Having been a regular visitor to the Shelburne Museum since the mid-1980s, it did not surprise me that on its 75th anniversary, the Museum’s focus show would be one called “Eyesight and Insight: Lens on American Art.” Over the years, the Museum has stayed true to the founder Electra Havemeyer Webb’s vision and at the same time adapted that vision to the rapidly changing world that diversity, technology and social/political interaction have brought to the art world. “Eyesight and Insight,” curated by Katie Wood Kirchhoff and Carolyn Bauer, covers art, artifacts and curiosities. It does so via paintings, prints and photographs by artists from Peale to Eakins to Duane Michaels and Cindy Sherman. The subject is the eyeglass – that lens through which we see the world, both as a physical phenomenon and as a way of perceiving and interpreting what we see. More specifically, this exhibit is … [Read more...] about STAYING TRUE TO ITS VISION: THE SHELBURNE CELEBRATES ITS 75TH ANNIVERSARY

Following the opening of his ‘I Am As I Am — A Man’ retrospective, which closes on July 24 at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, an inventive mixed media artist and founding member of AfriCOBRA, began curating “THE LONG VIEW: WHAT DO YOU SEE (DO YOU SEE ME!),” a new exhibition at the Bromfield Gallery featuring five prominent African- American artists from Boston. In his curator’s statement, Jones-Henderson writes, “I regard a ‘LONG VIEW’ as a space where one reflects but imagines forward. Imagining forward is a sacred journey, not a stopover, of visioning.” The paintings, digital prints, collage, and fiber works of Bryan McFarlane, Hakim Raquib, Ekua Holmes, Chandra Dieppa Méndez-Ortiz and Napoleon Jones- Henderson present stories of humanity’s collective journey — showcasing artists significant to Boston’s creative history. The “LONG VIEW” artists … [Read more...] about LONG VIEW IMAGE MAKERS: “A SACRED JOURNEY, NOT A STOPOVER, OF VISIONING”