http://www.artscopemagazine.com/rss/novdec2006.xml The November/December, 2006 issue of Artscope Magazine <p>Barbara Krakow Gallery<br> 10 Newbury Street<br> Boston</p> <p>Through November 29</p> <p>In 1953 on New York's Fulton Street, John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg inked the tire of a Model A Ford and drove it over a long sheet of paper to create 'Automobile Tire Print.' This simple elegant work was yet another in Cage and Rauschenberg's provocative erasures of the lines between art and life. Tara Donovan, at work in Brooklyn, has imbibed that spirit. She uses materials found in any stationery store to achieve framed and free standing art that is tender, funny and, ouch, witty. At Krakow she shows works that put into play rubber bands, plain standard stick-on labels, adding machine tapes and size 17 1/16 straight pins.</p> William Corbett <p>Masters of Watercolors: Recent Work by Members of the New England Watercolor Society</p> <p>New Bedford Art Museum<br> 608 Pleasant Street<br> New Bedford, Massachusetts</p> <p>Through December 31</p> <p>Since retiring as simultaneous Chiefs of Cardiology and Nephrology at several hospitals in the Boston area, Mattapoisett resident Mike Mazer has pursued his passion for watercolor exhibiting in over 220 national and international exhibitions. In conjunction with the exhibition 'Masters of Watercolor,' an impressive display of work by the New England Watercolor Society, Mazer is enjoying his first one-man show at the New Bedford Art Museum.</p> Britt Beedenbender <p>Axelle Fine Arts Galerie Newbury<br> 91 Newbury Street<br> Boston</p> <p>December 2 through 23</p> <p>Hollis Dunlap specializes in painting contemporary times with grounding in renaissance art. At the age of 14, he started his adventure in painting with forays into figurative work. His imagination continues to be rife with the desire to express as he prepares for his upcoming exhibition at Axelle Fine Arts Galerie, Boston. In the aptly titled 'Lucid Dreams,' Dunlap experiments, using blend of color, setting, and subject in an investigation of abstraction and emotion.</p> George Gerard <p> 133 Charles Street<br> Boston</p> <p>Beacon Hill is an environment that has long been a home to the arts. With an ever-evolving sensibility, time has seen antique shops and art galleries on Beacon Hill thrive and represent some of the most fantastic works our culture has to offer.</p> George Gerard <p>450 Harrison Avenue<br> Storefront 63<br> South End, Boston</p> <p>Rebecca Morris: Straight to Hell<br> Through November 25</p> <p>Jeffery Gibson<br> December 1 through 30</p> <p>Camilo Alvarez is a relative newcomer to the Boston arts scene but Samson Projects, his gallery for emerging artists, draws some of today's most compelling new talent. The artists featured at Samson Projects vary wildly in terms of style and medium but Alvarez always seeks artists whose 'contribution to culture is completely apparent.'</p> Catherine Laferriere <p>455 Oak Street<br> Brockton, Massachusetts</p> <p>Through January 7, 2007</p> <p>In the words of the sharp-witted 19th century poet Oscar Wilde, 'One should either be a work of art, of wear a work of art.' This quote aptly announces the newest exhibition at the Fuller Craft Museum entitled, 'Wear Art&hellip;Now and Then.' The creations of 27 well-established and emerging artists are represented through an inspiring array of crafted clothing and textiles that include jackets, dresses, scarves, shoes and other accessories. </p> Britt Beedenbender <p>Worcester Art Museum<br> 55 Salisbury Street<br> Worcester, Massachusetts</p> <p>Through January 14, 2007</p> <p>Many people only know about Puerto Rico what they learned from Suzie Kaye, as Rosalia, when she sang about the place in the 1961 movie version of 'West Side Story.' To help us better understand that 'lovely island's' rich and varied history, the Worcester Art Museum, in conjunction with the Museo de Arte de Ponce, has mounted this exhibition of more than 40 paintings which were produced by three important Puerto Rican painters during the past two centuries.</p> Leon Nigrosh <p>Hood Museum of Art<br> Dartmouth College<br> Hanover, New Hampshire</p> <p>Through December 10</p> <p>An unexpected visual journey across the continent of Australia, 'Dreaming Their Way' a modern day walkabout that will introduce many, for the first time, to the profound work created by Australian aboriginal women painters. Hood Director Brian Kennedy is passionate about his intent for the exhibition, 'I wanted people to know how unbelievable this place is and how phenomenal these people are.'</p> Britt Beedenbender <p>DeCordova Museum<br> 51 Sandy Pond Road<br> Lincoln</p> <p>Through January 7, 2007</p> <p>'Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.' Well, not exactly. While there are tigers and a bear or two, it's mostly monkeys, chimps, zebras, dogs, birds, and as they're called in New York City, cock-a-roaches (more about them later).</p> Leon Nigrosh <p>Worcester Artist Group<br> 98 Tainter Street<br> Worcester</p> <p>Through December 2</p> <p>It only seems appropriate that the Worcester Artist Group, which has just moved into a new home in the ASTRO industrial complex in the city's Main South section, asked Mass MoCA curator Nato Thompson to select the works for its Second Autumn Annual Juried Show. The result is a fresh collection of exciting colorful works that mirrors Worcester's changing ethnic mix.</p> Brian Goslow <p>David Winton Bell Gallery<br> Brown University<br> Providence, Rhode Island</p> <p>November 4 through December 24</p> <p>My first introduction to the New York-based Cutler was 'Passage,' her 2005 Gouache on paper work whose characters first resembled those in the Beatles' 'Yellow Submarine' cartoons. But a closer study of its three women sitting atop an elephant that is carefully balancing atop four young but sturdy birch trees, their pocketbooks safely sitting on the pachyderm's trunk, revealed a scene you'd never come upon in real life. But one quickly realizes that Cutler's greatest trait is her ability to convince you that you just might.</p> Brian Goslow <p>Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum<br> 280 The Fenway<br> Boston</p> <p>Through Jan 14, 2007</p> <p>In a small gallery with large reverberations just off Mrs. Jack Gardner's sumptuous courtyard garden, the world, until January 14, at least, is flat. </p> James Foritano <p>New Art Center in Newton<br> 61 Washington Park<br> Newtonville, MA</p> <p>November 17 through December 17</p> <p>Nowadays, a celebrity like Britney Spears is considered as much of an icon as a dark powerful image featuring a crucifix. The 13th presentation of this annual invitational exhibition ends up somewhere in the middle thanks to the broad response of the 100 or so artists who donated their work to raise funds for the New Art Center's exhibition and education programs. 'Whether it's a religious icon, a celebrity icon or just a symbol out there, sometimes the images are very reverent and at times they're very irreverent,' says exhibition director Ceci Mendez.</p> Brian Goslow <p>Stephen Silver counts himself as a Boston resident who remembers when South Washington Street (SOWA) wasn't a place to be stranded after dark. He's also one of the reasons the neighborhood experienced a major renaissance and developed into a leading cultural center. A beneficiary of recent artistic rebirth himself, Silver's evolution guided him from the high-tech industry to oil painting in SOWA.</p> <p>Portland Museum of Art<br> 7 Congress Square<br> Portland, Maine</p> <p>Through December 10</p> <p>Portland Museum of Art offers a rich, oversized slice of 'The Maine Print Project,' half the pie actually, in their newly mounted show entitled 'A Century of Maine Prints: 1880s to the 1980s.' The state of Maine is taking stock of its visual history - 200 hundred years worth - in an unprecedented six-month, 25-institution celebration of fine art prints. Check out the entire fine arts endeavor at www.maineprintproject.org where all exhibitor's hours and contact information are listed.</p> Rick Agran <p>Nielsen Gallery<br> 179 Newbury Street<br> Boston</p> <p>Through November 25</p> <p>Squeak Carnwath, well known in California and New York City, has finally made it to Boston in this debut show at The Nielsen Gallery. While not by any stretch a retrospective, small, 6' x 8', and large, 76' x 102', paintings dating from 1990 through 2006 are on view. Carnwath's work has life and humor with real personality even though she takes a page from T.S. Eliot who believed that at least poetry ought to be an escape from personality.</p> William Corbett <p>Susan Carlson's quilted portraiture 'paints' with fabric. An adept and imaginative artist, she's a virtuoso of textures, colors, patterns, and layers. She works with scissors, glues, and stitches; snips, bits, and hi-tech sewing machines. She inherits lines, visual rhythms, and organic shapes from the fabrics she chooses for her palettes and combines them with her own whimsical visions. Animal and vegetable, finned, fanged and beaked are all fair game. She's recently created a rare dodo, celebrated an everyday rooster. Almost life-sized wildlife like her rhino, 'Tickled Pink' or her dino-obsessed son, 'Samuelsaurus' are artfully magnificent and complex, funny and absurd. Breaking the rule of neat little quilt squares suits her; she's said: 'I love to have organic forms to explore, rather than straight lines. I like to make things live.'</p> Rick Agran <p>Working out of a recently renovated studio in Cushing, Maine, which sits on the St. George River&nbsp; and hour and a half ride between Portland and Bangor, you'd think John Paul Caponigro would be one of those people who've found quiet, bliss and solitude in a happy far away setting few souls intrude upon. Not this photographer who loves sharing his knowledge with others. Over the past year, he's invited students to take part in over a dozen workshops at his studio, including 'The Fine Digital Print' and 'The Power of Color.' With a busy year-round schedule that also includes writing and appearing seminars, Caponigro says he has to steal time from those activities for his own creative work. It's a self-imposed goal that made the show currently on view at the Hallmark Museum of Contemporary Photography possible.</p> Brian Goslow <p>December Sale</p> <p>School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston<br> Museum Road and The Fenway<br> Boston</p> <p>December 6 through 11</p> <p>Once again, for the 26Th year, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts will host for sale a rotating kaleidoscope of artworks in a broad range of media. For six days in early December, there will be no distinction, once again, between the lobby, the gallery proper, and the corridors leading to faculty offices at this venerable institution of learning: everywhere wrapping paper will crinkle audibly, cash registers will hum and smiles of possession will illuminate the faces of buyers and sellers. </p> James Foritano <p>Tufts University<br> Aidekman Arts Center<br> Talbot Avenue<br> Medford, Massachusetts</p> <p>Through November 19</p> <p>Steve Mumford painted the watercolors and drawings featured in 'Baghdad and Beyond' during four trips he made to Baghdad in 2003 and 2004 and a visit to Brooke Army Medical Center in 2006. Mumford was 'embedded' as a correspondent for artnet.com, an unlikely seeming outfit, perhaps, until you read in his book 'Baghdad Journal' that one of his artistic models is Winslow Homer who painted and engraved scenes of America's Civil War as an eye witness for the Eastern press.</p> James Foritano <p>McMullen Museum of Art<br> Boston College<br> 140 Commonwealth<br> Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts</p> <p>Through December 31</p> <p>It's quietly illuminating, it's varied, it's stunning. And, it's about time. A sense of irony, of time willfully lost, accompanies the viewer as s/he cruises through the intellectual and emotional feast of Islamic art culled from the finest of the renowned L.C. David Collection, Copenhagen.</p> James Foritano <p>Montserrat College of Art Gallery<br> 23 Essex Street<br> Beverly, Massachusetts</p> <p>November 3 through February 3, 2007</p> <p>Many art aficionados still refuse to consider street graffiti as a serious art form; it's a view that makes the thought of one of the region's leading educational art institutions hosting a major show of works inspired by it an exciting proposition. Curator Leonie Bradbury deserves great credit for bringing this show, which Montserrat calls a blurring of fine art and street art, folk and contemporary, and illustration and design, to New England. Add in the influence of Mexican murals and the borders only get wider.</p> Brian Goslow <p>Cantor Gallery<br> College of the Holy Cross<br> O'Kane Hall<br> One College Street<br> Worcester</p> <p>Through December 16</p> <p>Adrienne Farb freely admits that aside from being born into a family of artists, she has had little formal training as a painter. Her father, two uncles, and even her great aunt were artists. In fact, her aunt Ann Medalie (1896-1991) worked with the famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera (1886-1957) on his powerful mural at the futuristic 1939 World's Fair in New York.</p> Leon Nigrosh <p>Zero Theater/American Repertory Theatre<br> Arrow Street at Mass. Ave.<br> Cambridge</p> <p>December 9 through January 13, 2007</p> <p>As one of Boston's, if not the world's more unique acts, the Dresden Dolls &ndash; the 'punk cabaret' collaboration of Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione never fail to take their audience out of its every day life with their mesmerizing stage shows. They're getting a chance to expand on what they can do on the musical stage at the American Repertory Theatre's Zero Arrow Theater, which they promise to turn into a bizarre underground club where the audience peels onions for emotional release. Don't worry &ndash; the only reason you'll cry is from the intensity of the performance. Artscope caught up with Amanda Palmer on the West Coast in mid-October to get the details on this dream collaboration:</p> Brian Goslow <p>For young dancers, striving first to perfect virtuoso techniques such as pointe work, grand pas de deux and high leg extensions in balance and in movement are just some of the foundational lessons taught at The Boston Ballet School.</p> Franklin W. Liu <p>Flynn Theater for the Performing Arts<br> 153 Main Street<br> Burlington, Vermont<br> December 6</p> <p>Celebrity Series<br> Shubert Theatre<br> 270 Tremont Street<br> Boston<br> December 8 through 10</p> <p>Spawned out of a series of dance classes at Dartmouth College in 1971, Pilobolus, like the sun-loving fungus it takes its name from, is a powerful little dance troupe that continues to show its force.</p> Chet Williamson <p>Boston Children's Museum<br> Boston<br> Through December 31</p> <p>Blue Man Group<br> Charles Playhouse<br> 74 Warrenton Street<br> Boston<br> Ongoing</p> <p>Mind-blowing multi-visual sound-sensational happenings tend to have a short shelf life but not so the phenomena known as the Blue Man Group, who've expanded minds visually and musically for almost two decades. And now they're coming for your kids with 'Making Waves,' which is at the Boston Children's Museum through the end of the year. The exhibition is the result of a creative collaboration between the Blue Man Group and the sound engineers at JBL. 'They showed up as mad scientists; it was a great mixture of wackiness,' says BMG co-founder Chris Wink.</p> Brian Goslow <p>Hope, Valor, &amp; Inspiration: 1896-1918: The World of George Dilboy &ndash; Greek Immigrant &amp; American Hero</p> <p>The Somerville Museum<br> One Westwood Road<br> Somerville</p> <p>Through March 25, 2007</p> <p>Tucked away on a tiny side street among sprawling verandas and towering trees, at the Somerville Museum, all the exhibitions, from conception to installation, are done by the community itself. Director of Exhibitions Michael O'Connell facilitates the Community Curatorial Program, where, he observed, 'the audience is the exhibitors.' Hardly planned, the program is 'something that has occurred very organically,' O'Connell says. 'Over the years, we've invited people to come into the program and work with me. I help them turn their idea into a visual display.'</p> Roanna Forman <p>The Colonial Theater is much more than a fabulous theater saved from the wrecking ball. It is the miracle of Pittsfield, but the question is, can it save the city? The Colonial is a jewel box, a palace and temple to the arts, lovingly restored to its bygone opulent glory, but newly enhanced by the technology and comforts of a fine modern theater.</p> Greg Morell <p>High, Low, Off&hellip; The Season turns</p> <p>It's a beautiful Thursday morning in late October. I'm standing outside the Art Association and Museum, closed during the week now, so I ring the bell and wait. I've come to take another look at an extraordinary collection of the paintings of Mary Hackett, worldly wise, wry, and yet, so poignant in their domestic truth, her world. She painted on Nickerson Street for more than 50 years. In a WOMR interview with Jay Critchley in 1983, she talked about having to escape from Provincetown in the summer, sometimes driving to New Bedford or Boston in the middle of the night. She said that the minute she got away, the weight of the world would fall from her shoulders. </p> Greg Morell