“The Shape of Birds” takes the theme of displacement, remembrance and adaption from Nizar Qabbani’s poem “A Lesson in Drawing” which begins with “My son placed a paint box in front of me / and asked me to draw a bird for him. / Into the color gray I dip the brush / and draw a square with locks and bars. / Astonishment fills his eyes: / ‘...But this is a prison, Father. Don’t you know, how to draw a bird?’ / And I tell him: ‘Son, forgive me. / I’ve forgotten the shapes of birds.’” The artists in “The Shape of Birds” are from nine countries in the Middle East and North Africa: Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Kuwait, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Azerbaijan. Some continue to live in their countries of origin, while others have immigrated to adopted homelands of Europe or the United States. The exhibition is arranged in three galleries: the large Ilgenfritz Gallery and its Corridor, the … [Read more...] about The Shape of Birds: Bridging the Cultural Divide Through Art
Issue Articles
Welcome: From Brian Goslow
Earlier this fall, after our national correspondent, Nancy Nesvet posted pictures and video from a rally in Washington, D.C. on our Facebook page, someone asked us, “Are you a political group?” My response was, “Staying alive is a political act.” And art is the way many of us filter life. Rarely is that a more truthful statement than when you have to deal with a loved one facing a health crisis — and you’re the person in charge of arranging their health care. This issue features a story by Meredith Cutler, whose dad was recently diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s disease. If you’ve ever known someone who’s faced this challenge and had to be moved into a private care facility, you’ve probably noticed one of the best possible ways to connect with them is through the visual and performing arts which somehow has the magical ability to trigger old, fond memories in their brains when they … [Read more...] about Welcome: From Brian Goslow
CHALLENGING BOUNDARIES: WICKED HARD AT ROOM 83 SPRING
Now entering its sixth year in a Watertown storefront, Room 83 Spring continues to insist local artists challenge their own artistic boundaries — and ours. To this end, directors Ellen Wineberg and Cathleen Daley invited painter Monique Johannet to guest-curate works by six abstract painters with Boston connections. Johannet views 20th century abstraction as an evolving family of practices intertwined with art’s changing history and artists’ personal timelines. Among the artists, who range widely in age and sensibility, she has introduced the mid-century paintings of an unsung post-war Boston abstractionist who, serendipitously, happens to have been her aunt. The interspersed works address each other in several different voices at once: constructivist, conceptualist, feminist, social activist and postmodern-ironic — with each voice respecting and employing abstraction. Diane … [Read more...] about CHALLENGING BOUNDARIES: WICKED HARD AT ROOM 83 SPRING
ROCKING AND ROLLING: GONSON GOES BEYOND THE IMAGE
“Visages de Punk,” CambridgeSeven’s current exhibition, is Boston photographer JJ Gonson’s ode to Boston’s vibrant punk scene of the mid-to-late 1980s through the first half of the 1990s. This show features fairly unseen photographs of Kurt Cobain, Elliott Smith and the many fans and independent artists who made up the music scene of that time period. The work shows a new side to these artists that was only seen by close friends and core members of the music community. In collaboration with curator Kwesi Budu-Arthur, Gonson does an exceptional job of showing the faces of that period’s punk era to music lovers of all ages. This exhibition will be on view through October 19. The first thing one notices when looking at the work is Gonson’s choice of image titles; each piece is titled with just the subject’s first name. She made this decision because this show is the faces of punk. “I … [Read more...] about ROCKING AND ROLLING: GONSON GOES BEYOND THE IMAGE
FROM BOGOTÁ TO BOSTON: STREET ARTISTS AT SSAC
Before Kim Alemian, graphic designer and webmaster for the South Shore Art Center, visited Colombia in 2015, she hadn’t seen street art (or graffiti) as a genuine art form — she saw it as vandalism. That changed during that trip to Bogotá after she and her students were invited to create a mural project for the Hogar Nueva Granada school on the campus of Colegio Fundacion Nueva Granada. The project was a direct result of an earlier visit to Colombia by one of Alemian’s students, Desmond Herzfelder, and his parents, and their meeting with one of its art teachers, Diana Londoño. He returned home with the idea of going back to the school to create a mural project that would engage the kids there. Alemian was asked to create the project. “For a week, we worked with street artists,” she explained. “Someone donated a lot of art supplies for us to work with. When we were going, we … [Read more...] about FROM BOGOTÁ TO BOSTON: STREET ARTISTS AT SSAC
COOPER AT LESLEY: CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE
In a world where image and imagination merge, Lesley University, in celebration of the recent opening of their newly expanded VFX/Animation Department, is enthusiastically highlighting Kyle Cooper’s signature work in a cursive, vibrant, sequential exhibition, “Kyle Cooper: The Art of The Title,” currently being presented in the Lunder Arts Center’s Roberts Gallery. Since the 1930s, film-credit-sequence design has taken a progressive, quantum leap in purpose and in presentation; its encompassing manner has now evolved into an art form of its own, enhanced by visually dazzling special effects and cutting-edge digital, virtual reality effects that speak with a poetic, didactic purpose. It’s all about how a feature film is introduced, its opening brimming with kinetic typeface awash in an undulating whirl of animated visuals. The opening credit sequence’s central design purpose is to … [Read more...] about COOPER AT LESLEY: CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE