Barbara Owen, Alicia Renadette and Kate Blacklock are the artists included in “Floralism” at Newport’s Coastal Contemporary Gallery. Continuing through December 8, the exhibition is a clever exploration of botanical excess and blooming. Gallerist Shari Wechsler approaches the topic as a feminist platform acknowledging nature’s ability to flourish and prevail. As a whole, the content includes fascinating statement art that is also certainly intimate enough for audiences to take home. For client convenience, Wechsler offers the option of purchasing with Art Money that advertises itself as a vehicle to “buy now, pay later.” Before the exhibition, I made a point to visit Alicia Renadette’s studio at Atlantic Mills in Providence specifically to watch the artist and art dealer select for “Floralism.” It was impossible not to notice the volume of materials organized and ready to be … [Read more...] about FLORALISM AT COASTAL CONTEMPORARY GALLERY
Contemporary
TRANSCENDING BURLINGTON: EMBRACING SPIRITUALITY THROUGH CONTEMPORARY ART
In 1912, Wassily Kandinsky wrote a theoretical treatise devoted to spirituality in art, “Concerning the Spiritual in Art.” Early on in this small volume, he states: “When religion, science and morality are shaken . . . when the outer supports threaten to fall, man turns his gaze from externals in on to himself. Literature, music and art are the first and most sensitive spheres in which this spiritual revolution makes itself felt.” These words came to mind recently at the opening of “Transcendent: Spirituality in Contemporary Art,” an ambitious exhibition at Burlington City Arts (BCA) that features the work of seven internationally known artists who explore and open the viewer’s eyes to the fluid realm of what it means to embrace spirituality in our contemporary world. Shahzia Sikander, a Lahore, Pakistan-born artist, presents a large-screen video installation, titled “Disruption as … [Read more...] about TRANSCENDING BURLINGTON: EMBRACING SPIRITUALITY THROUGH CONTEMPORARY ART
ART DRIVING SOCIAL CHANGE GLOBALLY: THE NEW MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE GALLERY
The Middle East Institute (MEI), based in Washington, D.C., launched its highly-anticipated gallery for Contemporary Middle Eastern Art on September 13. Featuring socially engaged work by seventeen artists, from Morocco to Afghanistan, spanning video, painting, sculpture, installation and performance, the artists’ inspirations, from Sufi poetry to folk art and popular culture challenge stereotyped identities while celebrating cross-cultural influences, breaking down political, linguistic and religious borders. In a town rich with galleries and institutes, the new gallery at MEI brings a different kind of diplomacy. Talking about the art with old and new friends and strangers, standing shoulder to shoulder with those of all differences, attitudes, nationalities and opinions, it is empathy for the human condition that holds us together. Talking to each other, crying together, … [Read more...] about ART DRIVING SOCIAL CHANGE GLOBALLY: THE NEW MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE GALLERY
MASTERFUL COLLECTIONS: MAINE’S UNIVERSITIES SHOWCASE AMERICA’S BEST
Driving across the Piscataqua River Bridge, connecting Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with Kittery, Maine, a magnetic force seems to pull me to the end of the North American continent, east to the sea. Stately evergreen trees bordering the highway end as pines appear, their fragrance and statuesque beauty announcing that northeastern state where the sun first rises on America and a new Maine day. My Maine college art museums tour begins at Bowdoin College, with some of the oldest American art in any museum. With over 5000 art objects in its collection, and a statue commemorating the bear brought back from 1898 graduate Donald B. MacMillan’s 1915 Arctic expedition guarding its campus and Andy Warhol’s 1983 graphite drawing “Polar Bear” in its permanent collection, The Bowdoin College Museum of Art’s Maine-focused work emphasizes the state’s wild environment and constant struggle with … [Read more...] about MASTERFUL COLLECTIONS: MAINE’S UNIVERSITIES SHOWCASE AMERICA’S BEST
PERFORMANCE: BOSTON BALLET’S FULL ON FORSYTHE AT THE BOSTON OPERA HOUSE
The Boston Ballet’s world premier presentation of “Full on Forsythe" opened on Thursday, March 7 and will run through March 17 at the Boston Opera House. Madeleine, my wife and partner in this critique, sat beside me for the full two hour and 30-minute performance with two intermissions. Madeleine was restive during the first of the three pieces, which I could sympathize with, since this first work, titled, obscurely, “Pas/Parts 2018,” is packed with so much raw energy, helicoptering dancers, electronic bonging and shearing and vibrating that I too sat back in my seat feeling the ice in my veins from the outside temperature begin to boil and bubble. And yet, as avant-garde a choreographer as William Forsythe is, he is also a performer, and knows when to slow down, just as the month of March proverbially “roars like a lion and goes out like a lamb.” The second piece, titled … [Read more...] about PERFORMANCE: BOSTON BALLET’S FULL ON FORSYTHE AT THE BOSTON OPERA HOUSE
Common Threads: Contemporary Fiber Art at the Gardner
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is known for many things: the beautiful Venetian palazzo-inspired architecture, the unconventional way it displays its pieces of art, the largest and still-unsolved art heist in history, and Isabella Stewart Gardner’s wide taste in art — from Italian renaissance and medieval European to Asian and Islamic art; from paintings and sculptures to rare books and textiles — to name a few. Keeping in tradition with her love of textiles, “Common Threads: Weaving Stories Across Time,” is on view through January 13. The exhibition features work from contemporary artists who are continuing the tradition of conveying stories and histories in their works while pushing the boundaries of textile art and distorting the line around what can be defined as a tapestry. Their works are housed in both the Hostetter Gallery as well as the Tapestry Room. Walking into the … [Read more...] about Common Threads: Contemporary Fiber Art at the Gardner