by Brian Goslow, Managing Editor bgoslow@artscopemagazine.com Welcome to our Summer 2018 issue! We put this issue together after publisher Kaveh Mojtabai and national correspondent Nancy Nesvet had visited Art Basel 2018 in Switzerland and I had returned from a visit to the Greater Binghamton and Oneonta, New York regions, which served as the perfect warmup to composing a collection of New England and upstate New York art wanderlust road trip features. Several of Artscope’s writers have put together travelogues of ...

Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) is the subject of one of the most important exhibitions to come to the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) in its 104-year-old history. “Abstract Climates: Helen Frankenthaler in Provincetown,” opening July 6 and on view through September 2, weaves together the fabric of what makes the very tip of Cape Cod a remarkable arts colony: working artists, families (original or logical) and the light. The show begins with works dating from the time when Frankenthaler studied ...

AMP Gallery, or Art Market Provincetown, describes itself as a “live exhibition space” specializing in “cutting edge art.” It rotates art every two or three weeks during the summer months to accommodate an array of mediums that includes drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, installation, new forms, writing, music and film. AMP Gallery’s platform focuses on art discourse empowering the discovery process and providing the opportunity for artists to share their creative energy with audiences. The acronym AMP suggests the electricity of ...

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” — Pablo Picasso Picasso said it, but American Master Gertrude Fiske lived it. She certainly paid her dues. She learned “the rules,” or perhaps more accurately, she absorbed the societal expectations of New England at the time, and then she allowed herself — encouraged by such mentor greats as Edmund C. Tarbell, Frank Benson, Philip Hale and Charles Woodbury — to carve her own path. Fiske ...

It was finally a beautiful day, as you would expect in June. But, being a New Englander, I had my reservations as to how long it would last, considering that it had rained for most of the week. It was equally pleasant to drive to Newport and to meet Shari Weschler Rubeck, the owner/gallerist of Coastal Contemporary Gallery, the newest art gallery in town. But, the first words out of my mouth as I shook her hand were, “Are you ...

Juried shows are what you make of them, whether you’re an artist, the sponsoring venue or the juror. They can provide a chance to reach a new audience, expand your portfolio, or find out which artists you’ve not previously been aware of who are making work that deserves your attention — and possibly a place in your collection. The selection process for “8 Visions,” opening at the Attleboro Arts Museum on August 1, began during last December’s members’ exhibition at ...

With a single click, a moment in time can be captured forever. It’s extraordinary, really, when you think about it. Occasions, places, and historical events are preserved by the internal mechanisms of a camera — and the skill and passion of the photographer — providing us with something our own eyes may not see. The click of a shutter can capture something so slight as the breath of a dancer. Speaking on the art of the performance, the late legendary ...

The big, red, high-drive barn at Lareau Farm, standing at the edge of fields and against a backdrop of forested hillside, offers about as iconic a Vermont landscape as you can find. The 1895 barn has the clean, elegant lines and proportions of its genre. Inside, its rustic beams, rough boards and soaring hayloft speak to its working past. This landmark barn, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is home to the Green Mountain Watercolor Exhibition (GMWE). With ...

I was the victim of a studio flood in Northampton, Massachusetts. The sewer drain next to the back door of my basement studio plugged and I was inundated with a nasty slurry of fetid water that infected my costumes, my library and anything under two and half feet in height. I was not looking forward to reliving the disaster as I headed to Tom Burckhardt’s “Studio Flood,” one of four exhibitions currently on view on at Rockland’s Center for Maine ...

Nestled in one of the most idyllic landscapes of New England, the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts (a short drive off of Route 2) is currently presenting diverse offerings in recognition of its past as the utopian community established by idealists of the New England Transcendentalist Movement, and its present affiliation, as of 2016, with The Trustees of Reservations, the largest conservation and preservation organization in Massachusetts. In the summer of 1843, preeminent adherents of the Transcendental Movement in nearby ...

Let’s take a summer road-trip and explore Milton, one of Boston’s quietest, prettiest, oldest and most historic garden suburbs to see a sampling of its art and architecture. For lunch or supper, there are several new restaurants in town for a take-out picnic to enjoy at the historic Eustis Estate, or take in a leisurely lunch with a glass of wine at three new restaurants on Adams Street. Over the past few years, Milton, which shares a border with Boston, ...

When the Charlotte, Vermont ferry leaves the dock, two things will absolutely shock you. Nobody is taking cell phone pictures of what you know are Instagrammable moments (#LakeChamplain #NaturalVermont #boating), like the early morning sun filtering through a gauzy mist still clinging to the treetops of the inlet. And, people who have stepped out of their cars to take in the view are striking up conversation with people they don’t know. The conversations may just be an exchange of “wow,” ...

It’s always a good idea to spend time perusing the art scene in Brattleboro, Vermont. For an especially serendipitous stroll, pay a visit on the “First Friday” of every month, when the town is alive with artists and aficionados and numerous galleries and cafés are even livelier than usual. Here’s a sample of venues on Main Street alone, along with featured artists during June’s First Friday. Starting at Main and High Streets, a first stop is Mitchell-Giddings Fine Arts. Opened ...

Plymouth is the heart of New Hampshire — a cultural center that draws visitors from all over. Arts events happen all year long, but many are seasonal — you won’t find all the same choices in summer as in winter. Downtown Plymouth is the best place to start. First, let’s hit the Museum of the White Mountains (34 Highland St.). The People’s Forest: A Centennial Celebration of the White Mountain National Forest (running through September 12) tells stories of the ...

In the mid-1990s, local media in southeastern Massachusetts began referring to what was then called Greater New Bedford as “the South Coast.” This unabashed bit of public relations boosterism was an attempt to negate the perceived stigma of urban blight and high unemployment. It was a successful rebranding. The sometimes vaguely defined South Coast area has expanded to usually include 11 Massachusetts municipalities, and sometimes the Rhode Island border towns of Tiverton and Little Compton. However, New Bedford remains the ...

To “Go West” in summer to the Berkshires by car is a lush and green journey with many cultural riches to explore on the pathway to your destination. In the morning, traveling 10 or 20 miles above the speed limit on the Mass Pike is the normal pace as you jockey with gigantic trucks that are beginning their cross-country hauls. There is excitement as the altitude climbs and the region’s seductive mountains voluptuously engulf the visitor. The natural beauty of ...

The Body in Urban Space: A Conversation with Rafael Lozano- Hemmer about his work at The Armory Show in New York City in March, 2018; “Unstable Presence,” in Montreal; and “Voice Theatre,” his transformation of Augusta Raurica during Art Basel 2018. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s young son recently told him that he was not an artist because he doesn’t draw. Perhaps he does not use the technology of pencil or crayon to reproduce images, but he uses techno-theatre, performance, architecture and science ...

As the world political changes resemble a game of musical chairs, the exhibition sectors at Art Basel 2018 also similarly changed. Our allies are becoming our enemies and vice versa; Art Basel’s Parcours, Feature and Statements sectors became the least-interesting, with Galleries’ and Unlimited’s politically and environmentally relevant work the most compelling. Artists quietly and effectively protested while proposing change and solutions to world problems. The slow movements of tai chi teachers on the plaza outside the fair, sponsored by ...

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” – Aristotle The first International Sculpture Symposium was organized by Karl Prantl, with help from Friedrich Czagan and Heinrich Deutsch, in 1959 at the St. Margarethen Quarry in Austria. The artists gathered to produce permanent public artworks from local stone, a dynamic that would provide the model for many symposia to follow. New Hampshire is carrying on the tradition with two symposia every ...