art

Art for art's sake - and $1 billion

adamg — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:45:36 +0000

Boston Daily totals up all the money spent on art-museum expansion in the Boston area over a decade, and comes up with a pretty large number.

A Billboard's View of East Boston

adamg — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:13:31 +0000

A painting.

First look at the Gardner's new wing

adamg — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:19:30 +0000

Greg Cook takes us on a tour of the new Renzo Piano wing of the Fenway museum:

The addition's new 300-seat concert hall and a special exhibition gallery are dashing. And they make the old building better too by freeing up space to showcase the core collection, particularly in the dramatically improved tapestry room.

It's not perfect. From the outside, the addition, which sits behind the palace, could be mistaken for the mechanical building of one of the neighboring, generic school or medical campuses. And the corridor from the new building to the old begins muddled and dull. But the way it delivers you into the old palace, right beside the blossoming courtyard, is a revelation, that feels like Gardner's old magic.

Avast! East Boston's oceanic art gallery

adamg — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 12:02:08 +0000

Anulfo introduces us to East Boston's Shipyard Gallery:

I love that it is less than 10 minute walk from Maverick Station on the Blue Line. I also love that behind each one of the thirty works (mostly sculpture) on display is a pressing environmental issue facing our oceans. I also love that I get to learn about the sponsoring organization behind each piece and of the work they’re doing to protect our oceans.

Art or vandalism?

adamg — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 10:40:42 +0000

The Daily Free Press interviews a street artist who sometimes wheat-pastes posters, sometimes does some stenciling and sometimes just sprays her tags on things:

After she finishes, Skeczh said she runs from the site to avoid getting arrested. One street artist she knows hung around too long after spraying a piece in an alleyway and was discovered by police, she said.

Maybe not the last Gasp in Brookline

adamg — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 12:50:47 +0000

Greg Cook reports Gasp Gallery on Rte. 9 in Brookline has shut its doors but that owners Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons and Neil Leonard plan to re-open somewhere else in the area this fall.

Covering eyesores until they can be permanently fixed

lex.galloway — Mon, 09 May 2011 18:32:32 +0000

Imagine City Hall or the Hynes covered in vines.

If Nate Swain has his way, it could happen. For the past couple of years, he's been covering eyesores in the North End with vinyl canvases covered with high-resolution photos. See if you can spot his work in the photo above.

His first project was in a building facing Salem and Prince streets in 2009. He photographed and then printed scenes such as a cat on a windowsill with flowers in pots; a goldfish swimming in a bowl, printed them onto a mesh vinyl back, then installed them over the windows. The idea is to create a sort of an "idyllic" concept, as he calls it.

Drama outside the theater: ART vs. local critic

adamg — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:29:54 +0000

Ian Thal provides the Playbill for a struggle between the American Repertory Theatre and local critic Thomas Garvey: ART threatened to boycott the Independent Reviewers of New Englands' annual awards ceremony if Garvey weren't booted from the group. Garvey resigned, but not without directing a few choice words ART's way.

Via Art Hennessey, who has a few thoughts as well.

Some people just shovel snow; he shapes it into dodecahedrons

lex.galloway — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 01:36:48 +0000

Most of us dread more snow, but Dan Sternof Beyer is looking forward to it.

Beyer is the artist responsible for the mysterious snowdecahdrons that have shown up in Porter Square and Dewey Square after recent storms. So far this season, he's created about ten large versions of the 12-sided objects and 20 to 30 smaller versions.

In an interview with Universal Hub, Beyer said he creates the snowdecahedrons by packing snow into a dodecahdron-shaped box. But not just any snow. "I've become extremely picky about snow, which I'd never thought I'd be, but it has to be just above freezing, after a large snowstorm so the snow is clean, sticks together, packs well, but isn't soggy," he said.

The curse of the A.R.T.

adamg — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:07:45 +0000

Bryce Lambert is thinking the Cambridge theater has replaced edgy-but-audience-alienating productions with dull-but-profitable fare, such as "Johnny Baseball:"

... Johnny Baseball, as one would expect and might've read, is wicked conventional, so much so that, if it didn't require such a large cast, I wouldn't be surprised if it became a seasonal theater fixture for tourists, locals, and local non-theater-types alike. I'd rather not get too deep into the plot here, because it's not very interesting, and (unless you’ve kept away from the TV and movie theaters for the last 25 years) you're probably able to fill in most of the blanks. ...

Still, he gives them points for funny local jokes and actors who actually nailed the local accent.

Marine art busting out at the East Boston Shipyard

adamg — Mon, 17 May 2010 12:09:22 +0000

Fabulously Out There surveys the public installations at the shipyard, featuring giant fish, mermaids and other objets de mer.

More on the Outdoor Sculpture Gallery in the Boston Harbor Shipyard.

Boston art endings

adamg — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 04:02:33 +0000

Greg Cook reports on the impending closing of the Judi Rotenberg Gallery, after nearly 40 years, and the end of artblog.net, one of the oldest art blogs in the country.

Boy sought to play Red Sox fan

adamg — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:35:48 +0000

ART seeks boy, 9-12, for role in play. Pays $400 a week, but does involve some rehersals in New York (to learn how to hate the Yankees?) - with expenses paid, natch.

The hot new trend in contemporary art: Plagiarism

adamg — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:22:18 +0000

Shephard Fairey is not alone in, um - what's the word? - building on other people's work. Thomas Garvey takes in an exhibit of ICA Foster Prize winner Kelly Sherman's work at the Barbara Krakow Gallery:

... Now I admit I kind of admire Sherman's conceptual chutzpah here - Prince and Levine appropriated other people's imagery, so why not just appropriate them? There's a neat little thrill to be had in that (along with extra points for ripping off those rip-off artists during their big Met show). Of course you have to be careful, and vary things just enough to avoid legal action, like the kind Shepard Fairey visited on those with the temerity to appropriate his own, plagiarized works. I admire this line of endeavor so much, in fact that I am willing to download any of Sherman's works from the Internet for you, and print it out with my signature for $1 less than she's going for at Barbara Krakow. ...

War of the Roses at Brandeis to heat up

adamg — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:00:12 +0000

Joel Brown reports the Roses for whom the Rose Art Museum is named are gathering at Brandeis on Monday; things could get pretty thorny for university President Yehuda Reinharz:

More than 50 members of the Rose family have come together to condemn the actions of the current Brandeis administration in closing the Edward and Bertha C. Rose Art Museum and selling the art works in its renowned collection.