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Artscope Magazine | March/April 2019

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Visual Arts

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

// 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

Lia Cirio in William Forsythe's Blake Works I. Photograph by Angela Sterling, courtesy of Boston Ballet.

PERFORMANCE: BOSTON BALLET’S FULL ON FORSYTHE AT THE BOSTON OPERA HOUSE

// Artscope Online, Exhibits, News, Visual Arts

by James Foritano

The Boston Ballet’s world premier presentation of “Full on Forsythe" opened on Thursday, March 7 and will run through March 17 at the Boston Opera House. Madeleine, my wife and partner in this critique, sat beside me for the full two hour and 30-minute performance with two intermissions. Madeleine was restive during the first of the three pieces, which I could sympathize with, since this first work, titled, obscurely, “Pas/Parts 2018,” is packed with so much raw energy, helicoptering dancers, electronic bonging and shearing and vibrating that I too sat back in my seat feeling the ice in my veins from the outside temperature begin to boil and bubble. And yet, as avant-garde a choreographer as William Forsythe is, he is also a performer, and knows when to slow down, just as the month of March proverbially “roars like a lion and goes out like a lamb.” The second piece, titled … [Read more...] about PERFORMANCE: BOSTON BALLET’S FULL ON FORSYTHE AT THE BOSTON OPERA HOUSE

Rodney Graham, “Vacuuming the Gallery, 1949,” 2018, four painted aluminum light boxes with transmounted chrome genie transparencies, at 303 Gallery, New York.

New York Armory Show (PART ONE): Mother Earth

// Artscope Online, Exhibits, News, Visual Arts

by Nancy Nesvet

With global warming and general chaos due to facts emerging and infrastructure literally falling apart, it is not surprising that artists exhibiting at the Armory Show in New York are acting and reacting by using strong, but not shiny, materials to create work that seems domestic in nature. Escaping the outside world creates an emphasis on the home and the arts and crafts that are created and situated there. On my first day at Armory, I saw this emphasis on domestically influenced art and craft in work by male and female artists. This theme crossed borders of ethnicities and groups, including “Trouble Don’t Last Always.” Jeffrey Gibson’s 2019 acrylic on canvas with glass beads at Kavi Gupta, New York is supported by the North American Arts and Culture to reflect diverse voices. Ali Banisadr’s “Stardust,” oil on linen, 2011, at Blaine Southern (Berlin and London) left behind the glare … [Read more...] about New York Armory Show (PART ONE): Mother Earth