Institute of Contemporary Art

Made in Mexico presented the work of 20 Mexican and international artists whose work references Mexico through iconographic, architectural, and conceptual means as a way of addressing the increasingly complex relationship between globalism and national identity. This 2004 review was posted to Maverick Arts Magazine.

As a young artist in New York James Rosenquist supported himself by painting billboards. That informed his approach as a Pop artist. For a time in the 1960s I worked for him as a studio assistant. This review of the Guggenheim retrospective is reposted from a 2004 article in Maverick Arts Magazine.

During a 2002 tour of the Rhine we visited Wiesbaden to view the special exhibition of work by the American artist Eva Hesse. This review is reposted from Maverick Arts Magazine.

Painting in Boston: 1950-2000 was presented at DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park . This review is reposted from Maverick Arts Magazine.

In 2001 the Museum of Fine Arts paid tribute to women in "A Studio of Her Own: Women Artists in Boston, 1870-1940." This review is reposted from Maverick Arts Magazine.

Meg White runs the day to day operation of the formidable Gallery Naga on Newbury Street. Founded as a cooperative gallery in 975 that changed when Arthur Dion took over in 1982. He pursued a mandate to represent Boston artists. A close working relationship and ready access to their studios was essential to his approach to representation. In 2005 we met to discuss his take on the Boston art world.

A couple of years ago Jane Farver retired as director of the List Center for the Visual Arts at MIT. That means that she no longer makes that weekly commute from Queens. This piece was originally posted to Maverick Arts.

The figurative artist, Chawky Frenn, has followed 100 Boston Painters with 100 Boston Artists. The books are handsomely designed and printed with superb reproductions. Although he consulted with many experts in the field he made the final selections. This has resulted in an eccentric and uneven overview with a mix of major and minor artists. One of the strong points of the second volume is a fresh and insightful critical essay by Debbie Hagan the former editor of Art New England.

We first saw works by Jeffrey Gibson at Boston's Samson Projects. I included Gibson in a four man exhibition Native New Yorkers with Jason Lujan, Peter Jemison and Mario Martinez. Later he was in a group show at the Aldrich Museum and is currently featured at the ICA. A solo exhibition Jeffrey Gibson: Said the Pigeon to the Squirrel, is on view at the National Gallery in New York to Sept. 8, 2013.

This group show honors local artists Sarah Bapst, Katarina Burin, Mark Cooper and Luther Price On the messy, shambolic, expressive side we have the males. These comprise Cooper's organic and crudely handmade sculptural forms and Price's soiled, gritty, gestural abstract slide shows. The women are the cerebral members of this foursome, with Bapst's conceptual take on monochromatic, minimalist sculpture and Burin's dry and deceptively meta-textual installation concerning a forgotten architect.

After seven years at the Institute of Contemporary Art, two of them as interim director, Christine McCarthy took a fifty percent pay cut to join the Provincetown Art Association and Museum as its director. Since 2001 she raised $8 to expand and renovate the Century plus institution. On her watch space has doubled with triple the budget, membership, and collection. This is the first of several installments of an extensive dialogue.

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston presents Jeffrey Gibson, Love Song—the first solo museum exhibition of the New York-based artist. Gibson’s paintings and sculptures deftly bring together geometric abstract painting with Native American visual traditions.

Perfumes, fragrances and scents are everywhere in our lives - natural and artificial ones! The Museum of Arts and Design in New York challenges the American public for the first time to recognize creators and creations: Fragrances - as artists and 'Olfactory Art.' The Art of Scent exhibition presents convincingly developments of the last 125 years in the perfume industry, and fragrances that had the most impact over time.

This article originally appeared in Maverick Arts a site prior to Berkshire Fine Arts in 2006. Because of the continued interest in contemporary Chinese art by Mass MoCA is has been reposted. The museum is currently showing Xu Bing. This article has a link to a recent exhibition of work by Ping in New York.

There are ways to consume culture at affordable prices. There are half price tickets for Broadway shows and lawn access at Tanglewood. A movie costs about ten bucks or you can see it on Netflix. Kids pirate downloaded music and videos. But it takes deep pockets to travel the world visiting great monuments and museums. Only the mega rich can afford to own the contemporary art displayed in galleries and museums. For social and economic reasons the fine arts are more elitist and esoteric than other art forms. Then there are matters of taste- High Brow, Middle Brow and Kitsch.

Sarah Bapst, Katarina Burin, Mark Cooper, and Luther Price were named finalists for the 2013 James and Audrey Foster Prize, the ICA's biennial award and exhibition program for Boston-area artists, the museum announced today. Bapst, Burin, Cooper, and Price will participate in an exhibition organized by Helen Molesworth, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, on view at the ICA from May 1 through July 21, 2013.

Otávio and Gustavo Pandolfo bring their hip-hop style from Brazil in their first U.S. Museum Exhibition, occupying Dewey Square in a whole new way with a controversial mural, while charming with their showcase at the ICA Boston With Os Gemeos, the real controversy is how anyone could see the playing child in the mural and not smile.

For 71 minutes I got religion while completely absorbed by the Shaker inspired Borrowed Light a collaboration between Tero Saarinen Company and The Boston Camerata. The 2004 work had its 2006 U.S. premiere at Jacob's Pillow and has returned via "popular demand" for Pillow's 80th season. It was a stunning highlight of an anniversary celebration.

Through delicate glass vessels and metal chandeliers weighing several hundred pounds, Josiah McElheny ponders infinity across a variety of reflective surfaces at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art through October 14th.

From the Colonial Era through the present Boston has been notable for its passion and commitment to painters. The artist Chawky Freen has succeeded in the daunting challenge of publishing an overview of 100 Boston Painters. This is an invaluable contribution to an aspect of contemporary art in Boston.

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.), Huntington Theatre Company, and the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston announce additional events and offerings as part of the third Emerging America— an annual festival featuring groundbreaking performance by American artists June 21 to 24.

Between 1893 and 1895, Edvard Munch, 30 when he started the cycle, made four versions of "The Scream." It has proved to be one of the most iconic images of modern art. Three of the paintings are owned by museums in Norway. Two have been stolen and since recovered. The fourth, a pastel version from 1895, the last in private hands, set a new auction record this week at $120 million. That's a lot of cash for high anxiety.

The Cindy Sherman restrospective at MoMA is a must see knockout. It demonstrates why she is among the most successful and widely appreciated artists of her generation. While following the simple premise of photographing herself in a range of setting and personas there has been a remarkable ongoing evolution theough the work.

Two new exhibitions open Aug. 1 at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. The ICA is presenting the first solo U.S. museum exhibition of Brazilian street artists Os Gêmeos and work by Dianna Molzan who is creating an all new body of work for ICA exhibition

Numerous unique events in Boston this week. Maestro Bernard Haitink leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven’s warm and ever-popular Pastoral Symphony. Handel and Hayden presents the memorable Mozart Coronation. The Celebrity Series showcases at Jordan Hall: Emerson String Quartet, Boston Philharmonic Orchestra ends its season with Mahler Triumphant! ArtsEmerson presents Hershey Felder in Maestro: Leonard Bernstein while The Luck of the Irish final weeks continue at the Huntington Theatre. The Institute of Contemporary Art presents the 49th Ann Arbor Film Festival of animation and technical innovation.