artscope magazine, the anniversary issue: March/April 2007

Edward Burtynsky: The China Series

James Foritano

Tufts University Art Gallery
Aidekman Arts Center

Medford, Massachusetts

Through April 1

As the industrial revolution is exported worldwide from its 18th century European roots, its Edenic fruit grow more ambiguous, less apt to fit into our neat definitions of progress. And so it is with China, the foremost Asian exponent of rampant and rapid industrial growth. Is it a victim or a beneficiary of its metastasizing urban centers, its vast factory compounds and industrial projects that seem scaled up exponentially from previous technological endeavors?

Edward Burtynsky has taken his camera to China and given us 20 large-scale color snapshots of the newest family to enter the album of global strivers. To this task, Mr. Burtynsky, a Canadian citizen, brings skills honed over a 25-year career, and the maturity of vision to sense the subtlest shades of irony and splendor in a very complicated drama.

John Powell: Fragments

Gary Duehr

CAC Gallery
Cambridge Arts Council

344 Broadway

Cambridge

Through March 30

If you think you see a new warning light flashing at the corner of Broadway and Inman Streets in Cambridge, you're right. Only instead of directing traffic, the words "JUST IN TIME" blinking on and off against the red-brick façade of the City Hall Annex are urging you to see the exhibition "Fragments" by Boston-based light sculptor John Powell. As in much of his work, multiple meanings emerge like puns. Is the viewer "just in time" to see it? Or is the all-caps, almost-subliminal message a reminder that life is merely a series of fleeting moments?

Probably both of these, and more.

Big Bang! Abstract Painting for the 21st Century

Leon Nigrosh

DeCordova Museum
51 Sandy Pond Road

Lincoln, Massachusetts

Through April 22

A while back, a bunch of scientists decided that something big went bang and that's how our universe got started. With that in mind, some folks at the DeCordova Museum decided to use that terminology for the title of their latest show, "Big Bang!," to describe the burgeoning of abstract painting in this new century.

Featuring 15 current practitioners of abstract painting, the exhibit is awash with explosions of color. Works range from 7x7 inches to the largest single work that is more than 15 by 7 feet in size. For even greater scale, several artists resorted to using sectional panels, and others actually painted the surrounding walls to help complete their compositions. One artist, apparently not satisfied with the size of his offering, not only affixed canvases to the wall, but also cloaked the wall with Disney-like color outbursts. The artist also bolted organic shapes onto the wall stolen from Jean (Hans) Arp (1886-1966), who was famous for his paintings and reliefs "According to the Laws of Chance," which first appeared in the early 1900s.

Upon perusing the exhibition, there appears to be basically two types of artists pursuing the ideals of abstract painting: the freewheelers and the OCD crowd. Some splash, drip, pour and dribble with apparent abandon, while others use straightedges, computer generations or deconstruct Baroque and Rococo artworks to precisely create their images - which, of all things, they then meticulously and time-consumingly hand paint the finished works.

Beyond The Surface: Mixed Materials and Collage

Catherine LaFerriere

Berenberg Gallery
4 Clarendon Street

Boston

March 21 through May 5

Bathe in the juicy glow of self-taught artists at the Berenberg Gallery and you have to wonder why any contemporary artist would consider formal training. This mixed materials collection concocts a circus of color, texture, and intricacy as the four featured artists campaign for attention. It's a chaotic collection and has evolved from a sense of independence from the mainstream art world.

Fred Feldmesser produces work from a wide range of objects (paint, photographs, motherboards, etc.) and nails seemingly illogical headlines onto the image. See "Raw Sex" nailed above a motherboard - it's disjointing and forces a second look at the computer parts. Feldmesser's most disconcerting image is an antiquated photograph he's found of an older couple. The picture is severe - their faces are stern and the space between the pair personifies a mutual dissatisfaction. Above the couple Feldmesser has nailed, "Drugs saved their relationship." The image is reminiscent of those ubiquitous tongue-in-cheek greeting cards. Both lose their humor and adopt a sort of bleakness when mirrored in reality.

A Vision Refreshed: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, an interview with Gardner director Anne Hawley

James Foritano

The Courtyard under the glass roof of Mrs. Gardner's Venetian palace exhales the scents of seasonal flowers and plants year round. It breathes for us when the winds across The Fenway blow too sharply to inhale; and brings our hurried steps to a stillness with exotic color and form. And that should be, for any house, a more than adequate measure of hospitality.

But Isabella Stewart Gardner was not a complacent hostess. At her palace she celebrated both the artistic present and the past. Collecting the bankable classics such as Titian and Raphael, but also, the avant-garde Matisse, she anticipated the future as well as revering the past.

Anders Zorn painted her portrait, and John Singer Sergeant, giving Mrs. Gardner an ambiguous halo that took proper Bostonians aback.

David Addison Small

Matthew Griffin

Lyman-Eyer Gallery
432 Commercial Street

Provincetown

Through May 1

The art of David Addison Small's psyche has adorned the walls of many galleries, universities, museums and private collections. His mastery of the brush and the Mishtechnik, an archaic technique that dates back to the 15th century, combining eggs with white pigment powder and varnish, has gained him a wide following of many patrons, admirers and collectors throughout the world.

Born in 1953, Small studied painting with Phantastic Realist painter Dr. Ernst Fuchs in Reichenau, Austria in 1975 and with Gregory Gillespie in Amherst in 1976. "I was one of his first, if not the-first student he had," Small said. Paintings from those early developmental days will be on display for the first time in March at the Boston Center for the Arts (BCA) March First Fridays Open House Studios Night.

4-SOLO

Roanna Forman

Benjamin Cariens: A Mediated Presence
Xiao-Wei Chen: Daba Doodle

Jason O'Keefe: Grotesque

Naomi Sultanik: The Proof Is In The Binding

artSPACE@16
16 Princeton Road

Malden, Massachusetts

March 24 through April 21

Never at a loss for images, artSPACE@16 gallery owner Sand T has beautifully grouped four artists whose different works explore no less than 21 powerful dichotomies. Seeing how these pairs of opposite themes have been treated makes for a great show.

Andy Anderson's Visions: Africa, Iceland and Spain

James Foritano

Art Institute of Boston Gallery
Porter Square Exchange Building

1815 Massachusetts Avenue

Cambridge

Through March 18

These 36 photographs by Andy Anderson feature unguarded moments from Pamplona, Spain's famous bullring, North America's fighting forces, Tanzania's proud Masai peoples and Iceland's pristine landscapes. Those portrayed in the photos share time with us and reveal their inmost selves.

There are schedules in the bullring, as everywhere, but the actors here, human and animal are focused on larger concerns. How to make the cliché of eternity come alive?

Epic India: M.F. Husain's Mahabharata Project

William Corbett

Peabody Essex Museum
East India Square

Salem

Through June 7

The "Mahabharata" is a Hindu epic nearly 10 times the length of "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" combined. For a thousand years the story was passed on by word of mouth before being compiled between 300 and 500 A.D. in Sanskrit. It has been essential to millions across the Indian subcontinent and in Southeast Asia. A televised version shown in India as a serial recently ran every Sunday for two years holding, it was reported, India in thrall.

In the early 1970s, the Indian painter M. F. Husain, a Muslim, began painting and making lithographs of the Mahabharata. At 56, he was an internationally known artist and the first Indian artist to have a book published by Harry Abrams in New York. In 1973, Worcester, Massachusetts collectors Chester and Davida Herwitz discovered Husain's "Mahabharata" series in Paris. They bought 11 paintings and soon followed their enthusiasm to India where they met Husain, bought more paintings and began a lifelong friendship. In 1990, while working in New York, Husain painted the 16-foot long "Mahabharata," which is the centerpiece of "Epic India."

2007 North American Print Biennial

George Gerard

808 Gallery
Boston University

808 Commonwealth Avenue

Boston

Through April 1

For it's 60th anniversary, The Boston Printmakers and Boston University's School of the Visual arts are sponsoring a number of events celebrating the history of print as well as contemporary works of print. The primary exhibition is the 2007 North American Print Biennial with over 150 selected prints covering a broad range of concepts and printmaking techniques.

Techniques range from a watercolor-like aquatint to digital prints, while the concepts move in both creative and intellectual directions. Some work, such as "Graphic Panama Canal" by Ted Ollier, borrow from everyday references presenting the familiar in an abstract way. "Graphic Panama Canal" is a copper relief of the Panama Canal, shown in a context that makes the viewer ask the question, "What is that?" At first it is easy to let the imagination run with the image, but the title begs for further inspection. Ollier said that he hopes to pique interest by "pulling known boundaries and presenting them out of a normal context." Ollier's work aims to tell some of the stories of geography while simultaneously inventing a new story.

Beyond Time: New Watercolors by Robert Eshoo

Catherine LaFerriere

Pucker Gallery
171 Newbury Street

Boston

March 31 through April 22

Floating finely detailed board games on imagined skyscapes, Robert Eshoo's watercolor observations on space and time explore the notions of order versus uncertainty. The trompe l'oeil imagery assumes the qualities of a Rorschach test, secreting tranquility or anxiety based entirely on the viewer's reaction to the work.

The individual response to Eshoo's work makes for a complex review. To me, Eshoo's work exudes angst; it's a tribute to the fragile stability of my situation. But the images also ring with faint excitement and the possibility of transcending a rule-bound existence. In "End of Game II," the stability surrenders to a warm and inviting abyss. In angst, perhaps, there is hope and opportunity.

Lorey Bonante: wink ; Peter DeCamp Haines: Abstraction

George Gerard

Boston Sculptors Gallery
468 Harrison Avenue

Boston

March 13 through April 14

Rotating 28 artists in a collaborative effort, Boston Sculptors Gallery represents contemporary sculpture from the Boston area. Outside of its holiday and group shows, two solo exhibitions are always featured simultaneously, retaining their individuality and at the same time presenting a contrast to one another.

La Belle Époque: Works On Paper, 1885-1915

Leon Nigrosh

Worcester Art Museum
55 Salisbury Street

Worcester, Massachusetts

Through March 18

"La Belle Époque" is French for "Beautiful Era." And it was. Europe was sort of between wars and the French artistic styles of Art Nouveau, Realism, Expressionism and Orientalism were all coexisting magnificently. Folks had money in their pockets, horseless carriages were beginning to make inroads and high fashion was all the rage.

Many artists were quick to get on the bandwagon, creating all manner of artworks, sculpture, paintings and even the fledgling technique of photography was gaining adherents and admirers. For this particular exhibit, curator David Acton chose only works on paper from WAM's large, permanent collection. Works on paper do not react well to extended periods of light and climate change, so the vast majority of these works have not been seen for some time.

RISD Routes: Contemporary Craft by New England Alumni

Chet Williamson

Fuller Craft Museum
455 Oak Street

Brockton, Massachusetts

Through May 6

Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), or "Rizdee," as locals and art lovers around the globe would say, is widely recognized as one of the premier art schools in the country. Artists of every stripe have learned their craft at the east side Providence school to later earn their stripes on the world stage.

This terrific new exhibit at Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton showcases a collection of 40 RISD alumni who are now making an impact in contemporary craft. It not only represents the continuing high quality of art that is a product that has become known as the "RISD experience," but a must-see art happening.

Sophia Ainslie: Detritus

Franklin W. Liu

Kingston Gallery
450 Harrison Avenue #43

Boston

Through March 31

Detritus is a word of consuming fascination to South Africa-born artist Sophia Ainslie; it denotes small particles and materials breaking away from a mass. The state of its ongoing metamorphosis permeates human existence. It's a central theme she explores in her art while working and teaching in Boston.

Detritus is a prolific process and the principle precept inherent in this solo exhibition. To Ainslie, the progression of one element in transformation into another illustrates a renewal, a recycling process in nature thus in life itself. It is a continuum that also leaves imprints of history and time.

Through The Lens: Stephen DiRado

Brian Goslow

Is Stephen DiRado the most underrated photographer in America? Globally renowned photographer Alec Soth posed this question on his personal blogsite last autumn; two current shows let you decide for yourself.

Much of DiRado's relative anonymity is by choice. An absolute perfectionist, he'll spend years, sometimes decades, till he feels he's captured everything he's striving for in an idea. That determination indirectly led to "JUMP," which is at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts through April 22.

Daniel Kohn: Space as the Primal Frontier

Rick Agran

Spheris Gallery
59 South Main Street

Hanover, NH

March 24 through April 25

Interior scenes by Daniel Kohn testify that everything is a worthy subject of artistic study - including the kitchen sink. Not to mention the kitchen shelves, the refrigerator, the colander and the whisk. Flat but vivid expanses of wall and floor contrast with rashes of homey, familiar clutter. Not the stuff of "Better Homes and Gardens" perhaps, but certainly the stuff of life.

Kohn describes his current work as "abstracted interiors that explore the viewer's sense of space." While he has begun working on smaller canvases, many pieces in this show are still invitingly large, up to seven feet high. This size helps place the viewer within the space of the painting, while simultaneously making the surface - with canvas and pencil lines visible through a vibrant wash of ochre or blue - inescapable. The paintings are not disorienting, but they do seek to draw the viewer through the process of orientation.

First Light: The Photographs of Carl Austin Hyatt

Rick Agran

New Hampshire Institute of Art

148 Concord Street

Manchester, New Hampshire

April 5 through May 5

Carl Hyatt's intimate cartography finds its expression photographically, in silver and platinum prints and carbon inks. Hyatt's artistic life spans a quarter century and in "First Light" his facets will be united to form the whole jewel. This retrospective demonstrates his love of the micro and macro, land and seascape; it explores the human form personally, sensually, and anthropologically.

"Picasso to Pop: Aspects of Modern Art"

Greg Morell

Wadsworth Atheneum 600 Main Street Hartford, Connecticut Through November 18

Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum is a rich treasury of some of the world's most coveted masterworks. The attic and basement of this venerable institution have been foraged, bringing to light the minor paintings of some of our most respected modern masters.

These works are minor gems imparting a glimpse into the influences and ideas that percolated in the sketchbooks and studios of Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Joan Miro and Max Ernst along with some superb examples of fully realized pieces of Robert Motherwell, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol.

Why the curators decided not to present the minor paintings of our modern heroes next to their respective masterworks on permanent view in the grand exhibition room just a few steps from the two salons that comprise "Picasso to Pop" is a question that leaves me bewildered.

Michael Flower: Havana - A Conflict of History

Greg Morell

Lascano Gallery
297 Main Street

Great Barrington, Massachusetts

Through April 8

Women Artists of SKH (through March 17)

Second Annual SKH Group Effort (March 20 through April 25)

SKH Gallery

At the Train Station

46 Castle Street

Great Barrington, Massachusetts

Hidden in the southeast corner of the Bay State about as far from the bay as is geographically possible sits the vibrant petite community of Great Barrington. Just south of Norman Rockwell's Stockbridge and the La-La Land of Berkshire Summer Tourism, Great Barrington is an Arts town with grit.

Within the Main Street quadrant of the many bistros, boutiques and three-story brick fronts making up the four blocks of Great Barrington center is a recently renovated historic theater (The Mahaiwe), an innovative educational institute (Simon's Rock College) and the funkiest coffeehouse/musical hall in New England (the Helsinki Club).

Sam van Aken

Chet Williamson

Whitney Art Works
45 York Street

Portland, Maine

March 28 through April 28

When recently asked what Sam van Aken has in store for this show, Whitney Art Works executive director Deborah Whitney answered convincingly with the element of surprise. "It's interesting for me to book someone like Sam and see what he comes up with - along with the rest of the audience," she said.

It's the ability to incorporate serendipity into their pieces that make installation artists like van Aken so unpredictable, thought provoking and fun for Whitney. "That's why I seek them out, to schedule exhibitions with them," she said. "For the most part they are light on their feet. You never quite know what to expect."

Performance - JazzBoston's Jazz Week

Roanna Forman

Various Locations

April 21 through 29

"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing."

Duke Ellington wrote it, and Boston's definitely going to know it, during Jazz Week when JazzBoston, a jazz awareness organization, throws a party for him all week long.

"Duke is one of the very few really iconic figures in the music, because his contribution is at the very top," said trumpeter, Ellington devotee, and project co-chair Mark Harvey. "He wrote, people sometimes say, several thousand compositions, in a variety of styles, and was able to constantly keep evolving his own styles."

Artist Profile - Tom and Carol Odell of the Odell Studio and Gallery of Chatham

Britt Beedenbender

There is a dialogue taking place at the Odell Studio and Gallery in Chatham on Cape Cod. Established in 1975 by Tom and Carol Odell, the gallery exhibits Carol's paintings and prints and Tom's jewelry and sculpture. It is a harmonious union in which partners in life are also respected colleagues. Their ongoing explorations take place in a shared studio space where Tom dons a welder's mask and fuses metals on the ground floor while Carol applies the blow torch to wax in the light-filled upper level where wooden floorboards have become slick with residue. The result is a shared world characterized by texture, color, dynamic line and physicality, yet is vastly different in aesthetic, revealing each artist as having found a distinctly independent vision.

Community - A New Theater for Central Square: The Nora Theatre Company and Underground Railway Theater join forces

Rena Lindstrom

The passion, vision, and thrill of live theater are coming to Central Square. Soon construction will begin on the new Central Square Theater at 450 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. The Nora Theatre Company and Underground Railway Theater, two distinctly different, award-winning companies with deep ties to the community, are joining forces to create this state-of-the-art theater facility in the heart of Central Square, a permanent home at last.

Community - A Full Palette (and lifetime of painting): Fannie Hillsmith and Yoshiro Sanbonmatsu

Roanna Forman

Artists who continued to paint well into their advanced years have as many stories to tell as years they've lived. Fannie Hillsmith and Yoshiro Sanbonmatsu are two very different artists on opposite ends of most spectrums except for the color wheel.

Hillsmith, 96, looked back on her career without many comments, implying that her work speaks for itself. Her eclectic abstract output includes paintings, furniture and box assemblages of surrealistic interiors.

Catalog review - Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art

William Corbett

Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s by Sabine Rewald with essays by Ian Buruma and Matthais Eberle, Yale University Press, 304 pages, 230 illustrations, including 135 in full color, $65 ISBN 0-300-11788-4

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art's splendid exhibition "Glitter and Doom" is now down, but the catalogue is nearly as splendid and, in two ways, better. While the exhibition evoked a world as few shows ever do, the catalogue fleshes out that world with photographs not on view in New York and the excellent texts by all hands.

artscope capsule previews: From David Forest Thompson's "The Other Side of Newbury Street" to "A Print is a Print is a Print" at the Brush Art Gallery

Brian Goslow

Between the Brite-Lite promotion scare/blitz for the Cartoon Network's upcoming Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie and the international graffiti conference held in early February, street art has recently been under a major microscope in the Boston area. That makes it perfect timing for David Forest Thompson's next exhibition, "The Other Side of Newbury Street," a collection of photographs of graffiti taken in alleyways near his Eclipse Salon/Gallery. The show will be going on display on May 18 at the new Red Dot Gallery, amongst the antique shops at 1162 Washington Street, Dorchester Center, Mass.

"I have this knack for being attracted to things that are temporary and might not be there in the future," said Thompson, who was featured in artscope 3 (July/August 2006) for his Cape Cod dune Art paintings. "It's an interesting take on Newbury Street. People come for Armani and the street cafes and then they see this. It's a way for people to express themselves. Some of the images are humorous, some thought provoking, some political. (I found myself asking myself) Does it represent what is on the minds of young people today?"

The 30 images that will make up the show were taken over a period of six months. Thompson didn't take the shots with a show in mind but after he saw a beautiful graffiti artwork painted over in the alleyway next to his shop, he felt it was important to capture them for posterity. "I came back two days later and it was already gone," he said. "So I thought maybe I should record some of this temporary 'art' before its short lifespan expires."

Thompson feels the work captures the pulse of young people. "Some of the stuff is really beautiful," he said. "On a mat in a frame, it takes on a whole new persona." He expects the exhibition will cause only a handful of graffiti aficionados to travel to Newbury Street in search of the actual works. In most cases, they're already too late. Thanks to a recent push by area merchants to clean up the alleyways, many are already gone.

Even if you spend a good part of your life playing video games, Part II of "Sensorium: Embodied Experience, Technology and Contemporary Art" at the MIT List Visual Arts Center should still give you a shot of new sensations that have become increasingly rare in our desensitized world. The exhibition, which explores how technological advances have changed our senses and the way we live, includes French artist Mathieu Briand's "Ubiq, A Mental Odyssey," for which visitors put on helmets displaying a disorienting view of what others in the area are seeing as well as a space shuttle astronaut's view of the earth from the space station, and François Roche's "MITea," plans for the construction of an inflatable tea room which would utilize purified rainwater and residue from MIT's waste-water system. If that's not your cup of tea, there's Christian Jankowski's staging of "Let's Get Physical/Digital," a play using segments of his chat room talks with his girlfriend. The sound and vision, both real and imagined, continues through April 8. The List Center is located in the Wiesner Building, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge.

"A Print is a Print is a Print" is being held in conjunction with the Boston Printmakers 60th anniversary celebration at the Brush Art Gallery, 256 Market Street, Lowell. The exhibition, which was curated by Kathleen Cammarata of X/O Printmaking Studio, whose own mixed process prints are included, continues through April 1. Cammarata put together artists who enhance traditional printmaking formats with modern techniques in taking the art in new exciting and unique directions. Works by Glenn Szegedy (drypoints), Jean Winslow (monoprints), Michal Truelson (collographs), Stephanie Mahan-Stigliano (woodcuts) and Bob Tomollilo (lithography) are featured.

Connecticut Poet Laureate Marilyn Nelson celebrated the life of George Washington Carver in her book "Carver: A Life In Poems." That made the UConn English professor a perfect choice to collaborate with the Florence Griswold Museum on a project combining poems Nelson wrote inspired by 18th century slave Venture Smith who purchased his freedom as well as his wife and children and paintings from the museum's collection that allow visitors to "travel" back in time by viewing landscapes similar to those Smith traveled with his family. "The Freedom Business: Connecticut Landscapes through the Eyes of Venture Smith" includes colorful tantalizing works by Edward Volkert, Allen Butler Talcott, Louis Paul Dessar, and Gregory Smith. The exhibition continues through June 24 at the Griswold, which sits on the bank of the Lieutenant River in Old Lyme, Conn. You can sample the show at FlorenceGriswoldMuseum.org.