Artscope Magazine

New England's Culture Magazine

Artscope Magazine | November/December 2018

Subscribe to the Magazine

A vibrant, dynamic magazine with arts news, reviews and info you can use, delivered right to your door!

Subscribe now

Sign up for our Email Blasts!

Special Artscope updates in your inbox every two weeks!

Sign up

News

Image: Dahlov Ipcar at her studio in 2011 (photography by Greg Morell).

Celebrating the life of Dahlov Ipcar

// News

By Greg Morell Manchester, New Hampshire - Dahlov Ipcar was celebrating her 99th year when her life and her vibrant career as a prolific artist came to an end, February 10, 2017. I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Dahlov at her Maine home for Artscope Magazine when she was 93. At the time, she was putting the finishing touches on her expansive exhibition of her circle of life paintings for her one-woman show at the University of New Hampshire. Entering Dahlov’s world was a heady experience of artistic intoxication. Every corner of her domicile was crammed with paintings, bronze busts, sculptures in marble and wood, drawings, soft sculptures, and marionettes, all painted or stitched by Dahlov, or her artist parents. She was a joyous lover of life and art. Her work is a rich visual feast, an experience full of zest, color, and magical imagery. At the time if my … [Read more...] about Celebrating the life of Dahlov Ipcar

Image: Da Vinci — The Genius at the Museum of Science.

Da Vinci — The Genius at the Museum of Science

// Exhibits, News

By Kate Kenney Cambridge, MA - Inside the Museum of Science is a dark room full of realized dreams that’s hosting a temporary exhibit from Grande Exhibitions and Pascal Cotte, France: “Da Vinci — The Genius,” an exhibition that allows visitors into Leonardo da Vinci’s world with a behind-the-paintings look at some of his most infamous creations. One side of the room is decorated with large wooden models depicting da Vinci’s finest experimental designs. What were once simply notebook sketches have now been realized into life-sized hand-crafted models. Structures range from a canvas parachute that could be easily mistaken for architectural art piece, to a Jules Verneian — and honestly terrifying — diving suit complete with webbed flippers. Many of the objects show da Vinci’s curiosity in military engineering. A large wooden catapult and tank show his imaginative ideas on how to … [Read more...] about Da Vinci — The Genius at the Museum of Science

Image: Kameelah Rashad, A familiar repetition, 2016, inkjet print.

Keep Still and Carry On

// News

By Nancy Nesvet New York, NY - Three weeks after President Donald J. Trump’s inauguration, five weeks after Miami’s declaration as a Zika-free zone, five months after Brexit and nine weeks after the close of Art Basel Miami, artists and other Americans and Europeans are emerging from a catatonic state of denial, protesting and marching and executing art projects that address the US and worldwide political situations. Art Basel Miami showed films by Alfredo Jaar and stills including William Pope L’s “Gold People Dance Contest, 1931, recalling the year of Hitler’s rise to power, and Sanford Biggers video showed shotgun holes in African figural sculptures, (sponsored by Marianne Boesky Gallery) calling attention to current politics. But whereas various Art Basel Miami projects were relevant to current politics, they often addressed events literally, whether in signs proclaiming … [Read more...] about Keep Still and Carry On

Image: Donald J. Trump / By Michael O’ Brien, Donald J. Trump (Official Portrait), 1989 (printed 2011), inkjet print, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Bill and Sally Wittliff (© Michael O'Brien).

A Study in Contrasts: The 2017 Presidential Inauguration Festivities and Women’s March on Washington

// News

By Nancy Nesvet Washington D.C. - On Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017, two artworks were exhibited in celebration of the event. In the Capitol Building, George Caleb Bingham’s “The Verdict of the People,” on loan from the Saint Louis Art Museum, hung over the dais table at the inaugural lunch for Congress and the president and vice president. In depicting a party of white men who had apparently voted, with the lone black man pushing a cart, and the three women, all of whom could not vote, waving a banner proclaiming “Freedom for Virtue, Restriction for Vice”, the painting seemed an odd choice for the lunch after President Trump’s oath of office. The second artwork, displayed in the National Portrait Gallery, is the only official portrait, so far, of President Donald J. Trump. The photograph, shown here, courtesy of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, made by … [Read more...] about A Study in Contrasts: The 2017 Presidential Inauguration Festivities and Women’s March on Washington

A Commitment to the Arts in Boston

// News, Visual Arts

By Meghan Richter The Boston Creates initiative is a newly launched cultural planning process designed to empower everyday citizens to design their own social policy, and above all else, create. While City of Boston Mayor Martin “Marty” J. Walsh’s administration has had a great deal to do with this planning, it was the passion of Boston artists that made it all possible. They called upon City Hall to increase its support for the arts, to “create a sustainable cultural plan, increase performance and work spaces, and embrace the rich diversity” of Boston. Walsh has been working to make the city a municipal arts leader since he was elected in 2013. This initiative is the first of its kind, and intends to provide more artistic resources to schools, and incorporate the arts into all of its new building projects. It also re-appropriates space within the City of Boston, one resource that … [Read more...] about A Commitment to the Arts in Boston

Michael DesRosiers, Migration of Unbleached Titanium, polymer paint on cradled MDF, 48" x 48" x 5 ½".

Lyman Allyn Museum: Director Sam Quigley Makes His Mark

// News

By Kristin Nord New London, Conn. - When he first came on board as director of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in May 2014, D. Samuel Quigley was taken with New London’s vibrancy and intrigued by the possibilities of building upon the museum’s considerable holdings. Within the handsome neoclassical building, situated on 11 acres overlooking the Coast Guard Academy, he found a virtual “mini-Met, with approximately 15,000 works ranging from mummies to Warhol and Picasso.” But, he said, it was time to let the rest of the world know about these treasures and to move the museum into the 21st century. Since then, and drawing upon a career that has included tenures at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Harvard University Art Museums, and most recently, the Art Institute of Chicago, Quigley has begun to orchestrate significant changes. Fast forward just a year and a half – and visitors … [Read more...] about Lyman Allyn Museum: Director Sam Quigley Makes His Mark