Museum of Fine Arts

The 7th Annual season of The Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF) will celebrate this year with the latest in independent feature, documentary, short and family films. The festival runs from May 31 – June 3, 2012 in Great Barrington and June 1 – June 3rd in Pittsfield, MA and will be showcasing over 70 films in independent filmmaking.

The eminent curator and author Edward Maeder will lead a three-day seminar at Berkshire Botanical Gardens (BBG) with lectures on "The Rose in Art and Fashion—700 Years", and "Gardens in the Decorative Arts". The lectures will be followed by hands-on demonstrations and workshops: "Exploring Paper Possibilities with Collage and Floral Inspiration". The events will be held June 12 to 14, at BBG, 5 West Stockbridge Road, Stockbridge, Massachusetts 01262

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 7th Annual season of The Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF) will celebrate this year with the latest in independent feature, documentary, short and family films. The festival runs from May 31 – June 3, 2012 in Great Barrington and June 1 – June 3rd in Pittsfield, MA and will be showcasing over 70 films in independent filmmaking.

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.

Beyond King Tut and Cleopatra most folks know little or nothing about the thirty dynasties and 3000 years of Ancient Egyptian Art. The Met's special exhibition The Dawn of Egyptian Art provides a tantalizing encounter with the esoteric era prior to and during the founding dynasties.

A flurry of activities in both Boston and Cambridge this week. Do not miss the Elliot Norton laureate William Kentridge will present his animated films at the Harvard Archives. The Jewish film festival promises a variety of special movies. Maestro Bernard Haitink will conduct at the Boston Symphony Orchestra Mendelssohn’s incidental music to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Institute of Contemporary Art & World Music/CRASHARTS showcases the unforgettable India Jazz Suites: Kathak Meets Tap.

Do not miss Huntington Theatre Company opening of The Luck of the Irish. The American Repertory Theater continues its creative & invigorating Futurity: A Musical by the Lisps. The Boston Symphony Orchestra presents Ravel, Salonen and Stravinsky under the baton of the acclaimed maestro Esa-Pekka Salonen while the Celebrity Series features the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. The Harvard Film Archives showcases three exceptional films by Michael Glawogger and The Museum of Fine Arts presents films on Gerhard Richter Painting and Hollywood Scriptures series.

Ed Pincus films at the Harvard Archives while the Turkish film festival continues at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The American Repertory Theater showcases Futurity: A Musical by the Lisps and the Boston Symphony Orchestra presents Brahms: A German Requiem. Leon Kirchner’s opera, Lily (a musical adaptation of Saul Bellow’s novel Henderson, the Rain King) will be performed at the New England Conservatory First Monday at Jordan Hall. Happy Passover and Happy Easter.

The Danforth Museum in Framingham, Mass. is accepting on line applications for it's annual juried exhibition through April 4. There are links in this letter that will take interested artists to the museum's website.

The American Repertory Theater presents Futurity: A Musical by The Lisps while the Huntington Theatre Company features Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and The Luck of the Irish. The Boston Turkish Film Festival continues at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The Harvard Film Archives presents a retrospective on Carmelo Bene. The Coolidge Corner Theater features “She Stoops to Conquer” a play from the National Theater in London. The Boston Symphony Orchestra welcomes Orchestra Greek violinist and conductor Leonidas Kavados.

If you missed their now legendary gig at Mass MoCA in January there is another opportunity for the senior set to cheer on the antique rockers Jane and Jeff Hudson in a rave-up at the Williams Inn on April 21. Don't miss this vintage, synth/ pop rock, dance music.

Adding to the world class film banquet of greater Boston, the Goethe-Institut Boston and the Coolidge Corner Theatre have partnered to present provocative new films from Germany highlighting young directors who, with their first or second features, demonstrate that there is more to New German Cinema than just the Oscar-winning The Lives of Others. Monthly Sunday Matinees showcase a sampling of new and award-winning German films rarely shown outside Europe.

Claude Gosselin has been the artistic director for La Biennale de Montreal. His recent projects have focused on new and digital media attracting a younger audience. As an authority on contemporary Canadian art he is skeptical about the survey of 65 Canadian artists planned for Mass MoCA this summer. He also sees paradigm shifts for museums scrambling to attract declining audiences for the visual arts.

This summer Mass MoCA will present a survey of 65 Canadian artists curated by Denise Markonish. Recently we spoke at length with the leading Canadian curator Claude Gosselin who has organized major thematic exhibitions combining Canadian and international artists since 1985. His 2011 La Biennale de Montréal may have been his last. He plans to continue Centre international d'art contemporain de Montréal (CIAC) with a refocused program.

“We have been delighted, and a bit overwhelmed, by the tremendous reception the Clark’s paintings have received at each of our European venues,” said Michael Conforti, director of the Clark. “The notion of one million people viewing these paintings over the last 14 months is truly rewarding. The tour has allowed us to share our collection with an audience that may not have the opportunity to visit the Berkshires, and it has allowed us to share the Berkshires with the world.”

It is where the Boston Pops play on July 4th each year. The 101 year old beautiful 2.5 mile linear waterside park hugging the Charles River has been in part loved, if not to death, then to decrepitude. It needs to be enhanced-- refreshed, refurbished and restored. With this in mind, a number of like-minded designers led by The Esplanade Association decided to do something about it. After 25 months and countless hours of research, design and meetings, the Esplanade 20/20 vision is finally unveiled.

Many wonderful things to do during a cold winter week: The Goethe Institute launches a primary source concert series: between house and stage – public and private music making in the 18th century. The Boston Symphony Orchestra proposes a special Valentine evening of Gastronomy and Music and free chorale masterpieces. The Boston Celebrity Series presents Soweto Gospel Choir. The American Repertory Theatre premieres “Wild Swans,” a journey from the early days of Communist hope and struggle in China, through the chaos and confusion of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. and much more to warm your heart and mind.

Not to be missed Stephen Petronio’s Boston Premiere: performance of dance, music and visual imagery at the Institute of Contemporary Art; Emanuel Ax at Boston Symphony Orchestra; Sérgio and Odair Assad, duo guirtarits and Soweto Gospel Choir presented by Boston Celebrity Series. The Harvard Film Archives features live Director David Gatten in conversation with Curator Mark McElhatten. The Museum of Fine Arts presents a film on Boston College. The Boston Ballet showcases three ballets: Les Sylphides by Fokine, Polyphonia by Wheeldon and Symphony in Three Movements by Balanchine.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra features the cellist Gautier Capuçon while the Boston Conservatory Theatre presents The child Spells by Ravel. The Harvard Film Archives showcases Robert Fenz films with the director in person while the Museum of Fine Arts presents animation by Castles in the Sky: Miyazaki, Takahata, and the Masters of Studio Ghibli.

Some 200 senior citizens stayed up late last night at Mass MoCA to cheer on their peers Jane and Jeff Hudson. They were cool to the point of stoic performing loud synthrock with pulsing, robotic, rhythm tracks. The occasion marked the re-release of their 30-year-old indy album Flesh. It was a fun night.

The ICA has two extraordinary programs not to be missed: Dance/Draw exhibition and Trisha Brown Floor to Forrest performance final week as well as Andy’s Warhol: God Squad’s Kitchen that showed to sold-out performance in New York. The Harvard Film Archives presents three films by directors Dominik Graf, Christian Petzold and Christoph Hochhäusler the result of their correspondence on the subjects of film aesthetics, the Berlin School, Germany and the film genre. Music can be heard at the MFA: J.S. Bach: The Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord and at the venerable Symphony Orchestra with excerpts of Weber, Beethoven, Harbison & Strauss.

A short week with few events but still worth enjoying art, music, film and culture in Beantown.

In 1952 a remarkable painting "Mountains and Sea" placed a recent Bennington College graduate, Helen Frankenthaler, in a position of innovator of what critic/ boyfriend, Clement Greenberg, dubbed Post-Painterly Abstraction. The movement is more widely known as Color Field Painting. We discussed her work in 1981 during an exhibition at the Rose Art Museum. At 83 she died on December 27.

Greatly strengthening an extremely thin area of its American collection, the Boston MFA acquisition of works by major African-American artists includes 67 works from collector John Axelrod. Now the Boston institution holds one of the major groupings of African-American Art anywhere. Axelrod is selling the works to the MFA at below market values, between $5 million and $10 million.