If you love political art, you will love TRIIIBE. Identical triplets, Alicia, Kelly and Sara Casilio and their late photographer Cary Wolinsky’s 3’ by 4’ and larger photographs with a social conscience titled “Repeat Offenders: TRIIIBE Returns,” is on view at the South Shore Art Center through July 22. Wolinsky, a National Geographic photographer for 35 years, with a spectacularly original eye and vast portfolio, discovered the triplets at a retirement party for their professor at Massachusetts College of Art & Design (where they created their own major of Public Art) — at which they dressed like him, including beard and frumpy clothing. They were street performers doing such physical tableaus as identical capitalist businesswomen marching to work, or three dying victims of Bush’s Iraq war: an Iraqi woman, a 9/11 victim and a soldier. Wolinsky suggested they take their art inside, … [Read more...] about WELL-DOCUMENTED GROWTH: CASILIO TRIIIBE CONTINUES TO EXPLORE OUR DIFFERENCES

The Shelburne Museum, best known regionally for its extensive collection of American arts from the last two centuries, is about to redefine the very term American by establishing an important home for Indigenous art as part of its Native American Initiative. “Built From the Earth: Pueblo Pottery from the Anthony and Teressa Perry Collection,” currently on view at the Shelburne, is the first glimpse into the vast collection from the Museum’s own holdings as well as the addition of more than 240 examples from the Perry Collection recently donated to the Museum. The exhibit consists of 23 large-scale water jars, dough bowls and grain vessels, all from the Southwest, mostly from communities in New Mexico. Unique to this exhibit is the active involvement of members from the eight tribes represented, who worked with Museum staff and the curator to contextualize the examples on display. For … [Read more...] about RE-DEFINING AMERICAN ART: SHELBURNE’S PUEBLO POTTERY SHOW IS THE FIRST STEP

Who is the “GOAT” watercolor artist, Winslow Homer or John Singer Sargent? (For non-sports fans, “GOAT” is the acronym for who is the “greatest of all time.”) No other painter has ever come close to their Olympian heights for mastery of devilishly tricky watercolor, their ability to capture an immediate moment with a drawn line, their diversity of subject matter, nor their depiction of light and shadow in nature. In addition to Homer and Sargent’s watercolor skills, they were masters of oil painting. Spoiler: I’ll argue that Homer is “GOAT” over Sargent every time because Homer addresses alienation and loss, the major human problems of our modern age. Curator of “Watercolors Unboxed,” Nancy Kathryn Burns places paintings by Homer and Sargent side-by-side with similar topics, therefore, the comparison between the two is easy to make. To add to the competitive fun, “The Rope” by … [Read more...] about GREATEST OF ALL TIME?: ‘WATERCOLORS UNBOXED’ ASKS THE QUESTION IN WORCESTER

Nowadays, synthetic paints rule all. Sweeping landscape oils in baroque 18th century splendor can be inexpensively achieved through imitation paints which keep away fade and degeneration, at the cost of polluting the ecology they vividly capture. Though the push for the eco-friendly continues, albeit at a terminal pace, plant-based paints and dyes tend to be bundled in boutique packaging, listed at ungodly prices. In a bucking of the artificial, this summer the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum offers an exhibition that goes beyond the chemical-laden. “Presence of Plants in Contemporary Art,” which runs through September 17, is an exhibition that breathes, bringing the organic indoors. As its title suggests, “Presence of Plants” lays out a roster of seven international artists who carefully manipulate and center thriving verdure into works that speak to our shared existence, our … [Read more...] about THE LIVING THING: CULTIVATING PLANT ART AT THE GARDNER