By Nancy Nesvet Venice, Italy - Damien Hirst’s “Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable” installation, on view at Palazzo Grassi and Villa Doghana, Venice’s Customs House, is one of the Venice Biennial 2017’s most wildly popular exhibits. Following 10 years of work and thousands of euros of investors’ money, Hirst presents a fictional rescue of artifacts from the ship, Apistos (Kona Greek for Unbelievable). Hirst’s storyline: a freed slave, Cif Amoton II, the letters of whose name rearrange to read “I am fiction” lived during the late first and early second centuries A.D., amassed a fortune, then bought and loaded statues and reproductions of ancient art and crafts pieces onto a ship bound for the Temple of the Sun, which he built. Hirst’s story continues with the fictional sinking of the ship in the Indian Ocean 5,000 meters under the seabed off East Africa, and its videoed … [Read more...] about Damien Hirst’s Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable at the Venice Biennial 2017
Visual Arts
Greg Lookerse: Literary Soil at Fruitlands Museum
By Taryn Plumb Harvard, MA - “Moby Dick”: Herman Melville’s classic tale of obsession. Adored by academics and mere lovers of the English word; abhorred by others forced to dissect and regurgitate it in high school and college. But for Greg Lookerse? It’s not only an inspiration for art — it is art. For his solo exhibition, “Literary Soil,” the California-born artist tore pages from his copy of the 1851 classic, then smeared them with pigments to simulate roiling waves or thick oil slicks, and grew salt crystals atop them to create a briny, crusty sensation. The end result is a tactile representation of the written word. “Overall the show for me is about the roots and ideas that come from reading,” said Lookerse, “and so each piece is somehow tied to a specific book or story or legend or myth.” The exhibit will be on display at Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Mass., … [Read more...] about Greg Lookerse: Literary Soil at Fruitlands Museum
WANDERLUST: CHATHAM, MASSACHUSETTS
By Molly Hamill Chatham, Massachusetts sits on the elbow of the sandy spit that saves Massachusetts from being a rectangle. And while collard gingham shirts, golf clubs and yachts abound in this seaside town, there is an enduring art scene that has kept it from being square. I’ve come to Chatham every summer of my life and have felt a depth of natural beauty here that inspires me. It’s that natural beauty that has drawn generations of people here to both make and appreciate art. The galleries and art spaces in Chatham have always offered a number of opportunities to do just that. Here, I will try to pick out a few not to miss as you’re rolling through town. But before all else – one needs fuel. Fortunately for me and my eternal search for the perfect breakfast sandwich, Rik and Caren Morse have just opened the Chatham Filling Station at 75 Old Harbor Rd., a stone’s throw from … [Read more...] about WANDERLUST: CHATHAM, MASSACHUSETTS
Art Makes the World Go Around: First Day at the Venice Biennale
By Nancy Nesvet Surrounded by water, filled with foreigners speaking different languages, in a city where getting lost in ancient alleyways is a regular occurrence, Venice provides the perfect venue for the most famous of the World’s Biennales. Almost every exhibit at the Venice Biennale deals with risks to our changing world, whether they be political or environmental. Located at ground zero, with the risk of inundation by water if global warming continues to produce floods and facing refugees arriving in Italy every day, Venice is the perfect place for government-sponsored art projects seen by an international public. On my first day at the Biennale, coming by vaporetto boat down the grand canal, I entered the former Arsenale grounds, where an arsenal of weapons was once housed. Walking further, I surveyed what Paolo Buratta notes in the “Introduction to Biennale Arte 2017 Short … [Read more...] about Art Makes the World Go Around: First Day at the Venice Biennale
Day Two: Venice Biennale 2017 Continues
By Nancy Nesvet My second day at the 2017 Venice Biennale finds me attentive to Venice Biennale President Paolo Baratta’s assessment of the humanism and ability ofartists to “avoid being dominated by the powers governing world affairs” and their “resistance of liberation and of generosity” in his introduction to the Viva Arte Short Guide. Curator Christine Macel has judiciously assigned themes within the exhibition of artists’ work she has chosen; at the Giardini; Pavilion of Artists and Books, Pavilion of Joys and Fears and Pavilion of Time and Infinity (part 2). The Arsenale site includes Pavilion of the Common; Earth Pavilion; Pavilion of Traditions; Pavilion of Shamans; Dionysian Pavilion; Pavilion of Colors and Pavilion of Time and Infinity, part 1. Intentionally amorphous separations of the Pavilions without blatant markings allow unhampered flow. In her statement in the … [Read more...] about Day Two: Venice Biennale 2017 Continues
Text in Contemporary Art at Jamestown Arts Center
By Elizabeth Michelman The intersection of language and visual form provides both the tools and the subject of conceptual art. “WORD: Text in Contemporary Art” at the Jamestown Arts Center offers over 55 images, objects and installations contrasting canonical works with recent forays in the art-form. While concentrating on artists in southern New England, curator Karen Conway has also tapped collectors, galleries and artist studios in New York and the Midwest. Voyages at an end as well as explorations underway complement each other in the spacious former boat repair shop through early August. The works of the earlier conceptualists, like words in Scrabble, attract clusters of new invention. We see Lesley Dill and May Stevens appropriating texts of Emily Dickinson and Virginia Woolf to explore forms of verbal symbolizing. Glen Ligon uses stenciled black-and-white surfaces to … [Read more...] about Text in Contemporary Art at Jamestown Arts Center