Visual Arts

Anonymous Sources: Pollock Mystery Takes a Few New Turns

September 4, 2007
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One of the most controversial exhibitions in decades, Pollock Matters, curated by Case Western Reserve Professor Ellen Landau and others, opened quietly at Boston College’s McMullen Museum just this past Labor Day weekend. But it is already turning heads.

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Visual Arts: Reading the Prayer Book in Isfahan

August 28, 2007
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Three weeks ago I attended Friday evening services at the main synagogue of Isfahan. I cannot remember the last time that I went to a kabbalat Shabbat service, but I cannot have gone much more often than once a decade for the past 40 years. By Gary Schwartz Isfahan, gate of synagogue on Felestin Square…

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Anonymous Sources: Pollock Exhibition Will Make Global Splash

August 27, 2007
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A front-page story in the Boston Globe arts section last Sunday reminds us that the Pollock-Matter Affair is alive and well and moving to Boston. One of the biggest art world controversies in decades, this perfect storm of paint, press hype, and cultivated invective swirls around a group of Jackson Pollock-like art works that filmmaker…

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The Four Sides of the Church Tower of Strängnäs

August 23, 2007
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Cleaning up my desk, I came across the following mysterious note, written on a sheet torn out of a small spiral notebook: “Now I see what you mean with the question you had about the stones outside who is different on every sides. I have asked but no one could give some answer. Maybe they…

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The Ultimate Feel-Good Artist

March 20, 2007
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During the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Gordon Matta-Clark did what many of us think might be cool, but never dare try to pull off.

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Visual Arts Feature: Smart Art Museums

February 27, 2007
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Boston-area college art museums go where many mainstream exhibition spaces fear to tread. By Margaret Weigel Originally Published February 07, 2006 Boston, MA – Throw a stone in Boston and you’ll hit a college (or an undergraduate); throw it a little further, and you’ll likely hit a college gallery or museum. The Boston metropolitan area…

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Arts Commentary: The Attack of the Mooninite

February 19, 2007
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Given the growing inclination, in the name of security, to regulate public expression, is it any wonder that protest art is scarce?

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Book Review: A History of Art Made to Shock

February 12, 2007
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Edgar Degas once said that painting should be akin to committing a crime. And many Americans saw creation of some of the most important works of American art as just that—roguish, cunning and wicked—in short, criminal. Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in American Culture  by Michael Kammen. Penguin Random House, 480 pages, $18.…

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New Art in Old Buildings

February 5, 2007
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By Peter Walsh When a new contemporary art museum gets up on its feet, it typically constructs a slick, fashionable new address for itself and leaves its old, recycled quarters like a student couch at the curb. But is that always a wise decision? Sometimes it makes sense to put new wine in old bottles.…

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Music To My Eyes

February 1, 2007
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By Milo Miles November 18th, 2005 World-famous jazz impresario George Wein went to Boston University. I went to Boston University. The Boston University Art Gallery is currently hosting the show “Syncopated Rhythms: 20th-Century African American Art from the George & Joyce Wein Collection.” Boston University is behind this blog. None of that matters: it’s still…

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