Visual Arts
“Galileo’s Muse” is a gem of a book: shedding new light on a figure as well-examined as Galileo is no simple task. Author Mark Peterson does so with aplomb, while also telling a fascinating story of the evolution of mathematics and the arts.
Read MoreMan Ray | Lee Miller, Partners in Surrealism explores the relationship between two of the most celebrated surrealists of the 20th century, but the pattern of influence comes off as revealingly lopsided — the female artist of the pair more often than not inspired the male.
Read MorePart of the great experiment that is Artisan’s Asylum: meeting your neighbors, realizing you need someone to help you solder/weld/create a 3d prototype, and then wandering amongst the open workspaces until you meet a co-collaborator.
Read MoreThis is the fourth installment of Debra Cash’s coverage of events associated with the Institute of Contemporary Art’s Dance/Draw exhibition.
Read MoreWendy Artin is not just about representation. Her paintings bring up all sorts of questions about the complexities of beauty. How do we build up beauty from matter? What happens to beauty over time? Does an object lose its beauty when time wears away at it?
Read MoreInescapably erotic, flowers are all about desire. What are they but a glorious exhibition and frame of their own genitals?
Read MoreWhat makes one opinion better than another? (Some opinions have been challenged more than others. Tested opinions are worth more than untested ones.) Can’t one enjoy an aesthetic experience without having to put it into words? (Absolutely, but those of us who write art criticism don’t have the luxury.)
Read More“Dance/Draw” at the ICA is a major exhibit about how moving bodies leave traces, what curator Helen Molesworth, not particularly originally, calls the “afterlife of dance.” To a lesser extent, it’s also about how visual artists think about motion when they’re not focused on particular bodies.
Read MoreComparing Rick Berry’s expressionist paintings with Damon Lehrer’s exquisitely rendered, classical and contemplative work made me wonder about the expressionist style in general. By this I mean that artistic terrain where the passions, vehemence, or ferocity of the artist so colors the work as to form a powerful but distorting lens through which we see the work.
Read MoreThe astonishing exhibition “Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge” has the strange beauty and density of a scientific diagram or star chart. You can’t examine it deeply all at once. It is best to take a certain reading, see what questions arise, and go off to your lair to think.
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