By Robert Moeller

 

 There is a wall separating these two shows at Gallery Kayafas, but don’t let that fool you. The wall is merely a structural trope metaphorically insisting on a purpose, for the kinship between these two artists is amazingly evident. Having their work on view simultaneously is clearly no accident.

Peter Kayafas works out in the open—more specifically, out in the very open. He photographs an assortment of disheveled buildings, some in the process of being swallowed by the earth, others simply tolerated by it. These stark sculptural structures, blistered by the wind, almost hum as they...

by Robert Moeller

Dina Deitsch is Curator of Contemporary Art at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Prior to working at the deCordova she held curatorial positions at the Williams College Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She is currently working on the 2012 deCordova Biennial and a number of group exhibitions for the Sculpture Park. The show she curated Temporary Structures: Performing Architecture in Contemporary Art is on view until December 31. For more information about the exhibition you can visit the deCordova website. We spoke recently.

RM: I like the idea that you thought about the museum’s surrounding landscape, architecture, and traditions when shaping Temporary Structures....

By Dina Deitsch

After the big fair, the two of the smaller-scale fair offerings – Pulse and Nada were welcomed visits.

Although the power was in flux during my visit – literally – the lights were dark in about a third of the fair – the energy at Pulse seemed properly pumped. Impulse, Pulse’s smaller side show, featured Boston’s Ellen Miller Gallery who had a solo presentation of everyone’s favorite Deb Todd Wheeler. A boat and remarkableseascapes made out of scans of plastic bagsfilled the booth nicely with a timely and elegant message about landscape. An aisle over, Elizabeth Leach hade a wall of New Hampshire-based Anna von Merten’s hand-stitched quilts from her newest series You and Me which will be on view in the deCordova Biennial this coming January. Subtle white and grey stitching on black fabric sketch out the fluctuating poles of energy....

By Abigail Goodman

For my third day in Miami, I started off at the De La Cruz Collection, the personal museum of Miami collectors Carlos and Rosa De La Cruz. The 30,000 square foot building is impressive itself, and walking through the doors I was immediately in the midst of some stellar work. For instance, just the entrance had a salon hang of paintings by Glenn Ligon, Christopher Wool, Jacob Kassay, Nate Lowman, Wade Guyton, Mark Grotjhan and Seth Price, a giant by David Altmejd and a view to the Ugo Rondinone that had been at the ICA Boston on the Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall as well as several Thomas Houseagos. Again, I was in the entrance. The commitment of their collecting was evident all around. I was excited to find an installation by Aaron Curry on the 2 floor and was particularly moved by the 3rd floor installation of works by Felix Gonzàlez-Torres,...

By Dina Deitsch

Miami – Day Two While Abi was militantly covering the collections and Main Fair – Art Basel – I found myself on a slightly stranger and later schedule, meandering through Art Basel and then in Collins Park late Wednesday night, fighting the rush of human traffic attending the Bass Museum’s Erwin Wurm opening (whose video Am I a House? Is featured in deCordova’s Temporary Structures - up until Dec 31).

But from the beginning. At Art Basel, a few notable installations were the solo projects. Sarah Oppenheimer (another Temporary Structures artist) created a new wall installation of metal and glass that seemed to bend space, literally. As Abi mentioned, Matt Saunders (2012 Biennial) has a near-solo presentation at Harris Lieberman where he is debuting large-scale photographic prints...

By Abigail Goodman

Day 1 of Art Basel Miami did not disappoint! First stop was the Rubell Collection bright and early at 9 am. American Exuberance, their new exhibit was timely, sincere and impressive. From John Miller and Sterling Ruby, whose respective monumental installation and paintings made up the first two galleries, to the seductive (and early) Jacob Kassay and Analia Saban works, the exhibition boasted a variety of expression and material exploration. Other sure favorites were the John McAllister’s paintings, Hannah Greely’s installation Dual, Dana Schutz's ever painterly and bold canvases, Ruby Neri “naïve” classicism and Kaari Upson’s grotto. Also not to be missed was Jennifer Rubell's food installation Incubation -- servings of homemade yogurt in glass jars and honey dripping from a box on ceiling, leaving visitors to catch their sweetness...

New England, renowned as a cutting edge in academia, is embracing its evolving reputation as a hub for contemporary art. Case in point--Art New England, is celebrating its 32nd year as the region’s premier magazine focusing on contemporary art and culture. Today, ANE finds itself at Art Basel Miami Beach—the only North American edition of this most prestigious of art fairs which is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Thousands of galleries are participating in more than a dozen fairs, 46,000 visitors are expected and, quite simply, Miami Beach is on fire as “the” place to see, experience and thoroughly immerse oneself in the provocative world of contemporary art.

Art New England is proud to partner with the deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park and Freeman’s Auction House to honor the museum’s 2012 Biennale and to acknowledge New England’s important contribution...

By Julia Kelley

DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, recently acquired a piece by artist Dan Graham, Crazy Spheroid- Two Entrances. This addition to the sculpture park is the fourth in a series of recent acquisitions, and it was chosen because its unique hybrid of styles, lending a modern architectural element to the park.

Andy Ryan

Crazy Spheroid – Two Entrances is a half-ellipse made of mirrored glass, with its interior divided into two unequal parts, each accessible through cutout doorways. The reflective glass makes the piece seem composed entirely of its surroundings—the trees, the sky, the people viewing the work—aside from its sparse steel supports. Viewers are encouraged to enter the sculpture...

By Debbie Hagan

Judith F. Baca, Farewell to Rosie the Riveter and Development of Suburbia (1983) - A detail from "The Great Wall of Los Angeles". Photo: Linda Eber. Courtesy of SPARC

Next Thursday, November 3, Simmons College will offer a free screening and panel discussion of !WAR: Women Art Revolution, beginning at 6:30 p.m.  It will be shown in the Main College Building, Room C103.  A panel discussion will follow the film.

“Based on forty years of interview footage [Lynn Hersman] Leeson shot of major figures in the feminist art movement,...

By Julia Kelley

The City of Portland, Maine, removed a large public art sculpture in late September, after a year’s worth of meetings, debates, and petitions. The work, Tracing the Fore by Shauna Gillies-Smith, was featured in our July/ August issue in Kris Wilton’s “Public Art Under Siege.” The story was recently picked up by the New York Times.

Gregory Rec, The Portland Press Herald

The sculpture, constructed in 2003 in Boothby Square, was meant to imitate the neighboring Fore River, with long grass billowing between stainless-steel waves....

 By Debbie Hagan

Anne Krinsky, acrylic and mixed media, Shelf Life

Let's face it, Kindles and iPads cannot replace the printed book--no matter how hard electronic manufacturers tell us otherwise. Artist, writer, and book lover  Anne Krinsky reminded me of this at the opening of her show Shelf Life, inspired by printed books, some from the Groton Public Library, where this small, inspirational show takes place. 

"In this age of digital media, the installation celebrates the physicality of the book and highlights the historic and artistic value of printed materials," writes Krinsky in a statement...

By Debbie Hagan

Centuries before a Blackberry could propel an idea around the globe in seconds,  communication posed challenges--how could knowledge be broadly shared in order to advance and improve society?  Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, addresses this question, showing extraordinary examples of early printmaking and how sixteenth century Europeans used it to share understanding, particularly in the fields of medicine, science, and navigation. 

“I’m interested in the way the most important artists of the time interacted with cartographers, draftspeople, and medical people,” said Susan Dackerman, Carl A. Wyerhaeuser Curator of Prints at Harvard’s Sackler Museum, addressing a small press group on a tour...

By Debbie Hagan

Frankly I'm not exactly sure why David Lang titled his latest exhibit, OK, Now What?, up now through October 2 at the Boston Sculpture Gallery. What he means by this isn't crystal clear, but that's okay by me. Lang is not an over-explaining artist. who spells out  what you can see for yourself or coddles you so you don't have to think very hard. Rather he's provocative, witty, and contemplative as he blends mythology, science, and humor. 

First Strike, David Lang

His sculptures are engineering feats, suggesting transportation and machinery, fashioned with wheels, motion detectors, and motley moving parts. Some play soundtracks...

By Kathleen Morrison

It often seems, when you delve into a topic you did not know much about previously, that the subject of your interest is suddenly everywhere. That is the case this month with notable landscape artist Frederick Law Olmsted.

In this month’s issue, we explored the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline, MA, and the renovations it is currently undergoing to provide a historically accurate backdrop to the exhibits displayed there.

Fairsted and View of Historic Olmsted Elm    Photo: Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site

Perhaps it is the fading days of summer, when...

By Debbie Hagan

In Boston’s South End last week, I happened to stumble upon LandWave, a public sculpture created by designers Shauna Gillies-Smith, France Cormier, and Michael Kilkelly of the architectural firm Ground in Somerville. The work appeared in Public Art Under Siege, an article Kris Wilton wrote in our July/August issue. In it she examined the challenges artists, designers, curators, and public art caretakers face, particularly in the light of  increasing vandalism. Whether art is intentionally damaged or not, all public works that sit outside eventually need maintenance and upkeep. 

 By Debbie Hagan

Earlier this week I stopped by the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum to see Tory Fair’s Testing a World View (Again), a recent installation placed on the Pollack Terrace, accessible from the glass doors of the main gallery.

Tory Fair, Testing a World View (Again), 2011. Installation at DeCordova Sculpture Park & Museum....

By Debbie Hagan

This summer, more than 660,000 people crowded into Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty at the Metropolitan Museum making it the eighth most visited show in this museum's 141-year history, according to Art Forum. Of course, this raises a number of questions, one of which comes up again and again: is fashion really art?  About that, Suzy Menkes, in the New York Times, back in July, had this to say, "at any given moment there are at least a dozen museums across the world offering major fashion displays--not to mention exhibitions in galleries or even department stores."

If that's true, certainly New England has more than it's fair share of fashion-related shows. Two shows from this past year come to mind: ...

 By Debbie Hagan

A few weeks ago, I sat next to Lee Miller's son, Anthony Penrose, at a press opening at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.  Of course, Miller is one of the key subjects in an incredible love story/exhibit Man Ray-Lee Miller: Partners in Surrealism up now at the museum until December 4.  Man Ray was obsessed with his young muse—a beautiful model, who gave up that career to pursue art alongside her mentor, Ray.  They lived together in Paris from 1929 to 1932 and produced some of the most powerful work in their careers--work that helped shape modern art. However, theirs was an intense, yet tumultuous relationship, and as the exhibit shows, Ray wanted to control Miller, evidenced in the images with her head...

By Debbie Hagan

Two gallerists put their heads together and came up with a creative strategy to beat the sagging economy and offer the Berkshires summer community something fun, thought-provoking, and intensely focused on contemporary art. Longtime friends Leslie Ferrin and Sienna Patti  came up with an idea they call  Decadence and Decay.  It's three days of innovative performance, dance, studio openings, lectures, and art exhibits that  involve museums, artists, and performance companies throughout the region.  

DISH + DINE at Ferrin Gallery            Photo: ...

By Debbie Hagan

Last week, I stopped by George Marshall Store, in York, Maine, where director Mary Harding had staged a fun summer show, From the Garden to the Kitchen.  Colorful works of varying sizes and subjects by such artists as Gary Haven Smith, Lincoln Perry, Julia Zaines, Donald Saaf, and Tom Curry give viewers fresh takes on gardening, seasonal produce, and the delights of summer dining.

 By Debbie Hagan

This Thursday, August 4, I will give a three-hour workshop on Grabbing the Attention of the Press (in other words, getting your new release out of the slush pile and into the pages of the publication). It will be held  6-9 p.m. at the York Art Association, York Harbor, Maine.  I will talk about how to create a news release, where to send them, the essentials of timing, and what editors really want.  In the second half of the program, we'll talk about artists statements, and you'll have a chance to write your own and receive feedback.  Admission is free for York Art Association members and $10 for everyone else. For more information contact gallerymanager@yorkartassociation.com.

 By Debbie Hagan

Let’s Play Ball is a fun summer photographic exhibit going on now at Panopticon Gallery, located inside the Commonwealth Hotel, 502 Commonwealth Ave., Boston. The show perfectly coincides with Art New England’s July/August issue, since Ernest C. Withers is not only featured in this show, but also the subject of  a major ANE story, which you can read online.

Panopticon’s show offers a rare opportunity to see how Withers documented the Negro Baseball League in the 1940s and ‘50s.  Other photographers in this show include David Levinthal, Arthur Griffin, Steven Sheffield, Tony King, and Jim Dow.

By Debbie Hagan

Around 5 p.m. on Saturday, Samson Projects, 450 Harrison Avenue in Boston, saw mobs of artists crowd into the gallery. A few days earlier, Camilo Alvarez and his staff knocked themselves out hanging 1,200 artworks.  When the exhibit opened, artists, in addition to their friends and family, rushed in to see their work on display, hung salon-style over the gallery’s walls, stairway, basement (usually the domain of the artist in residence), and every nook and cranny available. 

Samson’s pop-up exhibit was just one in chain of shows aptly called Chain Letter. The idea is relatively simple: the gallery...

By Leah Triplett

A small crowd formed outside the Mills Gallery at about ten minutes before 6 p.m. last Friday night, anticipating the opening of Close Distance, a multimedia group show of six Boston-area emerging Latino artists. Curated by Liz Munsell, a curatorial research associate in contemporary art at the MFA, Close Distance purports to elucidate the nuances of North and South American cultural exchange in the construction of identity. While each of the six artists included in Close Distance range in media and method, all observe the implications of the everyday on the production of Latin American self-hood

There are several...

By Kathleen Morrison

Looking at art often takes you to a different place. You can almost smell the paint, feel the cool breeze...hear the toilets flushing?

That was the case earlier this month at the Museum of Fine Arts as a group of twenty-one contemporary artists held a guerilla art show in a pair of bathrooms at the MFA.

The event, held June 15 at 7 p.m., both recreated and honored a similar showing from forty years ago, when just six artists snuck in their paintings, drawings, and small sculptures under their coats to make a point about contemporary art in the MFA. They called their show, Flush With the Walls.

Image from the original bathroom show Flush With the Walls, in 1971. Photo courtesy of The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research

At the time, the newspaper Boston After Dark...

 By Debbie Hagan

“Homage to Guerilla Gardening is an urban gardening project paying tribute to the illicit horticulture practices of the guerilla gardener,” writes New Hampshire artist Alison Williams about a project she initiated about a month ago on a vacant lot in New Haven, Connecticut, blocks away from Yale University.  

Rather than being illicit, however, Williams obtained permission to use this communal space, tying it into an ongoing exhibit, Marie Celeste, at Artspace, an adjacent gallery.  Williams also has an installation...

By Kathleen Morrison

Ai Weiwei may be most familiar to the general public as the artist behind the delicate yet industrial Beijing National Stadium, better known as the Bird’s Nest, that glowing edifice that became to the world an icon for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, but to the art community he is much more.

He is an activist, a visionary, and now, a prisoner in his own country.

Recently New England’s DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum joined the global movement calling for Ai’s release. Following the example of other institutions such as the Tate Modern, DeCordova has hung on the building’s façade a vibrant red banner with the words, “Free Ai Weiwei” emblazoned in white, and is providing informational materials to its guests. Director Dennis Kois has signed the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation’s petition of over 100,000 names, some of them the biggest in the international art community, asking the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic...

AVA Gallery and Art Center, Lebanon, NH

Through June 10, 2011

By Fran Bull

Among her many gifts, including glass artist of flamboyance and renown, Paedra Bramhall is a jazz master. Like Matisse, she spins large, generous, sassy. and soulful visual riffs, not with paper and scissors, but with the quintessential imaging tool of the twenty-first century: the computer.  Paedra (who most-often uses just her first name) cajoles the mighty electronic brain, possibly the most complex machine ever conceived, into a rollicking collaboration. She plays it like Thelonius Monk on the piano and requires the behemoth to perform tortuous bends and turns...

By Debbie Hagan

I’m reluctant to say it, but a lot of what’s called cyberart falls a little short for me, and I hesitate to say this knowing that the Boston Cyberarts Festival continues through the rest of this month. No matter how intrigued I am with the process in these pieces, some leave me longing for more “art” than “cyber.” New technology already impresses, I guess I’m looking for how it can transcend the medium so that it comments on the human condition and brings insight to this precarious life on this planet.

Take for instance, Smarter, Faster, Higher installed last week at the Danforth Museum...

By Collin Dunbar

Editor’s Note: In Art New England’s latest issue, we followed a young Boston artist Alex White-Mazarella and his colleagues as they completed an art and urban planning project in the city of Mumbai called Artefacting Mumbai. Writer Collin Dunbar updates and elaborates on this evolving story. 

The Indian city of Mumbai is the second largest city in the world, and one of its tiniest districts, Dharavi, is one of the most densely populated areas anywhere. There are no accurate census figures, but it is estimated that anywhere from 600,000 to one million Indians make...

By Debbie Hagan

Last night, May 3, the Linda K. Paresky Conference Center at Simmons College filled with women, most wielding some kind of power in the Boston art scene: scholars, curators, artists, collectors, and museum directors. “Women, Power and the Arts,” a panel discussion, brought out a crowd of 400 or so. Many of them came to hear Gail Levin talk about her new book, Lee Krasner: A Biography.

Levin told the audience that when she first arrived at Simmons College (class of ’69), she headed straight to the library and was drawn to a particular book: Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique. “The rest is history.” The crowd chucked,...

Wellfleet Preservation Hall, Wellfleet, Massachusetts June 30 - September 5, 2011 By Mark Gabriele

Even at a monastery so progressive that it was nicknamed “the holy hoboes,” Johnathan Kendall’s art provoked quite a stir.  Founded by some very forward-thinking priests, the Holy Trinity Monastery in St. David Arizona is a place where the monks wear boots and cowboy hats, and the vow of monastic hospitality extends to the homeless and mentally ill.  When American itinerant woodcarver Johnathan Kendall arrived there in the late 1970s, they took him in as they would any traveler.  They even let Kendall establish a workshop to teach the monks to make icons, which he did for a couple of years.  However,...

About two weeks ago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, invited in a few of the media for a private tour of Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass led by Dale Chihuly. One is immediately struck by this curious artist, who looks a bit like a pirate, not only because he has a big black patch covering one eye, but because he’s short, stout, and bears a crop of unruly hair that stands on end as if it has never seen a comb. His seventy-year-old face bears a grimace, and he swaggers through the exhibit side-to-side in the way one imagines a pirate might, projecting confidence, but also keeping his weight evenly distributed. He’s a contrast to the art he creates—Seussian spheres, cones, cattails, and chandeliers that mix whimsy with the ethereal.

Sebastian Smee, in a recent...

Art Institute of Boston, Main Gallery, Lesley University, Boston, MA Through April 30, 2011 By Kat Kiernan

Joel Meyerowitz spent his childhood playing cowboys and Indians and catching frogs along riverbanks until his mom called him home for supper. Such activities might suggest the marshlands of Louisiana or the woods of Oregon. Instead he lived in the Bronx, catching frogs in the Bronx River and playing cowboys with New York accents. It is this romanticized idea of childhood that Meyerowitz recalled when he accepted the commission by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation to document the almost 9,000 acres of parkland that have been preserved in their natural state.

The 250 luscious color photographs that make up his book Legacy: The Preservation of Wilderness in New York City Parks exist as a historic collection,...

When the ten-day Boston International Film Festival opens this Friday, April 15, it will feature Art New England’s own Signe Taylor, screening her documentary Circus Dreams. Taylor’s eighty-two-minute film will hit the screen Monday, April 18, at 3:30 p.m. at the AMC Theater, 175 Tremont Street. Tickets to this, as well as others events, can be obtained from the Boston International Film Festival.

Art New England met independent filmmaker Signe Taylor through our editorial series “Frame to Fame.” We kicked off the series, last fall, with a film screening at FP3, where Taylor showed her trailer. (She was still editing the actual film.) The crowd responded enthusiastically, wanting to see more. Now they can.

Circus...