By Brian Goslow   One of our “25 Artists to Watch” in our 2013 seventh anniversary issue, Christina Pitsch has her first solo show at Boston’s Kingston Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave., #43 from July 1 through August 2. “The show will include grand porcelain and brass sculpture highlighting intersecting dichotomies,” Pitsch explained. “The series explores fluid and shifting boundaries between high brow and low brow, beautiful and macabre, elegance and kitsch.” Central to the show are her chandelier forms created during her residency at the New Art Center in Newton. If you’re a fan of traditional and modern folk art (also known as Visionary or Outside Art), you’ll want to see the “Inward Adorings of the Mind: Grassroots Art from the Bennington Museum and Blasdel/ Koch Collections” exhibition that opens July 3 and continues through November 1 at the Bennington Museum, 75 Main St. … [Read more...] about Capsule Previews

Art Basel- Anything but Neutral By Clara Rose Thorton Art is a reflection of human life as lived. The tenuous process of creating art mirrors life’s path: projection, uncertainty, connection then disconnection, and navigating surprise. Thus it makes sense to look to collections of contemporary art and individual pathways through the market as vibrant manifestations of a zeitgeist, the mime’s shadow we cannot see. At noon on June 15 in Dublin, Ireland, I received an unexpected Facebook message from the managing editor of this magazine. Several years had passed since writing for artscope in Vermont; full of discovery, the years offered attempts to uncover not only what lay at the core of artists’ minds, but also what their creations expressed of any discernible New England art-world ethos as a whole. Later, as the magazine’s New York City correspondent, I chronicled the effect, … [Read more...] about Art’s International Showcase 2015

Blueway Wants You to Get Out By Greg Morell The majestic bend in the Connecticut River that winds its way down throughthe valley of Western Massachusetts, known as ”The Oxbow,” has a long history as a source of inspiration for artists. A rich heritage of expansive tableaus of the curious loop of blue water has been documented by such luminaries as Thomas Cole, Lewis Bryden, Thomas Locker and Robert Masla, to name a few. This August a troupe of painters will follow in the footsteps of those distinguished masters and hike up to a high perch on Skinner Mountain, set up their easels in a painting encampment and survey the exhilarating scene as they set to work with brush in hand. The plein air expedition will be hosted by Kathleen Jacobs as part of the programming of her Blueway Art Alliance, a brand new arts education experiment in Florence, Mass. The Blueway Art Alliance takes its … [Read more...] about A Catalyst for Art Eductation

Keeping the Body and Soul Together at Narrows BY Brian Goslow Reaffirming the vitality and resilience of the human figure as the subject that can’t be ignored for long is guest curator Don Wilkinson’s goal for “The Tenacity of the Human Figure,” the Narrows Center for the Arts’ mid-summer exhibition. “Much like the end of painting and the premature report of the death of Mark Twain, the demise of the figure as significant has been greatly exaggerated,” said Wilkinson, a regular contributor to this magazine as well as the New Bedford-based Standard Times.He was visiting the Narrows to seek out future story ideas when director Debra Charlebois asked if he’d like to curate a show there. Wilkinson has curated exhibitions at a variety of galleries and alternative art spaces in Massachusetts and Vermont, and he usually selects a unifying theme. This is the first time he’s tackled “the … [Read more...] about The Tenacity of the Human Figure