Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews.
Tim Barry
Book Review: “Serious Bidness” — Seriously Deranged
Devotees of modern and contemporary art will find this an inscrutable yet irresistible 72-page book.
Fuse Visual Arts Feature: “The Woven Arc” at the Cooper Gallery
The premise of this intriguing exhibition of African and African American Art is that the revolution will not be televised, nor is it over.
Fuse Film Review: “Hockney” — A Definitive Exploration
If you think you know a fair bit about David Hockney’s career already, as I did, be prepared, you’ll learn a lot more.
Visual Arts Interview: Artist Rosalyn Drexler at the Rose Art Museum — Reasons to be Cheerful
The prolific and much heralded novelist, painter, and playwright has no shortage of opinions, many of which run contrary to the art-historical party line.
Book Review: Books about Rock n’ Roll — Some Rock, Some Don’t
The success of Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids, has meant an uptick in the number of new rock n’ roll books hitting the racks.
Visual Arts Review: Local Boy Makes Good at the Venice Biennale; Local Girl Perhaps Not So Much
A mixed evaluation of the contributions of two New England artists — Joan Jonas and Mark Dion — at this year’s Venice Biennale.
Fuse Book Review: A Classic of Cinematic Fiction — “The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty”
What if Alfred Hitchcock had sat out behind his Holmby Hills bungalow, smoking clove cigarettes and writing chick-lit novels?
Fuse Remembrance: Conceptual Artist Chris Burden — Political But Playful
Chris Burden’s distinctive contribution to the art of our time was that he brought politically informed performance art and idea-based sculpture into the mainstream.
Alt-Rock Preview: Waxahatchee, Mitski, and Speedy Ortiz — Girls Just Want to Eat Guitars
Waxahatchee exuded poise and presence, while delivering lonesome-cowboy epiphanies that speak to their generation’s collective existential shrug.