Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Lumbee Indian, Lloyd Oxendine, who died on August 5, held a BA in art history from Columbia where he also earned an MFA. From 1970-78 he ran a New York gallery dedicated to Native American Art. In 1972 he wrote what proved to be most of an issue of Art in American surveying 23 artists. For many years he was a brilliant and outspoken activist.

I have known and much appreciated the witty and whimsical artist Raeford Liles since the 1960s. He was represented by the East Hampton Gallery when I worked there. Some years ago the artist returned to Birmingham, Alabama where he grew up. Now in assisted living his family has been working to catalog, archive and preserve decades of his work. From this extensive project has emerged the publication of a series of digital prints from his inspired Greek Pots series.

In this installment of an extensive interview the pratfalls of modern and contemporary art in Boston are explored. It was a peripheral topic in Belinda Rathbone's biography of her father, former MFA director, Perry T. Rathbone.

The Boston Raphael is the first major book on the Museum of Fine Arts since Walter Muir Whitehill's centennial history in 1970. This is part one of an in dept interview with biographer Belinda Rathbone about the New York Times best selling profile of her father, former MFA director, Perry T. Rathbone.

In its new, enlarged, and enhanced space, The Cooper-Hewitt Museum has increased its ability to present provocative and compelling perspectives on design. At its best, this museum pays homage to design as if it was great art: visitors are infused with delight and a sense of wonder by what design was, is, and what it means in our lives.

The School of Paris, particularly Picasso and Matisse, with sidebars on Georges Braque, Juan Gris and Fernand Leger are the heart and soul of museum and gallery exhibitions during the busy holiday season. These show provide invlauable insights to the issues of cubism and abstract art in the 20th century.

Recently we were among the 1.3 million annual visitors to the Getty Center in California. The Richard Meier designed complex opened in 1997 at a cost of some $1.3 billion. While spectacular in scale and cliff top site the museum is oddly generic displaying a thin permanent collection with a handful of very expensive acquisitions through some curatorial hanky panky.

Once inside the Mother Cabrini sanctuary I found myself transfixed by her mummified corpse. I wondered: How does anyone worship God in this space? What is it like to take communion with a mummified corpse in the same room? Then I noticed the late afternoon light pouring through the stain glass representation of her on the back wall of the sanctuary. The light poured across the room with the full spectrum of color, it flooded the pews, and led my eye back to her remains.

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Since it opened in 1955 with a superb permanent collection the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute has long been regarded among America's finest regional museums. With a $145 expansion and renovation designed by Tadao Ando the Clark is now a whole lot more fabulous. Combined with nearby Mass MoCA, Williams College, and the Wlliamstown Theatre Festival the Northern Berkshires are an even better first class arts desitinaton.

After extensive renovation and expansion the Clark Art Institute reopens this summer. Much is being made of how its Tadeo Ando designed low lying horizontal line and large reflecting pool embrace nature and the background rolling mountain range. The paradigm for architecture set into natural surroundings, however, is the Moshe Safdie design for Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, Arkansas. It is nestled into a ravine with a series of pontoon "bridges." The museum which opened on 11/11/11 has some 500,000 annual visitors for its controversial collection of American art.

Nashville is rightly known as The Music City. Since 2001, with the opening of the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in a former art deco post office the city is also a regional destination for world class art exhibitions. Meeting with museum staff we discussed how a non collecting institution, a kunsthalle, manages to leverage major loans and traveling exhibitions. Primarily this is done by original scholarly work and publications as well as building relationships with partnering museums.

Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through April 6 is the most compelling and insightful contemporary exhibition currently on view in New York museums. Unquestionably some of the most important work of the past few years has been created by Chinese artists. There are 70 works on view by 35 artists in this fascinating exhibition.

Dream surrealism has always been accessible to the general public. During the Holiday season in New York, through January 12, there is an intriguing double header. The relatively small but concise "Balthus: Cats and Girls — Paintings and Provocations" is on view at the Metropolitan while "Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938" is featured at the Museum of Modern Art.

Regular visitors to the Museum of Fine Arts were readily familiar with many of the works in the 2006 traveling exhibition Americans in Paris 1860-1900. Its renowned permanent collection was augmented with loans of masterpieces including Whistler's Mother and Madame X by Sargent. This review is reposted from Maverick Arts Magazine.

The Combines of Robert Rauschenberg, as presented in this traveling exhibition., were among the most powerful and influential works of his generation. This articles is reported from Maverick Arts Magazine.

As research for the exhibition Native New Yorkers we interviewed artists, a curator and collector. We found that questions led every deeper into a richly diverse and little understood field of contemporary art. The article is reposted from Maverick Arts Magazine.

Lowery Siums was the first African American curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Later she was the director of the Studio Museum in Harlem. We met for lunch in Chelsea followed by a visit to the exhibition of our mutual friend Jaune Quick To See Smith at Flomenhaft Gallery. This article was posted to Maverick Arts Magazine in 2005.

Not long after Camilo Alvarez founded Samson Projects in Boston's South End in 2005 we met for a beer and burger. It launched a series of meetings and articles with a range of artists, curators and gallerists. For their historical interest they are being reposted from Maverick Arts Magazine.

The artist Martin Mugar recently visited the modern and contemporary galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He discusses the challenge of emergring from the shadow of the renowned artists on view. As well as releasing the muse of his own limitations.

Kapoor in Berlin (closing November 24) is a show I had looked forward to seeing, and it did not disappoint. Anish Kapoor (born 1954 in Mumbai; British citizen, recently knighted) creates massive sculptures from different materials that vary from forms that look like prehistoric rock formations, to highly reflective steel, to sticky red wax. Two years ago I was delightfully overwhelmed with his Cloud Gate, 2004-06, installed at the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park in Chicago.

We met with Native American artist Lloyd Oxendine in his New York apartment in 2006. He related early efforts to promote the artists of his heritage in the 1960s and 1970s. Recently we learned that not long after the interview the artist became homeless and nothing has been heard from him since then. In 1985 he became Director/Curator of New York's American Indian Community House (AICH) Gallery/Museum. During his tenure he organized some 40 exhibitions and worked to promote reviews and sales.

Michelle Dorrance, Artistic Director of Dorrance Dance, is lauded as "one of the most imaginative tap choreographers working today” (The New Yorker). A 2012 Princess Grace Award Winner, 2012 Field Dance Fund Recipient, and 2011 Bessie Award Winner, Dorrance is among the world’s most sought after tap performers, teachers, and choreographers today.

The American Chapter of the International Society of Art Critics (AICA) announces its annual awards. There are a number of categories from site specific works to gallery and museum exhibitions.

Jaune Quick to See Smith is one of the foremost Native American artists of her generation. She will exhibit work on the theme of Water and War at the Accola Griefen Gallery in New York City from February 28 through April 6.