by Brian Goslow, Managing Editor
bgoslow@artscopemagazine.com
Welcome to our Summer 2018 issue!
We put this issue together after publisher Kaveh Mojtabai and national correspondent Nancy Nesvet had visited Art Basel 2018 in Switzerland and I had returned from a visit to the Greater Binghamton and Oneonta, New York regions, which served as the perfect warmup to composing a collection of New England and upstate New York art wanderlust road trip features.
Several of Artscope’s writers have put together travelogues of their favorite visual and performing art venues, places to eat and drink and — in some instances — stay during the summer months. You might find them a perfect daytrip or the someplace new where you’ve been looking to spend a week.
Our cover features the work of photographers Ken Browar and Deborah Ory, whose collection of NYC Dance Project portraits are on view at Lanoue Gallery in Boston’s SoWa District. I first saw their work during June’s First Friday, when gallery owner Susan Lanoue couldn’t contain her enthusiasm for the work – and rightfully so. Lisa Mikulski previews this intimate look at the current generation of dancers, on view through July.
Calling it, “One of the most important exhibitions to come to the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) in its 104-year-old history,” Laura Shabott previews “Abstract Climates: Helen Frankenthaler in Provincetown,” a show which, she notes, “weaves together the fabric of what makes the very tip of Cape Cod a remarkable arts colony.”
That includes, of course, the passing of the light to future generations. Jeannie Motherwell, Frankenthaler’s stepdaughter and daughter of Robert Motherwell, will have her own exhibition just down the street at Art Market Provincetown (AMP). Suzanne Volmer, who’s been following Jeannie’s career closely, tells how she’s making her own name in the art world.
Linda Chestney made repeated visits to see the “Gertrude Fiske: American Master” exhibition at Discover Portsmouth, combining her look at the large, 66-piece show of the Guild of Boston Artists co-founder’s work with “Seacoast Masters Today,” which displays Fiske’s lasting influence on today’s artists.
We’ve spent the first part of the year watching the announcement, construction and opening of Coastal Contemporary Gallery in Newport, Rhode Island; Ron Fortier visited gallery owner Shari Weschler Rubeck, who makes art under the name Sumo Bunni, during its opening exhibition, and reports that the Thames Street location calls out to visitors enjoying the seaside location from around the world.
Also thinking globally, Donna Dodson visited the International Sculpture Symposium in Nashua, New Hampshire, where 21 new sculptures were placed in a 2.5-mile walking loop in conjunction with the event to leave a last contribution to the host city. The Andres Institute of Art, located one town over in Brookline, New Hampshire, features a 140-acre sculpture park. Look for Dodson’s “Making Connections” column in the back of this issue.
Along with her now-traditional highlights from Basel, Nesvet profiles Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, whose multimedia, multi-technology installations have left audiences’ mouths open worldwide, and which you can see through September 9 at L’ Musee d’Art Contemporain de Montreal — if you’re looking for another wanderlust adventure.
My personal wanderlust favorite in recent years has taken place within moderate walking distance of my office; POW! WOW! Worcester returns just before our next issue arrives (it runs from August 31-September 9) and is complemented by Beyond Walls in downtown Lynn (August 6-19). The two Massachusetts-based street mural events have attracted visitors (and artists) from near and far and provide the unique opportunity to watch and talk with mural artists from around the world while they transform the neighborhoods their work is being created in. Perhaps I’ll see you there.
We’ve always gotten good response when we’ve included background in what a juried show’s juror or selection committee was looking for; I revisited that format in putting together a preview of the “8 Visions” exhibition that’ll be at the Attleboro Arts Museum this August (which was co-jurored by Mojtabai and Galatea Gallery director Hilary Tait Norod).
Flavia Cigliano stepped in at the last minute to review the “Leisure Pursuits: The Fashion and Culture of Recreation” exhibition we’re sponsoring at Fruitlands Museum; if you go, plan ahead, as its panoramic setting is complemented by an equally mouth-watering menu.
Earlier this year, Mary Gow proposed covering the Green Mountain Watercolor Exhibition that’s become an annual summer highlight of the Valley Arts’ Vermont Festival of the Arts; she caught the show during its opening week at the Big Red Barn Gallery at Lareau Farm
in Waitsfield.
Gow’s contribution is a reminder that we’re always on the lookout for writers who frequent their local galleries and museums to help us cover as wide a range of the New England region as possible.
While visiting artists, galleries and directors for this issue, we heard what’s become a growing echo of disappointment in how state agency cultural funding is allotted, especially in Massachusetts, with the larger institutions being given the majority of funds, while the organizations that oversee many of the open studios and artist districts that artists count on to attract new audiences — and customers — for their work tell us they’re being denied the funding that would allow them to grow because they’re seen as a for-profit entity. To us at Artscope, this seems to contradict the decade-long attempt to build a creative economy that adds to the overall success of a state and region.
We’ve been in the process of updating our artscopemagazine.com website; most notably, our “zine” has been transformed into “Artscope Online,” which features interviews, previews and exhibition and theater reviews that complement our magazine coverage. Look for reviews by J. Fatima Martins of two shows that opened right as we were going to press: “Howard Johnson: Phantastrophies” at the Fitchburg Art Museum, and the national open juried “America, Now” exhibition at the Providence Art Club, along with Capsule Previews for shows taking place in July and August.
This issue is dedicated to the artists who continue to use their work to bring people together and to celebrate the diversity of all the world’s people.
Thanks for your continued support.
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