“INTERCESSION,” a meditation on personal and community agency, started as a response to the current war in Gaza. The exhibition asks, “How do we navigate when we begin to question who and what we understand? Is there a way to speak, when both speaking and being silent are equally volatile positions?” The photographic work of Alonso Nichols, Philip C. Keith, Sam Williams and Lauren Miller at the New Art Center’s Corridor at Trio Gallery in Newton, Massachusetts, explores these questions through three types of artistic practice: chronicling, projecting personhood and memory of space. As a genre of art, documentation, or the act of chronicling life within Black communities is overdetermined by the erasure and indignity caused by the history of enslavement. The inspirational oratory of abolitionists such as Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass, documented in revolutionary newspapers, … [Read more...] about WE ARE STILL HERE: NEW ART CENTER’S INTERCESSION CHRONICLES BLACK COMMUNITIES
Artscope Issues
BREAKING SILENCE AT SVAC: LAFOND AND DEL BUONO CONFRONT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
For Nayana LaFond the issue of violence against women is personal. Not only is she a survivor of domestic violence, she’s also a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario with roots in the Red River Settlement and a descendant of the Anishinaabe and other Indigenous groups. As a cancer survivor as well, art is vital to her healing process, she said. “Art is medicine for me. In indigenous cultures, it’s medicine. I see the work I do as sacred.” LaFond’s art life began in childhood when she began using crayons creatively, a talent her kindergarten teacher encouraged. Later she skipped seventh grade to take art classes at a community college in Massachusetts where she refined her skills at drawing, painting and working with stained glass and clay. After finishing high school, she returned to Greenfield Community College where studying art became deeply meaningful to her. She transferred to … [Read more...] about BREAKING SILENCE AT SVAC: LAFOND AND DEL BUONO CONFRONT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
A PLATFORM TO SPEAK THEIR TRUTHS: THE MYTH OF NORMAL: MASSART AT 150
“The Myth of Normal: A Celebration of Authentic Expression,” currently on view at MassArt Art Museum, was inspired by guest curator Mari Spirito’s reading of “The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture,” a 2022 book by Gabor Maté (written with Daniel Maté). The show, which reopens after the Massachusetts College of Art and Design’s winter break on January 18, is a platform for artists to speak their truths. The exhibition is a globally inclusive distillation of contemporary zeitgeist. It offers a sensory antidote to what the exhibition notes mention as, “beliefs and behaviors that are generally con- sidered normal even though they are in fact making us emotionally and physically sick [think of] human beings contorting themselves in order to survive day to day life.” The curatorial choices of Spirito (MassArt Class of ‘92), reflect an understanding that ours is … [Read more...] about A PLATFORM TO SPEAK THEIR TRUTHS: THE MYTH OF NORMAL: MASSART AT 150
CORNERED: JOANNE MATTERA
Joanne Mattera’s 2001 book, “The Art of Encaustic Painting: Contemporary Expression in the Ancient Medium of Pigmented Wax,” has been a guiding light for encaustic artists since its publication in 2001. She founded the International Encaustic Conference, IN 2007, which will be held for its 17th year from May 31 through June 3 at the Providence Inn and Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill; she’s now its Director Emerita. Built on several years of entries under the same name, Mattera’s latest book, the self-published “Italianità: Contemporary Art Inspired by the Italian Immigrant Experience,” has a complementary exhibition, “A Legacy of Making: 21 Contemporary Italian American Artists,” that is on view through the end of April at John D. Calandra Italian American Institute in Manhattan. Her next solo exhibition, featuring paintings on paper that Mattera produced during the pandemic, … [Read more...] about CORNERED: JOANNE MATTERA
WELCOME January/February 2024: FROM BRIAN GOSLOW
Welcome to Artscope’s first issue of 2024, In my formative years of 1964 and 1965, I benefited from my mom bringing me to the New York World’s Fair, with its motto of “Peace Through Understanding” backed up by exhibitions from countries around the world introducing visitors to their culture and people, be it Michelangelo’s “Pietà” in the Vatican pavilion, Thailand’s ornate roof replica of the Mondrop of Saraburi Buddhist shrine, and through its singing marionettes dressed in costumes and performing songs in their native languages, Walt Disney’s “It’s a Small World” in the Pepsi-Cola Pavilion helped showed us that it was, indeed, “A world of laughter, a world of tears …” Our goal as a publication has always been to introduce our readers to artists making work that touches our hearts and hopefully yours and — in many instances — introduce you to people from cultures different than yours, … [Read more...] about WELCOME January/February 2024: FROM BRIAN GOSLOW
CAPSULE PREVIEWS: November/December 2023
Honoring Jhumpa Lahiri’s book of the same title “Unaccustomed Earth,” inspired by a Nathaniel Hawthorne quote about the resilience of migrants and their descendants, features the work of Boston-based, Caribbean-born artists Emily Rose and Beatriz Whitehill and can be seen from November 3 through January 14, 2024, at Beacon Gallery, 524B Harrison Ave., Boston, Massachusetts. “Working in a variety of media, the artists reinforce the notion that there is no single answer for resilience and learning to flourish in one’s own Unaccustomed Earth. Through painting, sculpture, animation, and installation, the two artists grapple with their positions as storytellers, and forbearers of family culture and artistry, all while exploring their diasporic identities.” Last month, it was announced that this will be the final show under the Beacon Gallery name; the gallery will continue in a rebranded … [Read more...] about CAPSULE PREVIEWS: November/December 2023