Pittsburgh’s Carnegie family, Maine’s Farnsworths and Arkansas’ Waltons founded museums to enlighten and educate the workers on their railroads and in their steel mills that produced and sold the goods that made their families wealthy, exposing them to the arts. Money from an inheritance earned through the Irish linen trade and investment in mining opportunities by her father, David Stewart, allowed Isabella Stewart Gardner to amass a fabulous art collection that became so large it needed its own museum. Subsequently, the owners of these private collections generously opened their doors to the public. The Morgans cleaned out their attic of treasures taken from colonial outposts to fill multiple large galleries comprising the decorative arts wing at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. They donated Roman sculptures, casts taken from sculptures at Karnak, the Parthenon and Notre-Dame … [Read more...] about ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS: SOURCE OF DONORS’ WEALTH ROCKS THE ART WORLD
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Love is Louder: Open Borders at Artspace Maynard
On first view, “Waste Not,” an exhibition featuring works by Lorraine Sullivan, Anne Plaisance, Stephen Martin and Kim Triedman (the show’s curator), holds many elements of life — or past life — that I’m quite fond of, especially pieces from old storefronts and corner stores and weathered buildings that I attach to feelings of warmth. Old windows are turned into picture frames, store fixtures become statues and a partially disembodied mannequin sits in a pre-prefabrication wooden wheelchair seems to have been positioned to ensure no one visits the exhibition feeling alone (the work is Plaisance’s “No Love Lost.”). And, indeed, in late 2018, a gallery is the one place many artisans don’t feel alone. A closer look, however revealed some works that could — and perhaps should — feel disturbing. Three works by Plaisance, who came to the United States from Paris three years ago, … [Read more...] about Love is Louder: Open Borders at Artspace Maynard
VISITING THAHAB: EXTRAORDINARY ORDINARINESS
REVIEW VISITING THAHAB: NABIL (NABEELA) VEGA NEW BEDFORD ART MUSEUM/ARTWORKS! 608 PLEASANT STREET NEW BEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS THROUGH MARCH 25 by Don Wilkinson There is something particularly intriguing in one of the videos by Nabil (Nabeela) Vega, in which a figure is draped in a shimmering shroud of gold lame, their identity concealed, their face hidden. [Gender neutral pronouns are used at the request of the artist.] The cloaked figure is on a bridge over the Charles River, and the Hancock and the Prudential are clearly visible in the background. Pedestrians stroll by with barely a glance, focused runners do not slow their pace, and cars whiz by without an unnecessary beeping of the horn. It is as if seeing a golden ghost on the side of the road were the most ordinary of events. It may be a particularly Bostonian “I’ve seen it all” attitude or a practiced … [Read more...] about VISITING THAHAB: EXTRAORDINARY ORDINARINESS