Peter Walsh
Cohen devotes little space to Bernard Berenson’s art historical methodology, now largely superseded by modern approaches. She relates Berenson’s less admirable qualities without judging them.
Read MoreIn some ways, Jonathan Jones’ narrative structure works against his strengths. Highly respected as a critic, he is an energetic and engaging writer and excels at what art historians call “close looking,” where he guides the reader line by line, brush stroke by brush stroke, through a work of art.
Read MoreThe month’s standouts include Nick Cave’s Soundsuits at the Peabody-Essex Museum and two exhibitions at MassMoCA.
Read MoreStandout exhibitions starting up in January include a show that celebrates Islamic Art at Harvard’s Sackler Museum.
Read MoreHighlights this month in museums around New England include an exhibition of poetic and playful furniture, photographs and videos that radically rethink how a museum should treat art objects, and a show featuring an African artist who specializes in large, shimmering sculptures composed of recycled liquor bottle tops. By Peter Walsh. The van Otterloo Collection,…
Read MoreThe mad rush to digitization brings up another host of new issues. Unlike a printed book, digital media requires a change of technologies—computers, software, imaging—to interpret the information. Will digitization serve the long-term interests of knowledge as well as the media it is replacing? It’s unlikely. By Peter Walsh. When we look back from, say,…
Read MoreMany museums slow up and party like the rest of us this month, but there are a few new exhibitions worth a look, some offering visuals that brim over with good cheer, such as a collection of handmade holiday cards, others displaying a more violent view of humanity, such as “Goya and the Bullfight.” By…
Read MoreBy Peter Walsh Charles LeDray, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Boston, MA, July 16 through October 17 New York sculptor Charles LeDray is known for making very, very tiny things—especially men’s clothing—with fanatical precision and craftsmanship. Something about them fascinates. A British critic has compared his elaborate, Liliputian arrangements to “the model tankers and cruise…
Read MoreThe narrative turns out to have the blandly cheerful tone and slightly stilted prose of an official biography: the sort of thing with the CEO’s picture on the cover, given out at stockholders meetings. Chuck Close: Life, by Christopher Finch. Prestel, 352 pages, $34.95. Reviewed by Peter Walsh In these media-saturated, image-obsessed times, every public…
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