Opinion
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Painters Andrew Forge and David Row
Exhibitions in New York and Maine
By: - Aug 14th, 2021Here Martin Mugar considers two abstract painters. The gesture of Forge is one of the traditional hand-application of the brush to canvas. The notion of a painting existing in time took on some meaning when I saw the show of David Row at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art. It is probably one of the more perfect installations I have ever seen.
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The Scream, Sunflowers, and Mona Lisa
Gone Baby Gone
By: - Aug 09th, 2021It happened during the last week in June. Two prominent paintings by 20th-century masters were recovered nearly a decade after they had been stolen from a gallery in Athens. A contractor was arrested for committing what had become a notoriously audacious theft of works by Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian.
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New Public Art
Past, Present, and Future Ghosts of the Imagination
By: - Aug 09th, 2021For many, public art conjures up images of bronze statues of a soldier on horseback, images of historically significant and/or forgotten politicians or leaders, or symbolic (often mythological) figures of metaphoric significance. But these days public art takes a wide variety of sizes, shapes, and forms. It can be temporary or permanent.
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Covid and Interconectedness of Life
Reconsidering the Social Contract
By: - Aug 08th, 2021Everyone has an absolute right to place their own lives in danger. The Darwin Award was created to recognize such people posthumously. But no one has the right to place anyone else’s life in danger. To do so is selfish and ignorant. Even freedom has its limits – – fire in a crowded theater, for instance.
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ArtWeek Berkshires
September 16-26, 2021
By: - Aug 04th, 2021ArtWeek Berkshires is a collaboration among Berkshire County’s five cultural districts (Great Barrington, Lenox, Pittsfield, North Adams, Williamstown), supported by 1Berkshire and the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, with media support from Berkshire Magazine and Lamar.
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The Medici Portraits and Politics
Daniel Kershaw Installs Masterpieces at the Met
By: - Jul 08th, 2021A major exhibition of portrait painting spanning the decades between 1512-1570, seems to me a risky proposition. A great idea for scholars, students and serious amateurs of art history, but usually not a show that would attract the general public. This one is different, thanks in part to a first-rate installation by Daniel Kershaw, the Met’s senior exhibition designer.
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Mount's Summer Lecture Series
Women on Women
By: - Jun 22nd, 2021The Mount, Edith Wharton’s Home announces its line-up for the 2021-2021 Summer Lecture Series. Now in its 28th year, the Summer Lecture series bring leading biographer and historians to the Berkshires. This year’s series will New York Times bestselling author Janice P. Nimura, Pulitzer-prize winner author Debby Applegate, and Biographer Sydney Ladensohn Stern.
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Chinese Strikebreakers in North Adams
75 Men Labored in Shoe Factory at Half Wages
By: - Jun 15th, 2021On June 13 in 1870, a train arrived in North Adams with 75 young men from China hired to replace striking shoe workers. Over 2,000 people watched as the men walked to the factory under police escort. The crowd was hostile, but there was no violence. The Chinese proved to be both cheaper and more efficient than the union shoe workers they replaced.
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Making Connections
Materiality, French Deconsturtionists to Ha Chong Yuan
By: - Jun 06th, 2021Almost a year after I wrote my essay in 2013 on Zombie Abstraction I got an email from Mark Stone at https://henrimag.com/ that I had received confirmation of my role in coining the term Zombie Formalism from “Art in America” critic Raphael Rubinstein in an article he wrote in that magazine on French postmodernist thinking and French abstraction:"Theory and Matter."
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Homo Electric by Steve Nelson
Rethinking Human Evolution
By: - Apr 29th, 2021Based on past and current research Steve Nelson posits that the designation for our species Homo sapiens be upgraded to Homo electric. While human anatomy evolves at a glacial rate the species responds to cultural and technological developments. None more-so than diverse uses of electricity. Prior to which we communicated face to face or by snail mail. It took weeks for news to travel across our nation. The telegraph changed that followed by the Atlantic Cable, wireless and telephones. During the pandemic kids are educated through remote learning and parents work from home. We have evolved through our electronic devices.
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Living Without Fear
Our Place in the World
By: - Apr 18th, 2021Laozi says the great Way is easy. Once we find our place in the world, and learn to live in harmony with it, this may be true. Part of finding our place, though, is living without fear.
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Groupmuse Now Musician Owned Cooperative
Inspired by Covid
By: - Mar 10th, 2021Groupmuse, the community-building startup that aims to adapt the concert experience, announced their plan to become a musician-owned cooperative. They have assembled a Founding Council made up of ten diverse young musician activists. ranging from international prize-winners, to artists who have played over 150 concerts through Groupmuse, to social justice activists fighting to bring about a more equitable and inclusive concert music ecosystem.
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New Directions Publishers
Great Books New Looks
By: - Mar 08th, 2021When James Laughlin founded New Directions he wanted the company to be a place where writers could carry out their experiments in print. His initial mission was simple: introduce American readers to international, modernist writers who could not get their work published in the United States--Dylan Thomas, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Henry Miller, Vladimir Nabokov (Laughlin rejected his scandalous blockbuster, Lolita!), and many more. "These writers were really radical,” says publisher Barbara Epler. Today they are part of the canon. Indeed, they are its twentieth-century core.
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MASS MoCA Workers Form a Union
Pandemic Eroded Job Security
By: - Mar 08th, 2021MASS MoCA staff petitioned the National Labor Relations Board today, March 8th, for a union election. The unit includes curators, art fabricators, educators, facilities, other front-facing staff, and more.
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Zoom Readings at the Mount
Celebrating Women's History Month
By: - Mar 01st, 2021This March, journalist Julie Scelfo will be hosting conversations about extraordinary women from the nineteenth century who have helped shape the American story with their achievements. The events will occur free on Zoom.
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Thoughts on a New BSO CEO
Gail Samuel Arrives from Los Angeles
By: - Feb 18th, 2021The Boston Symphony Orchestra is taking a big step toward its future with the appointment of Gail Samuel to succeed Mark Volpe this June, just in time for Tanglewood.
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Jazz Pianist Chick Corea at 79
From Chelsea to the Berkshires
By: - Feb 12th, 2021The jazz pianist, Chick Corea, has died at 79 not long after the diagnosis of a rare cancer. His impact and influence was enormous with a career that included almost 90 albums for which he was awarded 23 Grammys as well as three Latin Grammys. He grew up in Chelsea a blue collar Boston neighborhood. We last heard him in the Berkshires at Tanglewood in 2016.
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Chinese New Year
Year of the Ox
By: - Feb 02nd, 2021The Chinese New Year is Friday, February 12, the Year of The Ox. To those who celebrate, Xinnian Kuaile.
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Arts Critic Sandy Katz at 80
Traveling Sandy Was an ATCA Member
By: - Jan 13th, 2021Sandy Katz, a theatre critic and travel writer from Charleston, Carolina, busted out with charisma and personality. Dubbed “Traveling Sandy” her bags were always packed for any destination.
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Berkshire Based Blue Heron Gallery Online
Launched January 13 With Work by Galen Cheney
By: - Jan 07th, 2021During the Covid pandemic artists continue to work. Exhibitions, however, have been cancelled. To meet a need Michael McGrath an entrepreneur and designer has created Blue Heron Gallery Online. The Berkshire based site will offer online exhibitions as well as options for a range of services from PDF and print catalogues to promotional and marketing strategies. Visitors to the exhibition have easy access to make "go to cart" purchases. The gallery will launch with an exhibition by Galen Cheney from January 13 through February 12.
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2021
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NY Art Critic Barbara Rose at 84
My Former Editor
By: - Dec 28th, 2020Initially when she married Frank Stella, the critic Barbara Rose embraced minimalism and formalism. She curated, promoted and wrote about an emerging generation of abstract artists, formalists, and women artists starting with Helen Frankenthaler. She could be quirky, wielding power that attracted friends and enemies. We never met or even spoke but she invited me to write for The Arts Newspaper (London and New York) for which she was an editor. She has died at 84.
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Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia
Riveting Nine Hour Trilogy of 19th Century Russians
By: - Dec 27th, 2020Recently I had a chance to revisit the most spectacular theater experience I’ve ever had. It took place on a weekend in February 2007. Over the course of two days, I experienced all nine hours of The Coast of Utopia, Tom Stoppard’s trilogy on 19th century Russian intellectuals and revolutionaries.
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Shakespeare & Company Greetings
If music be the food of love, play on
By: - Dec 18th, 2020Holiday greetings from Allyn Burrows the artistic director of Shakespeare & Company. With hope for a New Year and a lively summer season.
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The National Endowment for the Humanities Grants
$32.8 Million to Support 213 Projects in 44 States
By: - Dec 16th, 2020The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today announced $32.8 million in grants to support 213 humanities projects in 44 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
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