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Artscope Magazine | March/April 2019

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Ellen Grobman, Last Minute, 2017, oil on wood.

CORNERED: ELLEN GROBMAN AT HAMPDEN GALLERY, UMASS AMHERST

// Artscope Online, Cornered, Exhibits, Interview, Visual Arts

by Brian Goslow

Amherst, MA - For Amherst, Massachusetts-based painter Ellen Grobman, painting sounds like an exhausting and exhilarating process in which she starts with an idea, aims to pull it in a new direction and then sees what’s left when she tries to leave as little of the original thought as possible by the time she’s finish. Her website describes her work as being powered by, “This drive to bring something into being, disrupt it, and then flirt with its destruction — the boundary of something existing and then not.” Depending on the piece, there are touches of 19th century furniture wallpaper patterns, abstract expressionism, fauvism, symbolism and whatever connections each swash of paint ignites in her mind. These explorations continue in her current exhibition, “There, Not There,” on view through March 31 at Hampden Gallery in the Southwest Residential Area at the University of … [Read more...] about CORNERED: ELLEN GROBMAN AT HAMPDEN GALLERY, UMASS AMHERST

Nurse Bianca (Margaret Lattimore, r.) consoles Lucretia (Kelley O’Connor) who pines for her husband Collatinus in Boston Lyric Opera’s production of “The Rape of Lucretia” March 11-17 at Artists for Humanity EpiCenter.

BOSTON LYRIC OPERA’S ‘THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA’

// Artscope Online, Boston Lyric Opera, Featured, Review, Theatre

by James Foritano

Excellence can seem such a simple achievement. Merely assemble practiced, solid parts such as singer/actors, music and libretto (on a timeless theme) and put them on a stage-in-the-round so all their virtues wrap the audience in easy accessibility — not to mention three electronic boards with the dialogue raised high so it’s readable from every angle — and continue, for the duration, to stay out of the way, for goodness sake, until the play is done! Actually, there is some meddling with this simple formula which is so professional that one barely notices, but feels, the enhancements it delivers, while watching Benjamin Britten’s new Boston Lyric Opera production of “The Rape of Lucretia.” Three toughs who also happen to be aristocrats occupy a steep flight of stairs at stage rear of the opening scene. Between battles with a Greek army threatening Rome, they are contemplating what … [Read more...] about BOSTON LYRIC OPERA’S ‘THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA’

Claude Monet, French, 1840-1926, “Waterloo Bridge,” 1903, oil on canvas, Worcester Art Museum collection, Museum Purchase, 1910.37. Photograph courtesy of the Worcester Art Museum.

MONET’S WATERLOO BRIDGE: VISION AND PROCESS AT WORCESTER ART MUSEUM

// Artscope Online, Current Exhibits, Exhibits, Featured, Visual Arts

by Brian Goslow

Having a single work by a master on display in your museum can be a major attraction in its own right. Have nine of them — especially from a single series — and you’ve got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and event. That’s the case with “Monet’s Waterloo Bridge: Vision and Process,” which features nine paintings created from 1899 through 1901 by French Impressionist Claude Monet at the Savoy Hotel in London and completed back at his studio in Giverny that are on display through April 28 at the Worcester Art Museum. Local residents who have long had the honor of having a 1903 work from the series on permanent display at WAM have been basking in the limelight of having themselves surrounded by a strong representation of the series, much in the way Monet saw them when he created them in two rooms at the Savoy. The unique coupling is possible through loans from the Milwaukee Art … [Read more...] about MONET’S WATERLOO BRIDGE: VISION AND PROCESS AT WORCESTER ART MUSEUM

Olafur Eliasson, "Northwest Passage," 2018, Stainless steel, LED lights, diffusers. An MIT Percent-for-Art Commission for MIT.nano (Photograph by Anton Grassl).

OLAFUR ELIASSON: NORTHWEST PASSAGE

// Artscope Online, Exhibits, Visual Arts

by Donna Dodson

Olafur Eliasson has a long history with MIT and many local fans have been fortunate to hear him speak, attend a lecture or meet him in person over the years. In 2014, he received the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts that included a residency at the institution. At that time, he brought his “Little Suns,” a portable solar energy light source that he developed in 2012, to campus for support, development and innovation. His recent public art project, “Northwest Passage,” brings together his environmental concerns with the work he has done with his colleagues at MIT. Eliasson’s artist talk and sculpture dedication on February 26, 2019 offered up a window into his practice and way of thinking. Trained as an architect, he thinks about the big picture. For example, “Northwest Passage” refers to the sea route to the Pacific Ocean through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North … [Read more...] about OLAFUR ELIASSON: NORTHWEST PASSAGE

Gabriel Soifer, Art Books, Samuel Owen Gallery, Greenwich, Conn. and Nantucket, Mass. 2018, At Scope Art Fair, 2019, New York.

Satellite Fairs During Armory Show 2019, New York

// Artscope Online, News, Visual Arts

by Nancy Nesvet

New York, NY - Following the near debacle of the Volta show, rescued by Peter Hort, David Zwirner, the Scope Art Fair, and other generous gallerists in New York, the satellite shows, Plan B and Scope, exhibited better art and were happier and more exciting places than the Armory show. SPRING/BREAK, occupying space in United Nations Plaza, also showed some interesting work, although less risky than last year’s. Although Hort claimed to be a total, though willing novice at producing arts shows, he did an amazing job, with cooperation from curators, gallerists and artists, producing a show of interesting, well-executed art that hung together quite well. Greeted by a coffee car parked in front of Zwirner’s gallery space on West 21st St., in New York, due to the inability of those running Plan B to secure a coffee truck, I was struck by the volunteer effort and love of the project by all … [Read more...] about Satellite Fairs During Armory Show 2019, New York

Ethan Murrow, “Hauling,” 2019, view of exhibit with kinetic scroll sculpture and wall drawing, at Currier Museum, Manchester, New Hampshire.

WEIGHT OF THE WALLS: ETHAN MURROW’S “HAULING” AT THE CURRIER

// Artscope Online, Exhibits, News, Visual Arts

by Olivia MacDonald 

With approximately 900 fine-tipped Sharpie pens, Ethan Murrow blends storytelling with history, community and labor on the white walls of the Currier Museum in Manchester, New Hampshire. In his new exhibition, “Hauling,” globular collages of hundreds of tools including a saw, wooden wheel, speedometer, nail, net and modern high-tech machinery, tower over visitors. Alongside them, drawn people hold ropes and play a kind of tug-of-war with the mechanic entities, while some carry the weight of them in their hands or on their shoulders. The diagonal tugging of ropes creates movement across the walls, where visitors stand in the center of a laborious scene. The exhibit draws upon the industrial history of Manchester, which during the mid-19th century, held the largest cotton mill worldwide. Today, old mill buildings house restaurants, shops and art galleries. Murrow combines the tools that … [Read more...] about WEIGHT OF THE WALLS: ETHAN MURROW’S “HAULING” AT THE CURRIER