This week, Jared Bowen takes us to exhibitions in Boston and New Bedford and reviews the documentary “One Child Nation.”
“De Wind Is Op! Climate, Culture and Innovation in Dutch Maritime Painting,” on view at the New Bedford Whaling Museum
“De Wind Is Op!” explores the New Bedford Whaling Museum's enviable collection of Golden Age Dutch and Flemish paintings through the lens of climate, wind and the sea.
“There's a lot of evidence that the Little Ice Age completely coincided with the Dutch Golden Age of painting,” said Christina Connett Brophy. Brophy is the museum's Douglas and Cynthia Crocker Endowed Chair for the Chief Curator. “By looking at the paintings through that lens, we see a very different perspective on how they can be interpreted,” she said. The exhibition of nearly 50 paintings highlights how Dutch artists captured often turbulent seas and inspired painters, including J.M.W. Turner, Winslow Homer and William Bradford.
“Hyman Bloom: Matters of Life and Death,” on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston through February 23, 2020
“Hyman Bloom: Matters of Life and Death” showcases about 70 of Bloom's paintings and drawings chronicling his rise as a masterful painter. Once proclaimed one of the 20th century’s great American painters, Bloom routinely rendered difficult subject matters — autopsies, for example — with a colorful and thoughtful approach that highlights the cyclical nature of life, death and rebirth.
“The hot colors also sort of pulsate out of the canvas and give you a sense of life at the same time that you know that you're looking at an autopsy of a deceased person,” said curator Erica Hirshler. “The vibrancy of the paint handling and the colors and shapes that you see make it lively at the same time.”
“One Child Nation,” in select theaters now
Award-winning filmmaker Nanfu Wang (Hooligan Sparrow, I Am Another You) and Jialing Zhang shed new light on the realities of China’s now-defunct “One Child Policy.” Also serving as narrator, Wang explores how she was born into the One Child Policy in 1985 and how the Chinese government, through propaganda, intimidation and drastic measures like forced sterilization and abortions, successfully controlled the country’s population. Both harrowing and essential, this documentary explores the devastating effects of the policy and its lasting psychological consequences on the nation.
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