Museum of Modern Art

Directed by Susan Vogel (2011, 53 min.). Filmed over three years in Venice, Nsukka, and the United States, this is a powerful portrait of Africa’s most widely acclaimed contemporary artist El Anatsui. Fold Crumple Crush gives an insider’s view of the artist’s practice, the ingenious steps and thousands of hours of labor that convert used bottle tops into huge, opulent wall hangings. Anatsui explains how his artworks have become a marriage of painting and sculpture—objects that speak of African history but also reach for the ethereal—and he talks about his aspirations for artworks he has yet to make.

Founded in 1961 and opened in 1963, the American Folk Art Museum is considered the premier institution in the US devoted to the appreciation of traditional folk art and self-taught "outsider" artists. Unfortunately, about a decade ago, its reach exceeded its grasp. The museum commissioned and built a building that it could not pay for. After having sold its building to the adjacent MoMA to pay off its construction debt and recently moving to much reduced quarters, it now faces closure. Here is a case where more became much less.

Nelida Nassar provides an overview of cultural offerings for the week of August 15 to 21. From Harvard Film Archives to previews of the anticipated Broadway bound production of Porgy and Bess at American Repertory Theatre.

Trisha Brown’s pioneering dance style is a celebrated cornerstone of modern dance. August 10-14, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival salutes the 40th anniversary of the Trisha Brown Dance Company with a commemorative program of works highlighting Brown’s inventive choreographic range.

For the past few decades, cities and prominent institutions have focused on creation of iconic buildings by star architects to underscore their prominence. After three major attempts in the last 25 years, The Whitney Museum of American Art has given up on building expansion of their Marcel Breuer designed iconic structure and are building a new museum downtown in NYC's Meatpacking District. This is a major statement about institutional icons.

Otto Piene's close to 800 page monograph, by publisher Ante Glibota of Delight Edition, Paris, was recently introduced at City Hall in Duesseldorf, Germany. Now,a conference, honoring Otto Piene and his life's work, will be held at the Grand Palais in Paris, on May 17. It will be a grand affair!

It has taken longer than I recall, twenty-three years, for a major publication to be presented in Duesseldorf, Germany. The book was printed in Italy with 3000 exquisite illustrations; many photographs were never published before. The text is bilingual, English and German, and includes thirty-seven essays by internationally renowned art historians, art theorists and artists. These, of course, are in addition to Glibota and Piene's essays. The book is presented in 756 pages.

Kate McNamara has been appointed to the position of director and chief curator of the Boston University Art Gallery. She has experience curating at MoMA PS1 (Long Island City, NY), Cleopatra's (Brooklyn, NY), Ramapo College (Ramapo, NY).

The rituals of the Vienna Actionist, Hermann Nitsch, often entailed slaughtered animals, their blood and entrails, nude bodies and music which he composed. He is planning a major event in New York with the Mike Weiss Gallery.

In this installment, rural critic, Charles Giuliano, and metropolitan critic, Greg Book of the weekly, Boston Phoenix, compare and contrast issues of covering their arts communities. A primary difference is how the arts in the Berkshires are integral to driving the cultural economy. Cook comments on an uneasy relationship between museums and the community of local artists.

The AICA-USA awards ceremony, which has been held annually for more than 25 years, will take place at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art on March 14 2011 at 6 PM. Awards will be presented by a group of distinguished artists and curators. Elizabeth C. Baker will be honored with a special Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Field of Criticism. Museum curators, artists and critics from around the country are expected to attend.

Yet again the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is developing plans for a satellite museum. This time in Helsinki Finland. Former Guggenheim director, Tom Krens, initiated expansionist ambitions. Now they appear to continue under his successor Richard Armstrong.

In one of the most notable exhibitions of the season MoMA installed some 250 works, including a hundred paintings in Abstract Expressionist New York. The project was installed in the fourth floor galleries of its permanent collection. This is a fascinating but flawed overview of the New York School as seen through the narrow lens of generations of the museum's directors, trustees and curators. It has evoked a range of critical responses from praise to outrage.

The US section of the International Association of Art Critics/AICA-USA announces its annual awards to honor artists, curators, museums, galleries and other cultural institutions in recognition of excellence in the conception and realization of exhibitions. The winning projects were nominated and voted on by the 400 active members to honor outstanding exhibitions of the previous season (June 2009-June 2010).

The MIT List Visual Arts Center and the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston present the first museum survey of the work of media art pioneer Stan VanDerBeek (1927-1984). Surveying the artist's remarkable body of work in collage, experimental film, performance, participatory, and computer-generated art over several decades, Stan VanDerBeek: The Culture Intercom highlights the artist's pivotal contributions to today's media-based artistic practices.

A major exhibition of Walker Evans' photographs is currently being shown at Highgate Gallery in North London. University of East Anglia cultural historian Eric Homberger gave a lecture about the photographer and some of his most famous pieces. His speech gave a thorough interpretation, warts and all, of the prickly but precise photographic master.

In certain aspects of its collection, Old Kingdom Egypt and Asiatic Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is a world class museum. With the creation of the Art of the Americas wing the museum hopes to rank second to none among American museums. But, as the Bard would say, "What's in a name?" A closer look reveals formidable depth and glaring gaps in the attempt to cover 3,000 years of art on two continents.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum announces the nominees for Rob Pruitt’s 2010 Art Awards, the second annual celebration honoring the notable individuals, exhibitions, and projects that have made a significant contribution to the field of contemporary art during the past year. Awards in 14 categories will be presented at a fundraising event to benefit the Guggenheim Foundation and visual arts non-profit White Columns on Wednesday, December 8, 2010, at the nightclub and music venue Webster Hall.

Compared to Sweeney Todd the second production of the season at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield is as different as black and white. Well, more white on white actually. The Tony Award winning play by Yazmina Reza, Art, focuses on the divisive responses of two friends to a collector's acquisition of a minimalist painting. The evening of theater brings out the worst in everyone. To the amused delight of audiences.

Lester Johnson, who died recently at 91, was one of the leading artists of the Figurative Expressionist movement which developed in the 1950s and early 1960s. Much of this activity occurred at the Sun Gallery in Provincetown as well as in New York. The two other primary artists were Jan Muller who died in 1958 and Bob Thompson who was 29 when he died in 1966. Although there was no direct connection Figurative Expressionism saw related developments in San Francisco and Chicago. The movement was pushed aside with the emergence of Pop art then reformulated as Rhino Horn from 1967 to 1978.

Jacob’s Pillow kicks off Festival 2010 on June 19 with the Season Opening Gala, the world-renowned dance organization’s biggest annual fundraising event. Following an exclusive Gala performance in the Ted Shawn Theatre and the presentation of the prestigious Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award to choreographer and director Bill T. Jones, guests are treated to dinner and dancing to live music. This evening is widely celebrated as a signature summer event in the Berkshires and attracts a multitude of dance lovers, celebrities, government dignitaries, and visitors from around the world every year.

Originally constructed in the 1930s to lift dangerous freight trains off Manhattan's streets, the High Line is an abandoned elevated train track. When completed, this piece of dormant infrastructure will be a 1.5 mile public park running through Manhattan's Lower West Side neighborhoods. Created as an integrated landscape, designed by landscape architects James Corner Field Operations, with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the High Line combines meandering concrete pathways with naturalistic plantings. It is already an urban jewel.

Every three years, the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt has its Triennial. Every three years, it is a mix of truly good sometimes great design along with examples of eccentric sometimes simple-minded objects and systems. The jurying process has always been questionable and less than transparent. Too often it seems friends of friends are chosen. This year the Tricentennial of the Unites States' design museum has gone global with designs from both emerging and industrialized countries. No other country's design museum would feature foreign designers. Instead, they would celebrate their own country's best design and designers. In addition, the exhibit is rather strangely laid out, captioned to confuse and badly focused. Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

Jack Tworkov: Against Extremes / Five Decades of Painting is curated by Jason Andrew and presented in association with the Estate of Jack Tworkov. This major retrospective offers an extraordinary opportunity to experience many of the artist's most celebrated canvases. The exhibition includes important loans from private and public collections including The Cleveland Museum of Art and the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN). The show also features rarely exhibited works from the artist's estate, as well as works from Provincetown Art Association and Museum's own permanent collection.

Emily Fisher Landau, the noted philanthropist and art collector, and one of themost generous Whintny trustees, has made an important gift of 367 works of art, including works from the Fisher Landau Center for Art, that have been pledged to the Whitney Museum of American Art. The gift comprises works by nearly one hundred key figures in American art, including Carl Andre, Richard Artschwager, Carroll Dunham, William Eggleston, Peter Hujar, Jasper Johns, Glenn Ligon, Agnes Martin, Robert Rauschenberg, Susan Rothenberg, James Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha, Lorna Simpson, Kiki Smith, and Andy Warhol.