In the first survey of its vast photographic collection that covers roughly a quarter of its collection and spans close to 120 years, the Williams College Museum of Art’s current “Landmarks” exhibition is a powerful showcase of images that follow four themes: “landmark events, buildings as landmarks, landmark features of specific environments and landmark impressions” that celebrate some of the world’s biggest achievements during that time period along with bringing some of its grandest challenges and catastrophes to the forefront of our attention. While it provides the opportunity to see some of the most famous images in history in person — Alfred Stieglitz’s “The Steerage” and Edward Steichen’s “The Flatiron,” Berenice Abbott’s “Nightview, New York,” William Anders’ 1968 “Earthrise” and Dorothea Lange’s “Potato Truck with Farmers, California,” amongst them — it also allows viewers … [Read more...] about CORNERED: HORACE D. BALLARD – 120 YEARS OF LANDMARK IMAGERY AT WILLIAMS
environmental
CAN ART SAVE THE WORLD? CAA EXHIBITION TAKES ON THE LURKING DARKNESS
When it seems that environmental protections are increasingly scaled back, even as we speed towards the point of no return, it is not unusual for so many artists to focus on the beautiful and wild things of this world, or to meditate on nostalgia for the past and their anxiety for the future. In the Cambridge Art Association’s annual Members Prize Show, many have done just that. This year’s show is larger than ever, with works by almost 60 artists in almost every conceivable media, and is split between two venues, the University Place Gallery and the Kathryn Shultz Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Walking through both spaces, one is struck by the proliferation of trees and other plant life in the paintings, photographs and prints on view. A carpet of bright red, yellow and pink leaves surround moss-covered roots in Erik Gehring’s photograph, “Red Maple #2.” Jane Sherrill’s … [Read more...] about CAN ART SAVE THE WORLD? CAA EXHIBITION TAKES ON THE LURKING DARKNESS
ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND: BLAKEMAN MESMERIZED BY WIDE OPEN SPACES
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” — T.S. Eliot. What is it about human behavior that compels us so very often to return to our roots? Maybe not geographically back to our beginnings, but in some representative aspect of our beginnings, we return. That is the case for artist Marcia Blakeman of Bedford, New Hampshire. Blakeman grew up in Wyoming and summered in Colorado, eventually settling with her family in New Hampshire. Earning her degree in advertising design from Metropolitan State College in Denver, she worked in that arena for some time. Later, upon having children, she picked up the paint brush and took her creative endeavors in a different direction. Greatly influenced by her environment as a youth, she’s mesmerized by wide open spaces, the mountains, and most … [Read more...] about ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND: BLAKEMAN MESMERIZED BY WIDE OPEN SPACES
Public and Private: John Buron and Abigael McGuire at AS220 Project Space and Reading Room
Two individual installations by John Buron and Abigael McGuire, opposites from one another in terms of materials, inception source and purpose, yet similar in how they reveal contemporary relevant concerns, are on view now through August 31 at AS220 in Providence, Rhode Island. The focus of today's contemporary culture is attention to addressing the interior personal (private lives) in combination with exterior tangible (public culture). How do Buron and McGuire do this? Abigael McGuire's "Energies and Poetries," exhibited in the Project Space, is a three-part collection of drawings — two series of flat mixed-media abstract line drawings, and a series of text scrolls - that explore the emotionality and power of gesture line showing that the line itself is both abstract and vague — energy — and also representative of reality — poetry. John Buron's "Displacement" is a mixed-media and … [Read more...] about Public and Private: John Buron and Abigael McGuire at AS220 Project Space and Reading Room