With a gala air, the Gardner Museum prepares its sparkling Renzo Piano wing for “In the Company of Artists: 25 Years of Artists-in- Residence.” Laura Owens’s giant gold-and-magenta banner winks with a smiley face on the museum’s façade: “ShowTime.” In the Hostetter Gallery, photographers complete their shots of newly installed works by the seven returning resident artists. Lee Mingwei, creator of the museum’s Living Room, hovers near its door in a floor-length robe of charcoal silk, protecting the artists being interviewed within. In the distance, Lee’s “Sonic Blossom” singers are practicing Schubert’s Lieder with which to surprise gallery guests. In the garden, the mobile artist Charmaine Wheatley chats with a guard while sketching his portrait. Pieranna Cavalchini, the Gardner’s curator of contemporary art and director of the residency program, glides along the stairways and … [Read more...] about STAYING CONTEMPORARY: ARTIST PROGRAM MAINTAINS THE GARDNER’S HERITAGE
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“Pink Dreams in a Land with No Name. Shahram Karimi & Sara Madandar”
Relating the Sufi story’s words, “her force is in my hands”, Shahram Karimi refers not only to a mother but to his motherland. Her force inspires paintings of the artist from Shiraz, Iran, home to Persian poets Hafez and Saadi and the mystic Ruzbehan. Karimi spoke to me of his paintings filled with music, flowers and village life, in his new show, with the artist, Sara Madandar at Elga Wimmer PCC in New York, September 11-September 24. His paintings in “Pink Dreams: A Land with No Name”, depict veiled women, angels, farmers, horses and clowns, and bright red flowers. His gently moving projections making video paintings draw on his experience as Shirin Neshat’s long-time production designer, envisioning the vibrant colors of her films. Schooled in Stoic philosophy, Karimi paints to change our minds, to see beauty around us. Visions of red and pink flowers slowly unfold a land of … [Read more...] about “Pink Dreams in a Land with No Name. Shahram Karimi & Sara Madandar”
Capsule Previews September/October 2019
“Human Figure,” an exhibition featuring works by Jamie Bowman, Holly Curcio, Erika Hess, Lavaughan Jenkins, Jessica Liggero and Tamar Nelson, artists that use the human figure expressively, “going beyond verisimilitude in order to express inner life through outward appearance,” opens on September 1 and continues through November 8 at the Hess Gallery at Pine Manor College, Annenberg Library, 400 Heath St., Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. “They create powerful images of humans for as many reasons as there are artists: to represent an idealized state, to get at the heart of what it is to see and be seen, to look in the mirror and discover what today’s emotional landscape reveals.” Featuring the artwork of Betsy Silverman (lively cityscapes), Suzanne Hodes (expressionist inspired landscapes), and Robert Steinem (microscopic detailed natural paintings), “Refracted Visions” opens September 4 … [Read more...] about Capsule Previews September/October 2019
BEYOND THE DIAGNOSIS: CHILDRENS’ DETERMINATION POWERS TRAVELING SHOW
The body is physical, but the soul is not. It is soul that defines our soft truth, but it is body that defines our everyday tangible hard reality. If you can’t walk, your daily reality — the actual physical living — is challenged, but if the soul is solid, it can and will motivate you to find and create beyond the challenge, beyond the diagnosis. It is soul and spirit that motivated Patricia Weltin, founder and curator of “Beyond the Diagnosis,” to create an art exhibition program that spotlights the intangible — the soft truth, the essence, the angel light, the soul of children who, by no fault of their own — live with physical challenges and rare diseases that mark them in the harsh world. But beyond the physical, they are pure beauty. The Rumford, Rhode Island-based “Beyond the Diagnosis” is a traveling art exhibition of mostly traditional portraits, in a variety of painting … [Read more...] about BEYOND THE DIAGNOSIS: CHILDRENS’ DETERMINATION POWERS TRAVELING SHOW
PUBLIC SPACE INTO MUSEUMS: LACY’S MURALS CHANGE BURLINGTON’S LANDSCAPE
Burlington Vermont’s South End is the place to be if you are an artist or if you want to immerse yourself in art because art is everywhere — indoors, outdoors, on the streets, on building exteriors, in repurposed dairy facilities, reclaimed warehouses, and yes, in dozens of galleries. You could spend days there and still not see everything. But you could break up your art consumption with samplings of local craft beer in the many tasting rooms and even stop in at a wine bar where your wine and cheese pairing is presented by a James Beard Award winner (see side box for places mentioned). It is in this thriving arts community that I visited Mary Lacy in her warehouse studio. Lacy is a muralist, and her work can be seen a few blocks down from her studio on two monumental silos adjacent to a building that now houses a design/marketing enterprise. Another work is downtown on the brick facade … [Read more...] about PUBLIC SPACE INTO MUSEUMS: LACY’S MURALS CHANGE BURLINGTON’S LANDSCAPE
LOCAL ECOLOGIES AS ART: UNIVERSITY GALLERIES INSPIRE TIMELY DISCUSSION
“Local Ecologies,” which will be exhibited at three University of Massachusetts institution galleries during the 2019-20 school year, features commission artworks by artists who have lived and worked in eastern Massachusetts. The traveling exhibition was organized by Kirsten Swenson, an associate professor and art history coordinator at UMass Lowell; Sam Toabe, gallery director at UMass Boston; and art historian and curator Rebecca Uchill, a full-time lecturer in art education, art history and media studies at UMass Dartmouth. Onsite curators are Toabe at UMass Boston; Uchill and University Art Gallery director Viera Levitt at UMass Dartmouth; and Swenson and University Gallery coordinator Deborah Santoro at UMass Lowell. “I am excited to work with UMass Dartmouth art history professor Rebecca Uchill and other partners on the exhibition “Local Ecologies” that is bridging the … [Read more...] about LOCAL ECOLOGIES AS ART: UNIVERSITY GALLERIES INSPIRE TIMELY DISCUSSION