artscope magazine: July/August 2008 Welcome Statement: Brian Goslow, managing editor Letters to the Editor Past, Present, Future: ANISH KAPOOR ANDREW SAFTEL: How do we get there? WEDDED BLISS: The Marriage of Art and Ceremony A POLITIC, Gallery XIV El Greco To Velázquez: Art during the reign of Philip III Luisa Rabbia: Travels with Isabella, Travel Scrapbooks 1883/2008 Collector's Choice: Late 19th Century Vibrations OFF THE WALL: 2008 Annual members’ Juried exhibition Featured Artist Laurence Young An Artful Touch: An Artful Touch Gallery Everday Monuments: the Photographs of Jerome Liebling: SAM FEINSTEIN (1915-2003): A retrospective DORA ATWATER MILLIKIN: Geometry of Place Nancy Craig: New Paintings and Works on Paper, and Romolo Del Deo: New Sculpture and Bronze Furniture ALEX KATZ AND FRIENDS / THE GLEANERS BLACK WOMANHOOD: Images, Icons, And Ideologies of the African Body 215 College Street Artists' Cooperative Gallery Kevin Gilmore: Recent Paintings Paintings: Stephen Courbois, Sculpture: Pat Musick Penelope Jencks: Sculpture in Bronze, Terracotta and Plaster Theater: Counter Productions Theater: Ko FEST Music: Marblehead Summer Jazz Concerts and Festival of Arts Dance: Bates Summer Dance Festival Musings: FUNG WAH ADVENTURE Capsule Previews: May/June 2008

ALEX KATZ AND FRIENDS / THE GLEANERS Elena Sarni ALEX KATZ AND FRIENDS Farnsworth Museum of Art 16 Museum Street Rockland, Maine Through October 26 THE GLEANERS Center for Maine Contemporary Art;/br> 162 Russell Avenue Rockport, Maine Through July 19 I WAS THANKFUL TO LEAVE THE 90-DEGREE WEATHER BEHIND AS WE DROVE FURTHER NORTH INTO MAINE. WISCASSET’S “RED’S EATS” WAS CLOSED AT THIS EARLY HOUR, WHICH MEANT WE COULD AVOID TRAFFIC DELAYS CAUSED BY TOURISTS CROSSING THE STREET TO REACH THE FAMOUS SEAFOOD ESTABLISHMENT. Beyond Wiscasset it is an antique lover’s delight, with vendors on both sides of the road the whole way into Rockland and our destination: The Farnsworth Museum of Art, celebrating its 60th anniversary. As a result, it will be launching 11 new exhibitions throughout the year, the first five having opened in March. “Alex Katz and Friends” pays tribute to the artist and his contributions to the Farnsworth’s contemporary collection, not only of his own work, but that of other artists he has gifted to the Museum. “Friends” is used liberally - most of the pieces are not literally works by close personal friends, but that of Katz’s acquaintances or contemporaries. And while portraits by Katz of filmmaker and photographer Rudy Burckhardt and other friends from the New York School, such as poet Robert Creeley, are included in the show, the text-light exhibit doesn’t expand upon their personal relationships. Labels for Katz’s work list only title, artist, date and donor, encouraging viewers to focus on the work itself. Handouts explain that he is “best known for his emotionally ambiguous and psychologically complex portraits of cosmopolitan friends and colleagues from the New York art world,” adding, “he is also admired for his bold transcendent landscape paintings and his coolly intimate portraits of friends and family.” Many of the artists included studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, which was the impetus for Katz’s first visit to Maine in 1949. Yet, for the most part the artists and works assembled are widely divergent. Sylvia Plimack Mangold’s “Floor with Light at Noon” is an almost photo-realistic oil painting featuring the bare wood floor of the corner of a room lit by sunlight from a nearby window. The detail of the boards, and the gradations of light in the painting make you feel the warm sunlight on your face and the rough boards under your bare feet. On the other end of the spectrum you have Julian Opie’s “Ruth with Cigarette 3,” with its bold, Warholesque style. The Lambda print, mounted on Dibond, features a woman smoking a cigarette. The subtle indent of her waist, the delicate way that she holds the cigarette and the bra-like top she wears let us know that she is female, while her head is completely gender neutral - suspended above her body, a flesh colored circle, more cartoon than human. Read the entire article in our magazine pages...