This week, Jared Bowen travels to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for "Fra Angelico: Heaven on Earth" and the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston for "Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to today." Plus, a review of "Virginia Woolf's Orlando."
"Fra Angelico: Heaven on Earth," on view at the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum through May 20
An exhibition fit for a pope. At the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, "Fra Angelico: Heaven on Earth" brings together the works of "The Angelic Painter" Fra Angelico. As a Dominican friar, Angelico received commissions to paint religious depictions ranging from Florence's wealthiest patrons to the pope himself. This exhibition brings together the religious art and reliquaries of the Renaissance painter for the first time in more than 200 years. Jared calls it "a golden opportunity to see divinely rendered Renaissance art."
"Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today," on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston through May 20
How has the internet changed the way we interpret, create, and distribute art? These are the questions poised by the exhibition "Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today," which examines how technology has fundamentally changed our perception of art and art making. This mixed-medium exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston investigates themes of community, surveillance, body image, information fatigue, and virtual worlds in the shadow of the internet age. "It's changed every facet of artistic production," says chief curator Eva Respini. "It has fundamentally changed how artists see themselves within society, and how they produce their work."
"Virginia Woolf's Orlando," presented by Lyric Stage Company through March 25
A time-hopping, gender-bending play adapted by Sarah Ruhl from Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel is on stage at Lyric Stage Company. Described as a literary love letter to Woolf's friend and lover Vita Sackville-West, "Virginia Woolf's Orlando" follows the life of Orlando, a young man with grand ambitions of fame and fortune. After years of liaisons and accruing wealth, his affairs take a turn when he suddenly wakes up in 17th century Constantinople as a woman. The centuries pass as Orlando navigates new challenges, perceptions, and loves in a lifelong quest to rediscover her identity. "On the surface, Orlando is delightful and fun," says Jared, "but it's the depths wisely plumbed just beneath that turn cheek into something altogether arresting."
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