It’s simple, really. When you’re in a gallery, don’t touch the art.
I worked at an art museum for a few years and I spent a lot of time keeping visitors from poking at canvases, smudging plexiglass, tripping on sculptures and sitting on things clearly labeled “DO NOT SIT.”
Yet when I walked into the Art Complex Museum in Duxbury, Massachusetts to cover “New England Mosaic Society: Ten Years on the Cutting Edge,” I forgot all about my years of telling folks to “please step back from the artwork.”
Textured and tantalizingly tactile works made of smalti glass tile, ceramic, rough-hewn rocks and myriad other materials drew me closer and closer until — realizing the brim of my hat was nearly touching the wall — I had to step back from the artwork.
Representing the “cutting edge” of mosaic art with the work of 26 New England Mosaic Society members selected by Art Complex Museum Contemporary Curator Craig Bloodgood, this show demonstrates “how the medium continues to expand” by “pushing boundaries, embracing innovation, and reflecting the complexities of the world around us,” according to a curatorial statement.
This show also celebrates 10 years of the New England Mosaic Society, now with over 140 members, and its goal of “championing mosaics as a dynamic and evolving fine art form.”
And this exhibition, in presenting a collection of mosaic works that go “far beyond the traditional associations with ancient history,” indeed provides something new and exciting in both material and subject matter.