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Artscope Magazine | January/February 2021

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exhibit

Wanderlust: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors at the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden

// News

By Nancy Nesvet Washington, D.C. - Crashing websites to obtain tickets to the show, standing for hours in multiple lines to view the work, never-before seen crowds in America are going crazy for Yayoi Kusama. Because the work relates to universal concerns, this trip to infinity has us all trailing along, and when done with our 30 seconds in an installation, just wanting to go back again for more. Alone, standing in a cosmos of pointed light, or surrounded by rows of golden pumpkins, my loneliness is alleviated by the unaccountable vastness and brilliant colors of these shimmering objects. As Yayoi Kusama fears loneliness most, she has conquered her fear with a self-imposed treatment program of desensitization. Her constant making of repetitive round forms, be they lights, pumpkins or seeds, leads to organized patterns that allow her and us to organize the overwhelming chaos in our … [Read more...] about Wanderlust: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors at the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden

Shea Justice, Constitution Traditions, collage.

BLACK HISTORY MATTERS 365 AT VANDERNOOT GALLERY AT LESLEY UNIVERSITY

// Exhibits, Visual Arts

By Rhiannon Leigh Cambridge, Mass. - There is still time to enjoy Lesley University’s current exhibition, “Black History Matters 365,” running now through March 5 at the VanderNoot Gallery. This exhibit will have you engaging with the artwork and leave you engaging with the world around you. “Black History Matters 365” is an exhibition you don’t want to miss. The show features seven artists of color including Paul Goodnight, Lawrence Pierce, Destiny Palmer, Cedric Douglas, L’Merchie Frazier, Shea Justice and a Lesley alumnus, Percy Fortini-Wright, who organized the show. Each artist has an extensive background in art and a decorated resume, including Destiny Palmer, who co-founded Traditions Remixed, an artist collective who strives to create an encouraging community for young artists and Paul Goodnight, who has traveled throughout the world in order to gain experience and … [Read more...] about BLACK HISTORY MATTERS 365 AT VANDERNOOT GALLERY AT LESLEY UNIVERSITY

Michael Thompson (Jamaica), Haiti Earthquake Relief (Blue), 2010, poster, 28” x 39 1/3”.

A Medium For Social Change

// January/February 2016, Visual Arts

INTERNATIONAL POSTERS AT LAMONT by Linda Chestney Exeter, New Hampshire - It’s a fine art to be pithy while at the same time capturing your activist message in an image. That is the goal of “Graphic Advocacy: International Posters for the Digital Age 2001-2012,” the exhibi- tion that will be gracing the walls this January and February at Lamont Gallery on the Phillips Exeter Academy campus. Curated by Elizabeth Resnick, professor and chair of graphic design at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, the show features 122 posters by artists and designers from around the world who present powerful visual statements addressing pressing social, political, economic and environmental concerns — issues ranging from global warming and freedom of expression to equality, poverty, terrorism and so many more. DISSENT MADE VISIBLE Resnick considers posters … [Read more...] about A Medium For Social Change

John Evans, Field on Nantucket, oil on canvas, 42" x 42”.

Artist profile: John Evans

// News, Visual Arts

By Rhiannon Leigh South Natick, Mass. - Boston-based painter John Evans incorporates art into all aspects of his life. His Natick home is adorned with work, old and new, by both himself and his wife, Carolyn. Although his studio only had two current pieces, both works-in-progress, there was an abundant quantity of drafts of many of his works, emphasizing the amount of time and effort he spends on one piece. In 1987, a young Evans was motivated by pleasing everyone else rather than pleasing himself — as well as a fear of failure, which in turn led to his rejection from a potential show in New York. Although this was disappointing at the time, Evans also acknowledges that he felt a sense of freedom. He continued to paint, and because he was now only painting for himself rather than for others, “there was no sense of failure, just an adventure,” Evans said. He also speaks of the … [Read more...] about Artist profile: John Evans

The Monitor or the Merrimack (Gull on Pile), 1961; reworked 1960s, raw and painted wood, screws, 36 x 48 x 5 3/8 inches, Colby College Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Bernard Langlais.

Bernard Langlais at the Colby College Museum of Art & the Bernard Langlais Art Trail

// Exhibits, News

By James Foritano Waterville, Maine - Fresh, honest, engaging — even ‘crafty’ — have been some of the adjectives lavished on the Bernard Langlais solo exhibit now at the Colby College Museum of Art. And yes, they’re all true, in all senses; yet, I didn’t drive the three hours plus up to Waterville, Maine just to repeat them. So, here are, I hope, some new or half-new insights, or maybe just self-addressed explanations, glimpsed from standing on the shoulders or peering between the legs of those previous insights. Langlais went out of his way to come back to his family farm from near apotheosis in the bubbling ferment of the 1960’s N.Y.C. art scene. Was he afraid of the loneliness of pre-eminence, too sensitive to the heat and venom of competition — just a backwoods boy, in other words, yearning for the barnyard A.S.A.P.? Maybe, but my take is that, like Br’er Fox in the … [Read more...] about Bernard Langlais at the Colby College Museum of Art & the Bernard Langlais Art Trail