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New England's Culture Magazine

Artscope Magazine | September/October 2023

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Current Exhibits

Report from Art Basel 2016: Friday

// Current Exhibits, Exhibits, Visual Arts

By Nancy Nesvet Art Basel 2016 is going on this week. In 3 different halls at the Messerplatz in Basel, there are 157 galleries presenting the work of myriad artists. The work might best be summed up by one of the speakers at Artists this. afternoon. Kos, an artists collective in New York City, spoke of art as a community endeavor noting that the people who have come together here are a community of artists, gallerists and art lovers and seekers. The tremendous amount of art here so far viewed by this writer falls into two categories: The first category is art that is politically engaged. Ranging from landscapes that speak to issues including global warming, deforestation, immigration and personal and national security. Photography, sculpture, painting and installation work all engage these issues. The second category expands the boundaries of artistic practices and blurs the … [Read more...] about Report from Art Basel 2016: Friday

Cornered: Letterpress Printmaker Chris Fritton

// Current Exhibits, Exhibit Openings, Exhibits

By Brian Goslow “Contemporary Works In, On, and Around Music,” the first exhibition at the newly renovated Sharon Arts Center gallery, highlights photographers, videographers and other visual artists who have supplied their work as backdrops for or documented past Thing in the Spring performances. This year’s Thing in the Spring — a vibrant collection of visual and performing arts and DIY music — runs from June 9 through 12. Artscope managing editor Brian Goslow exchanged emails with letterpress printmaker Chris Fritton, whose work is part of the Sharon Arts show, earlier this spring. HOW DID YOU COME TO SHOW YOUR WORK AT THE SHARON ARTS CENTER? I’ve known Mary Goldthwaite-Gagne (co-founder of the Glass Museum for some time — she met my partner at the Savannah College of Art & Design; they struck up a friendship and we came to Peterborough, N.H. for The Thing In The Spring … [Read more...] about Cornered: Letterpress Printmaker Chris Fritton

Smith College Museum of Art lower level gallery featuring Frank Stella’s “Damascus Gate (Variation III)”. Photograph by by Lynne Graves.

New And Improved at Smith College Museum of Art

// Current Exhibits, Exhibits, January/February 2016, News, Visual Arts

Making Artwork More Accessible at Smith by John Paul Stapleton Northampton, Mass. - From the new Whitney Museum of American Art building in New York City to our semi-local Peabody Essex Museum expansion project, renovations seemed to be the hot decision for 2015. The Smith College Museum of Art joined this league with their four-year renovation project that was of officially completed this past fall. Margi Caplan, the museum’s membership and marketing director, showed me around the museum to point out what has changed in their two-phase project. In addition to updated lighting and the removal of the main exhibition gallery’s staircase, the whole observer experience has changed. “We thought about museum methodology and pedagogy,” Caplan said. “The museum’s collection works well, but wasn’t up to date. As a teaching museum, what we wanted to do was make the work … [Read more...] about New And Improved at Smith College Museum of Art

Capsule Preview

// Current Exhibits, Current Issue

Worcester Art Museum Community Day this Saturday, Nov. 14 In our November/December 2015 issue, J. Fatima Martins previews the recently-opened “Hassan Hajjaj: My Rock Stars” exhibition at the Worcester Art Museum, for which artscope is proud to be a media partner. “This Saturday, November 14, Hajjaj will be at the museum to make portrait-photographs of visitors while they are engaged in dance and movement within staged areas decorated with his uniquely designed Afro-Arabic textile patterns and furniture during WAM’s Community Day: Global Art and Music,” Martins writes. “To help guide children, families and playful adults along the metamodern path, Helmut, WAM’s canine mascot, has temporarily changed his identity to Helmut Hajjaj, adopting the artist’s colorful fashion sensibility.” Urban violinist and singer Marques Toliver, who is featured in the exhibit, will be performing, … [Read more...] about Capsule Preview

Cornered: Circling Around Nebraska City with Lisa Barthelson

// Current Exhibits, Visual Arts

By J. Fatima Martins Lisa Barthelson, who lives in Rutland, Massachusetts, and maintains a studio in Worcester, is a master mixed-media sculptor and printmaker, encaustic artist, experimental photographer and occasional curator and arts administrator. She is an Artscope Magazine favorite who has been mentioned and discussed in several past essays and was the feature, along with Carrie Crane, in a review of their collaborative exhibition “Here, Now” (2011). Barthelson is now at a transitional point: having left the “emerging artist” stage long ago, she’s getting comfortable being within the “established artist” domain. Right now, she’s participating in five New England exhibitions — listed here at the end of the interview section. In one of her most recent emails to me, Barthelson wrote a casually wise send off that captured poignantly the purpose of art making. Her words … [Read more...] about Cornered: Circling Around Nebraska City with Lisa Barthelson

Hokusai at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

// Current Exhibits, Exhibit Openings, Exhibits

By James Foritano Boston, MA - There’s just no telling where telling detail will show up, except, of course, as you take in the “Hokusai” exhibit currently at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. There, it’s everywhere — and you are the omniscient, highly selective eye. A word of warning, though, before you start your journey through old Japan. In our fast-paced times, we are more used to crisply defined objectives, looking at our crowded world with a summary eye, and then ‘tweeting’ our response to those who have to know. Hokusai had a different mission, a different pace, a different audience in mind. He exercised his omnivous eye, tireless hand to record, to tell, albeit with economy and wit, nearly everything to everybody. Whoever you are, you are there. Have an eye for the beauty of flowers, birds, insects? Prepare to be mesmerized as the horsefly homes in on the … [Read more...] about Hokusai at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston