Kaveh Mojtabai, Nancy Nesvet and friends escaped the snowy north to land in chilly South Beach for a week of art gazing, talks and shows at Art Basel Miami Beach 2019 and the shows of Miami Art Week 2019. “The Art of Listening: Under Water,” sponsored by Audemars Piquet, maker of fine watches, featured the sound installation of Jana Winderen, a Norwegian environmental artist. In a large circular space, the quiet crowd listened intently for the sounds underneath Arctic Waters, disturbed by the dripping noise of glaciers melting and their gradual cracking. Fish swimming underwater, inundated by crashing ice into the Barents Sea, juxtaposed the sounds of underwater life recorded in the Miami Harbor, underlining the diverse places suffering the effects of climate change. The absence of visual stimuli only led to a more concentrated listening experience never experienced before, and a … [Read more...] about ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH 2019 DAY ONE: A SHOW FOR THOUGHT AND CONSIDERATION
Exhibits
ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH 2019 PREVIEW
Artscope Magazine’s presence at Art Basel Miami Beach 2019 is not the only enterprise growing there this year. Our growth to a booth in the magazine sector mimics that of the international art fair itself. Its latest addition is Meridians, the new sector located in the Grand Ballroom of the Miami Beach Convention Center, Art Basel Miami Beach’s home. With 33 monumental works inside and one outside, Meridians was created to house large-scale installations that Art Basel’s website admits, “can only fit in a museum or art warehouse.” Having reported for Artscope on Art Basels in Miami Beach and Switzerland for the past three years, on the last two Venice Biennales and the Cleveland Biennale, I agree that most collectors do not have room for these large works, so they must go to museums or art warehouses awaiting new owners, governmental or private. Because art collectors and museum … [Read more...] about ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH 2019 PREVIEW
DISCOVERING KITH + KIN: FRIENDS AND MENTORS OF LESLEY MFA
An art mentor is someone who motivates and inspires a fellow artist to experiment, to sketch out their goals on an empty canvas, painting their dream lives in all colors. Their creative minds blend together and connect and at Lesley University, the Art and Design school is celebrating its 30th graduating class from its low-residency Visual Arts MFA program, where mentors and visiting lecturers and faculty all encompass this encouraging, patient and driven atmosphere of artistic vision. The work of these advisors, the very people who provided creative sparks in Lesley’s students, is now exhibited in a show titled “Kith + Kin: Friends and Mentors of Lesley MFA.” Upon entering the wide-open gallery with wall-length windows overlooking bustling Mass Ave., guests are immediately welcomed into a serene space. Along the back wall, a pear-shaped sculpture by Candice Ivy titled “Honey From … [Read more...] about DISCOVERING KITH + KIN: FRIENDS AND MENTORS OF LESLEY MFA
Revealing the Will of Water: Andy Goldsworthy’s Watershed Opens at deCordova
It’s one of the first truly brisk days of autumn at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. The sun sparkles as icy gusts of wind drive fallen leaves into wild, calligraphic trajectories across Waleska’s Way. The ADA-compliant, accessible stone path leads down the park’s pond-side hill to Andy Goldsworthy’s Watershed, a permanent, site-specific installation which opened to the public on November 9, 2019. The acclaimed British land artist has made his mark on this planet by working directly with natural materials, natural forces and the landscape – creating works that challenge the viewer’s perspective on nature, time, weather and permanence. Built partially embedded into the hill just below the deCordova’s rear parking lot, the functionality and engineering behind Watershed is, like many natural processes, hidden from view. It’s a modest space – a shed true to its name and from … [Read more...] about Revealing the Will of Water: Andy Goldsworthy’s Watershed Opens at deCordova
NANCY NESVET AND LARRY RINGGOLD: ENDANGERD AT ZENITH GALLERY
Nancy Nesvet’s photographs and large-scale oil paintings, on view alongside sculptures by Larry Ringgold in “enDANGERd” through November 16 at Washington, D.C.’s Zenith Gallery, take entirely different turns of portraying the sea. In the paintings, the sea is vast, changing and tumultuous: in the photographs, murky depths pull me to look closely at the details. Those details are both threatening and beautiful, making the photographs look like a coming environmental apocalypse. There is a masterful handle on scale in her paintings. We know polar bears to be substantial, but in Nesvet’s eight paintings, they are microscopic, appearing in the far distance, unreachable and not treacherous at all. The bears are stranded on icebergs broken off from the mother glacier, with strong seas pushing them apart. “If but all the seas rise up,” 48” x 58”, the unending seascape shows two polar bears, … [Read more...] about NANCY NESVET AND LARRY RINGGOLD: ENDANGERD AT ZENITH GALLERY
ART IS HER WORLD AND THE WORLD IS HER ART: NATASHA STOPPEL
Natasha Stoppel’s thirst for travel and adventure seeps into her illustrative and whimsical ink drawings, watercolor pieces and wood-burned jewelry. Also known as Artist Explores the World on her blog and social media platforms, she tells small stories through her artworks of landscapes contained within animals, a collage of ink-drawn cats and cascading waterfalls painted on bamboo earrings. The places she has visited whether backpacking solo through Asia or exploring the canyons and mountains of the United States, are a part of her when she speaks. Her intense passion feeds her artwork, giving her compositions movement and life. As a New Hampshire native, Stoppel’s studio is located in Exeter’s Art Up Front Street, an inviting space for artists to practice their craft. Yet, Stoppel’s artistic roots spread further as she graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, … [Read more...] about ART IS HER WORLD AND THE WORLD IS HER ART: NATASHA STOPPEL