love for the game (which is perfect for a Boston transplant like me who happens to live in a diehard Mets household). With baseballs, batters, diamonds, tickets and more rendered in a range of media by over ten different Fort Point artists, viewers can get their self-guided sports fix while simultaneously familiarizing themselves with some of the neighborhood’s artists.

And, once you’re done playing ball, you can join in the conversation about bicycles happening over at the BSA Space. As Let’s Talk About Bikes makes clear, the decision to trade in four wheels for two need not be relegated to weekends in June, July, and August; it may well be the key to better living in our communities year round. With the help of innovative urban planning; sleek, versatile, locally designed bikes; and some creative approaches to making our city as bike friendly as possible, Boston could be paving the way for a safer, more ubiquitous and enjoyable biking experience for all.

The artistry of this exhibition lies not only within the design of the cycling equipment on display, but also in the way that didactic factoids pop up in little thought bubbles on the walls and floor. The entire experience is cleverly curated by Chris Grimley, Michael Kubo, and Mark Pasnik of over,under, in whose hands the subjects of Let’s Talk About Bikes become striking minimalist sculptures that, when removed from their function, underscore the simple beauty of the bicycle in both concept and contour all the more.

Play Ball! – Fort Point Artists Honor 100 years of Boston Baseball
Featuring the work of Laura Davidson, Leslie A. Feagley, Joanne Kaliontzis, Ian Kennelly, Andrew Kirby, Elisa H. Hamilton, Jean Hangarter, Karen McFeaters, Danny O, Sylvia Stagg-Giuliano, Anne Welch
July 2-October 26, 2012
Opening Reception: July 26, 5:00pm-8:00pm
The Atlantic Wharf Gallery
280 Congress Street, Boston MA

Let’s Talk About Bikes
June 12-August 31, 2012
Boston Society of Architects
290 Congress Street, Suite 200
Boston, MA

Ephemera by Laura Davidson

WGBHArts Goes West to Explore... Canada at MASS MoCA

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 10:28 AM +0000

July 7, 2012

Widow, 2012 (Janice Wright Cheney, b. 1961, Montreal, Canada)

With its immense scale, giant machinery and surprises at every turn, Mass MoCA feels like a huge, post-industrial grown-up’s playground.

The marquis exhibition at the moment is Oh, Canada, a survey of Canadian art which, according to the wall text, “does not pretend to define a country as expansive and intricately layered as Canada, though it provides insight through more than 100 artworks into some of the country’s most noteworthy art practices and ideas.”

The show makes good use of the former factory’s cavernous rooms, with many works as generously scaled as our northern neighbor. Installations the size of small rooms dominate, along with videos and large-scale photographs.

Certain Canadian themes are apparent — lonely, icy landscapes; environmental concerns; wry humor; DIYism; an obsession with forest creatures, especially human-forest-creature hybrids — but for those of us unversed in contemporary Canadian art, which I’ll assume is, oh, just about all of us (eh?), much of the significance is about as accessible as the Canadian tundra in February. I know this because I read in entirety curator Denise Markonish’s 38-page essay for the exhibition catalog, due out in July, and realized I’d missed about 98 percent of what was actually going on. Those 100 blobs hanging from the ceiling in Thanatos are actually Remembrance Day poppies entombed in dozens of layers of paint and left to die? Those disease cells illustrated in bright, sparkly glass-bead embroidery are the ones that have wiped out native populations? Fascinating! But how was I to know?

[Note to curators: Wall texts? Yes please! Give us at least a fighting chance…]

Of course some of the stuff is great in and of itself, but after the show’s overarching inscrutability, the ongoing Sol LeWitt wall drawing retrospective upstairs is especially satisfying, a fun immersion into color, line, and pattern that can be appreciated with or without its conceptual and historical significance.

Included in Invisible Cities: No Way Out, 2002 (Carlos Garaicoa)

Invisible Cities, ten reimaginations of “urban landscapes both familiar and fantastical” is also stunning (I especially loved Lee Bul’s contribution). And be sure to check out All Utopias Fell – an installation by Michael Oatman in the plant’s oh-so-industrial-chic Boiler Plant involving a 1970s Airstream trailer repurposed for what seems like time travel, or waiting out the apocalypse —especially if, like me, you’ve got a sci-fi buff in tow (or are one yourself). Then, before you leave, to have a go on the giant swings suspended under an overpass and let all the sensory and aesthetic overload sink in.

Oh, Canada through April 1, 2013

Invisible Cities through February 4, 2013

Michael Oatman: All Utopias Fell through November 4, 2012

Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective ongoing

Mass MoCA
1040 Mass MoCA Way
North Adams, MA 01247
(413) 662-2111