Visual Arts

Book Review: Catching Up with Minor White’s Off-Beat Journal

March 3, 2025
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Minor White’s autobiographical undertaking lacks diaristic narrative. There’s too much neurotic navel-gazing too much of the time. Yet it is very appealing as a twisted personal miscellany whose contents range from summaries of sex dreams to snarky letters that were never sent.

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Book Reviews: Three Very Different Architecture Books

February 21, 2025
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A trio of reviews of volumes on structures on paper and in the world.

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Visual Arts Review: “The Art of Looking” — The Evolution of Harvard’s Art History Department

February 15, 2025
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The show may be a case of inside baseball, appealing to a small group of art history majors and museum lovers. But it offers a fascinating look at innovation at one of the country’s most revered, and most traditional, colleges.

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Visual Arts Review: “Cat Mazza: Network” — Weaving Technology and Tradition in Political Art

February 10, 2025
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This show uses an impressively clever use of technology to create sign posts on a path through labor history, psychiatry, and textile design.

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Book Review: “Leonardo da Vinci — An Untraceable Life”

February 3, 2025
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This book is an anti-biography that argues Leonardo had little interest in autobiographical self-promotion and claims that the many gaps in the historical record prevent him from cohering as a biographical subject

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Visual Arts Review: Joana Choumali — No End of Stuff

January 30, 2025
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This show is proof of the Harvard Art Museums’ commitment to display relevant work by living artists who are grappling with critical issues posed by our contemporary world.

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Arts Commentary: Candy Rappers of 2024 — Remembering Candy Darling

January 9, 2025
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It is clear to Candy Darling’s biographer that the present moment contains alarming reminders of the political scapegoating generated by the culture wars of the ’90s. She leaves no doubt that her subject’s difficult, complicated life embodies a cautionary tale.

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Visual Arts Review: “Lighting the Way — South Coast Women’s Lives, Labors, Love”

January 6, 2025
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This exhibition offers much to appreciate about South Coast women, whose lives and accomplishments have played a crucial role in shaping the region.

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Visual Arts Interview: Photographer Barry Schneier on his Exhibit “The Song Is Still Being Written: The Folk Music Portrait Project”

January 3, 2025
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When Barry Schneier felt it was time for his next photography project about musicians, he decided to get to know his subjects, not just shoot them.

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Visual Arts Review: A Trio of Shows at the Griffin Museum of Photography

December 22, 2024
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A look at three exhibitions of photography — two of them shine a revealing light on personal and political concerns.

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