Visual Arts

Visual Arts: Cleaning the Eighth Wonder of the World

May 10, 2011
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Before we hit the ground, I reversed my attitude and became a fan of the restoration of the Dutch royal palace on Dam Square, Amsterdam. I could not fault the decisions that had been taken.

Visual Arts: Pythagoras Returns — Sound Sculpture at Kendall T Stop Chimes Again (Revised)

May 5, 2011
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What the artist didn’t count on was the popularity of the Kendall Band, coupled with its fragility relative to the strength and number of its users, would result in frequent breakdowns. The Kendall Band was the only interactive piece of public art in the MBTA’s “Arts on the Line” program, and the agency had no…

Coming Attractions: Jazz Week 2011 — Spreading the Word

May 2, 2011
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Thirty years of Eric in the Evening, jazz in public spaces and libraries, jazz ensembles and their social networks, and getting the word out about jazz. (First of a three-part series for Jazz Week.)

Visual Arts: Painting as an Act of Loving Translation

April 13, 2011
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To look back and forth from “Las Meninas (after Velázquez)” to the mirror that reflects it is to experience, simultaneously, a joy in David Ording’s accomplishment and a longing based in recognition of its source, which is love—of Velázquez, of labor, of painting.

Visual Arts Review: Gaza in Photographs — Up Close and Personal

March 13, 2011
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Though unquestionably didactic, Skip Schiel’s images are also haunting glimpses of the perilous nature of life in Gaza. The photographs never feel invasive or forced; they simply capture moments of intimate truth between photographer and subject.

Judicial Review #5: After the Hoopla — The MFA’s New Art of the Americas Wing

March 11, 2011
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Success assured? Critics and others discuss whether the MFA’s new wing, The Art of the Americas, lives up to the hype generated by the opening in the latest Judicial Review.

Visual Arts: My Main Man Mani — A Persian Preacher Who Made Art and Founded a Religion

March 10, 2011
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I have a weakness for cosmic audacity. The history of religions, which I studied before art history, is full of examples that give me a deep inner thrill.

Coming Attractions at Museums: March 2011

March 4, 2011
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Highlights 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,…

Visual Arts Review: Edward Gorey @ the Boston Athenaeum

March 3, 2011
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No one is safe in the world of Edward Gorey: “From Number Nine, Penwiper Mews, There is really abominable news:/ They’ve discovered a head/ In the box for the bread, / But nobody seems to know whose.” Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey (1925–2000) will be at the Boston Athenaeum (10 1/2 Beacon St.…

Culture Vulture in New York: Three Museums, Three Ways to Reject the Past

March 3, 2011
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The snow is gone, daffodils are coming up in Central Park, and there are terrific shows in all of the major New York museums. The three I saw—at the Guggenheim, the Neue Galerie, and the Whitney —all draw on the early part of the twentieth century when artists in Europe and the United States were…

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