“Dressed,” featuring artists Catherine Bertulli, Jodi Collella, Merril Comeau, Mia Cross, Nancy Grace Horton, and Marky Kauffmann, at the Danforth Art Museum at Framingham State University through December 29, is another must see exhibition created by curator Jessica Roscio Ploetz. From the curatorial statement, “Dressed broadly addresses materials, imagery, iconography and memory, each artist experimenting with the fluidity of form while acknowledging gendered constrictions placed on the body. To be “dressed” implies a range of situations and experiences. Dressed is about adornment and identity.” Beyond subject, what is important about this exhibition is that it hosts work that is material and process diverse grounded firmly in and exemplifying contemporary aesthetic trends that are influenced by and continue the blending of maximalist versus minimalist approaches. Beautiful … [Read more...] about Catherine Bertulli in Dressed at Danforth Art Museum at Framingham State University
architecture
The Bauhaus and Harvard at the Harvard Art Museums
If you’re curious about painting, architecture, sculpture, woodcuts, textiles or any of the allied arts, now is the time (or really past time!) to scurry to the Harvard Art Museums, head straight to Special Exhibitions on the third floor and … linger, seriously. It is, after all, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany, and Harvard has been celebrating already since February! And you? The important thing is not to blame yourself. Not that you don’t deserve it, but save it at least until the end of July when this celebration finally runs out of breath. And, if you’re still reading, don’t read every label, for goodness sake, or you’ll be there ’til the end of July, panting! Celebrate, if lately, with the rest of the party by realizing that if the Bauhaus knew anything, it knew, and knows still, the truth of that old saw: “One picture is worth a … [Read more...] about The Bauhaus and Harvard at the Harvard Art Museums
Notre Dame Burning
APRIL 15 AND 16, 2019 --- Notre Dame de Paris, the famous world heritage site, began burning early Monday evening, local time (noon EST), minutes after it closed to the public. As of late afternoon, EST, fire had poured into the empty space left when the iconic spire toppled into the nave of the cathedral, threatening the wooden frame, flying buttresses and famous rose windows. The Île de la Cité had been evacuated, but acrid black smoke, possibly due to the burning of the 250 tons of lead topping the spire, was visible and pouring soot and smoke on people standing safely across either side of the Seine watching the catastrophe unfold. The Cathedral’s construction was ordered by Maurice de Sully, the Bishop of Paris, in 1160, during the reign of Louis VII with construction beginning in 1163, completed in 1345. The flying buttresses invented to hold the eaves of the Cathedral together … [Read more...] about Notre Dame Burning
Guerrero and Wright: Architecture Stories: Photographs by Pedro E. Guerrero at The Art Gallery at Eastern Connecticut State University
By Kristin Nord Willimantic, CT - The year was 1939 — when the then 22-year-old Pedro E. Guerrero, his portfolio in hand, arrived at Taliesin West in Scottsdale in search of a job. Frank Lloyd Wright, in the midst of building the campus, needed someone to document the process. Despite the paltry pay and lack of job security, Guerrero signed on. Wright had made an uncanny choice in hiring the young man who’d just narrowly escaped the segregated schools and pervasive prejudice of Mesa, Ariz. Guerrero’s intelligence and quick wit would stand him in good staid with the boss, and his remarkable portraits of Wright suggest the ease with which the two took to each other’s company. There was no question but that Guerrero would play a significant role in reinvigorating Wright’s career; his iconic photographs continue to exert a force. The two men would remain friends and working … [Read more...] about Guerrero and Wright: Architecture Stories: Photographs by Pedro E. Guerrero at The Art Gallery at Eastern Connecticut State University
NEW CANAAN, CONNECTICUT
A POST-MODERN DREAMSCAPE by Kristin Nord New Canaan, Connecticut - It is during the fallow months in New Canaan, when the trees are a constellation of trunks and branches, that many of the town’s modernist houses come readily into view. Boasting one of the most significant collections of such homes in the United States, New Canaan now counts 91 structures still standing from the estimated 118 that were built from 1939 through 1979. At the center of this collection are works by “The Harvard Five,” a band of architects whose only similarity, truly, was that they each studied under Walter Gropius at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Philip Johnson used his New Canaan estate as his personal archi- tectural laboratory. Marcel Breuer and one-time students Eliot Noyes, John Johansen and Landis Gores set up shop for what became an architec- tural industry. Many other … [Read more...] about NEW CANAAN, CONNECTICUT