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Artscope Magazine | May/June 2019

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Visual Arts

EDGE OF CHAOS: PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID RICCI OPENS AT ARTSPACE MAYNARD

// Artscope Online, Exhibits, Visual Arts

by Flavia Cigliano

Capturing the “edge of chaos” has been the artistic goal of photographer David Ricci for the past four decades. His training as an engineer has steered his sensibilities to the observation and documentation of systems that complexity scientists investigate: What occurs when large quantities of individual elements coalesce? At these super high levels of organization, what new structures arise? According to Ricci’s forthcoming book, a whole new phenomenon appears, fundamentally different and greater than any of its parts. This phenomenon is the “edge of chaos.” Ricci goes on to explain, “Like free jazz, everything is not always in perfect harmony, yet a novel, vibrant creation surfaces.” In his book and current solo exhibit, both titled “Edge of Chaos,” Ricci explores these questions with photographs he has taken since the mid-1980s. Ricci brings both his natural predilection for … [Read more...] about EDGE OF CHAOS: PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID RICCI OPENS AT ARTSPACE MAYNARD

NORMAN ROCKWELL & HIS CONTEMPORARIES OPENS AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ILLUSTRATORS; ROCKWELL MUSEUM TEAMS UP WITH COLLECTIVE ARTS BREWING

// Artscope Online, Current Exhibits, Visual Arts

by Elayne Clift

In conjunction with the 50th anniversary celebration at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts (see Artscope Magazine’s May/June 2019 issue for feature on this season’s exhibition highlights), the National Museum of American Illustrators in Newport, Rhode Island will debut its newest exhibition on May 23, culminating with a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing that occurred on July 20, 1969. “Norman Rockwell & His Contemporaries: Fabulous Forties to Sensational Sixties” focuses on the 1940s through the 1960s, a time in American history when significant political and social changes were defining daily life for post-WWII Americans, and those who lived through the Cold War, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Works include “Another Way to Go” by Stevan Dohanos, John Falter’s “Family Picnic” and Richard Stone’s 1956 advertisement for … [Read more...] about NORMAN ROCKWELL & HIS CONTEMPORARIES OPENS AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ILLUSTRATORS; ROCKWELL MUSEUM TEAMS UP WITH COLLECTIVE ARTS BREWING

ENDICOTT REPERTORY DANCE ENSEMBLE’S ARMATIONS: ANTHROPOCENE AN IMMERSIVE PERFORMANCE

// Artscope Online, Featured, Theatre, Visual Arts

by Flavia Cigliano

Every electrifying minute of the Endicott Repertory Dance Ensemble production of Armations: Anthropocene, presented in late April at Tia’s Black Box Theater at the Walter J. Manninen Center for the Arts, was a sensory experience, professionally executed, and laden with layers of intellectual content. The production explored the Anthropocene epoch, the geological period characterized by the dominant influence of human activity on climate and the planet’s ecosystems. With dance, visual art, lighting and sound, the production addressed the interrelationship of humanity, the role of technology in our lives, and the future of the natural world. A tall order, no doubt about it, but successfully realized because every element was carefully thought through, resulting in a unified performance that showcased an outstanding corps of young dancers, all students at Endicott College. The … [Read more...] about ENDICOTT REPERTORY DANCE ENSEMBLE’S ARMATIONS: ANTHROPOCENE AN IMMERSIVE PERFORMANCE

TOWARD AWARENESS AND SOLUTIONS: CONSIDERING CLIMATE CHANGE AT THE VENICE BIENNALE — DAY THREE

// Artscope Online, Current Exhibits, Visual Arts

by Nancy Nesvet

It is fitting that on my last day at the Venice Biennale, as on my first, it is raining buckets, only underscoring what I perceived as the themes of the biennale: false facts and the implications of global warming on climate change. Regarding false facts, the Indigenous Peoples exhibit, “Volume 0,” establishing its place as an original document, was held at the Zuecca Project Space outside the Giardini grounds. Sponsored by the Venezia Fondamenta Sant’Anna, organized by Dr. Max Carocci, the “Indigenous Peoples” pavilion showed a video on four medicine-ball size spheres, sequentially narrating the story of Venice’s impact on 16th century North American settlements. It said that trade and the necessity of acquiring gold and gems for trade provided the impetus for invading other lands, and Venice was a crossroads of trade. The video’s narration began, “We think of these explorers, taught … [Read more...] about TOWARD AWARENESS AND SOLUTIONS: CONSIDERING CLIMATE CHANGE AT THE VENICE BIENNALE — DAY THREE

Alexander Sokurov, 2017, giclee (photograph by Nancy Nesvet).

FALSE FACTS ON DISPLAY BY ARTISTS: DAY TWO AT THE VENICE BIENNALE

// Artscope Online, Current Exhibits, Visual Arts

by Nancy Nesvet

VENICE, ITALY, MAY 9, 2019 — I spent my second day at the Venice Biennale touring the national pavilions at the Giardini site and in other areas in Venice. The most beautiful exhibit I saw was on the second floor of the Russia pavilion, where the director of the 2004 film, Russian Ark and the 2011 winner of the Golden Lion at Venice, “Faust,” directed an exhibit that featured a life-size giclée of a Rembrandt painting, “The Return of the Prodigal Son” on permanent display at the Hermitage, here along with the biblical verse, The Parable of the Prodigal Son from the Gospel of Luke, and Chapter 15 of the Gospel of Luke, that speaks of property deeded to a son by a father, squandered by the son, further illustrated with statues of biblical figures. On two video screens were a vision of fires burning down buildings in present and biblical times, with Jesus sitting on a rock watching the … [Read more...] about FALSE FACTS ON DISPLAY BY ARTISTS: DAY TWO AT THE VENICE BIENNALE

EVEN BETTER THAN 2017: VENICE BIENNALE 2019

// Artscope Online, Exhibits, Featured, Visual Arts

by Nancy Nesvet

VENICE, ITALY, MAY 8, 2019 -- Venice has bested its last biennale. This morning, at the press opening, Ralph Rugoff, director of the Hayward Gallery in London since 2006, spoke along with Paolo Baratta, president of the Biennale de Venezia and the director of Swatch, about the biennale. Even more than the theme of the 2017 biennale, which announced “Arte Viva” and made sure there were no barriers to crossing borders, Rugoff’s message was right on, and important. Responding to politics around the world, he said, “In art, there is no simple truth — there is a complexity of voices — a double format and a plurality of voices.” But then, he went on even further, saying that, “each artist’s voice must also be a plurality.” This plurality was demonstrated in Rugoff’s decision to locate some artists’ work in both venues of the Biennale: the Arsenale and the Giardini. I asked him what dictated … [Read more...] about EVEN BETTER THAN 2017: VENICE BIENNALE 2019