by Nancy Nesvet In the wake of nations attempting to close their borders, the Basel Art Fairs have expanded the world of art and art’s very definition to become the most inclusive ever in art’s history. Including not only ideas but the process by which those ideas are expressed, these shows amaze in the variety of sensual experience, including sound, vision, physical feeling, taste (and I don’t mean the food kind) and more. Art Basel, Basel’s oldest and best Art Fair, includes eight sectors; Unlimited, shows 76 projects, unlimited in size and scale including interventions, installations and other non-scaled pieces. Parcours, from the French meaning "journeys", offsite at the Cathedral Square and throughout the old city of Basel, offers current work of contemporary living artists including installations, guided journeys, interventions and repurposed sculpture. The Film Sector offers … [Read more...] about ARTSCOPE’S GUIDE TO BASEL ART FAIRS 2017
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ARTSCOPE AT ART BASEL SWITZERLAND: DAY TWO
by Nancy Nesvet TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 2017 Day two at Art Basel. In this wonderland of art, I am still totally at play, seeing the installations at Parcours, in the cathedral square and down by the Rhine River, but coming around to reality via some installations and sculpture at "Unlimited" in the city square called Messerplatz. First confronted by Al Wei Wei’s “Iron Tree” (2016), which changes patina as it ages, it also brings nature and the manmade relationship with nature into perspective. That relationship seems a theme of Parcours, curator Samuel Leuenberger’s brilliant trek through the city through the following of artwork installations. Reza Aramsh recreates Michelangelo’s “Slave” in resin, but tiesits hands behind his back with a rope, making him captive and towering on a plinth over the river. Katinka Bock’s “Parasite Fountain” (2017) creates ametal fish that draws water … [Read more...] about ARTSCOPE AT ART BASEL SWITZERLAND: DAY TWO
THEATER REVIEW: Boston Ballet’s Kylián/Wings of Wax at the Boston Opera House
By James Foritano Boston, MA - “Every piece has its own flavor, and they’re all good,” pronounced Madeleine as we assembled our gloves and hats and scarves and coats to join the duck-walking crowd on the aisle, directed and encouraged by ushers whispering urgently the best route to avoid the crowded lobby, to exit onto the urban sidewalk of a cold spring. Again, we were weaving in and out of traffic. But for three balletic dramas, each questioning and celebrating the conundrums of being human, we had been free to fly from our seats, albeit with wings of wax vulnerable to scorching, even melt-down… Balanchine’s “Donizetti Variations” opened a three-part program by teaching our wings to soar to Gaetano Donizetti’s dreamy, sprightly, symmetrical melodies from his 1843 opera, “Don Sebastien.” The vigor of the music belied our modern stereotypes of the classical as bland, of the … [Read more...] about THEATER REVIEW: Boston Ballet’s Kylián/Wings of Wax at the Boston Opera House
Guerrero and Wright: Architecture Stories: Photographs by Pedro E. Guerrero at The Art Gallery at Eastern Connecticut State University
By Kristin Nord Willimantic, CT - The year was 1939 — when the then 22-year-old Pedro E. Guerrero, his portfolio in hand, arrived at Taliesin West in Scottsdale in search of a job. Frank Lloyd Wright, in the midst of building the campus, needed someone to document the process. Despite the paltry pay and lack of job security, Guerrero signed on. Wright had made an uncanny choice in hiring the young man who’d just narrowly escaped the segregated schools and pervasive prejudice of Mesa, Ariz. Guerrero’s intelligence and quick wit would stand him in good staid with the boss, and his remarkable portraits of Wright suggest the ease with which the two took to each other’s company. There was no question but that Guerrero would play a significant role in reinvigorating Wright’s career; his iconic photographs continue to exert a force. The two men would remain friends and working … [Read more...] about Guerrero and Wright: Architecture Stories: Photographs by Pedro E. Guerrero at The Art Gallery at Eastern Connecticut State University
Diago: The Pasts of This Afro-Cuban Present” at The Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art
By James Foritano Cambridge, MA - So many insights in art, in scholarship and in life derive from accidents of attention grasped by some intuition insisting sotto voce, “Hey! This is important!” For me it was a prompt to walk once again through the first retrospective exhibition of the Afro-Cuban artist Roberto Diago currently at the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African and African American Art — though I had already Velcroed and snapped my overshoes against the snow waiting in Harvard Square. My overshoes squeaked, so I slowed down as I passed a lone couple conversing to the requisite hush society demands of us when together in the precincts of art. The whisper I heard as I turned the corner of the Cooper’s long central gallery asked, just above the whisper of my now disciplined overshoes, “Why are you being so quiet?” I realized I was listening to a silence deeper than I could … [Read more...] about Diago: The Pasts of This Afro-Cuban Present” at The Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art
SHAKEN AND STIRRED & SHAKE IT UP AT THE COPLEY SOCIETY OF ART
By James Foritano Boston, MA - I found myself at the opening reception for the Copley Society of Art’s 2017 Winter Members Show, “Shaken and Stirred,” strangely resonating with its title. I seemed to have left my wife back at the Park Street Red Line station under a misunderstanding too complicated to explain, so I suffered some suspense while waiting for her to reappear. The incident ended well, but I still wonder if the muse of art had a hand in preparing me with empathy for those scenes of art which capture the fragile relationship we humans have with each other and our enfolding environment. “Just Hanging Out,” a warm and vividly colored oil painting by Gail Sauter, struck notes of intimacy as a few friends bent their elbows together at a local bar while the white-shirted bartender, close enough for conversation, put sparkle in just washed glasses. As in all art, it was … [Read more...] about SHAKEN AND STIRRED & SHAKE IT UP AT THE COPLEY SOCIETY OF ART