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Artscope Magazine | May/June 2021

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Fitchburg Art Museum

Otto Piene, "Sulphur," 2001, oil and fire on canvas, 47 9/10” x 47 4/5”.

LOCAL CONNECTIONS: PIENE’S ETERNAL FIRE LIGHTS UP FITCHBURG

// Current Issue, Issue Articles, March/April 2019

by Brian Goslow

In 1983, German-born Otto Piene purchased a huge piece of property in Groton, Massachusetts, located approximately 40 miles northwest of Boston. He converted his new home into an “art farm” and residence where the ground- and sky-breaking internationally recognized avant-garde artist turned former grain silos into art installations and barns into a studio and workshop and the surrounding land into a test field for his inflatable “Sky Art” creations. “Fire and Light: Otto Piene in Groton, 1983-2014,” on view through June 2 at the Fitchburg Art Museum (FAM), features many of the fire gouache on paperboard, oil and fire on canvas, tempera gouache on paper paintings and detailed sketchbooks Piene created during that time period — as well as “Proliferation of the Sun,” a 35-minute multimedia production originating in 1966 that was about to be reintroduced to the world just as Piene passed … [Read more...] about LOCAL CONNECTIONS: PIENE’S ETERNAL FIRE LIGHTS UP FITCHBURG

Liz Shepherd, Untitled (blue), 2005, found objects and wood, size variable. Courtesy of the artist. Photography © 2018 Charles Sternaimolo.

Rearranged Furniture: Interior Effects at Fitchburg

// Issue Articles, November/December 2018

by James Foritano

You might think you know what you think about furniture: that it’s utilitarian, it’s background, that any influence it wields is only on other furniture and that only at a glacial pace. The power of 10 original and very crafty contemporary furniture designers, now at the Fitchburg Art Museum, very quickly disabuse one of these easy notions as contemporary furniture furnishes metaphors for our most intimate human concerns, fears and hopes. Liz Shepherd’s “Untitled: Blue” is one of the most naked metaphors to meet the visitor ascending the stairs to the exhibit. A very plain, blue-painted clothes chest splits in two by a stroke so sudden and powerful that each half rests on the jagged ends of its drawers — the broken drawers spilling out, higgledy-piggledy, the flaccid arms of jerseys, sweaters and other coverings for the needy human torso. My first reaction was an unsettled and … [Read more...] about Rearranged Furniture: Interior Effects at Fitchburg

Howard Johnson, The Aether Bunny, 2018, Prismacolor, graphite, ink pen, crayons and various papers mounted on Ampersand staged board, 18" x 24" x 3/4".

HOWARD JOHNSON: PHANTASTROPHIES AT THE FITCHBURG ART MUSEUM

// Artscope Online, Exhibits, Visual Arts

by J. Fatima Martins

Howard Johnson’s solo exhibition, “Phantastrophies,” is on view now at the Fitchburg Art Museum (FAM) through September 30. Organized by FAM’s museum director, Nick Capasso, the exhibition continues FAM’s interest in providing solo exhibitions for New England artists who demonstrate exceptional skill and have an extensive oeuvre with a distinctive and focused singular style. For decades, Johnson’s art has been defined as being within the surreal and visionary mode. Taking a closer look, what becomes obvious, is that Johnson is an artist who works primarily with the figure and word-art pushing it into a brand of pop-mannerism with roots in European avant-garde, Cubism, collage format and American Modernism, particularly the esoteric experimentation and low art of the post-World War II counterculture, blended with an obsessive and organized elegance. The tone of Johnson’s work is that … [Read more...] about HOWARD JOHNSON: PHANTASTROPHIES AT THE FITCHBURG ART MUSEUM