Gallery Reviews
Feb. 18th, 2005 01:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cthulhiaLast year, one of my sub-resolutions was to average an exhibit a week, resorting to Open Studios and The Walls of the Diesel to round up only within reason. I did it, but, I don't remember much of it.
This year, my goal is to try to write at least a paragraph about every show.
Arisia Art Show
Ah, the problem with trying to write these so much after the fact.
There was a spiffy beaded bowl. The Luggage sculptures. Several e-collage tarot decks in progress. (Including![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sunspiral's. (No, mine are designed as card size, and would be too pixelated if much larger.) miss_chance's pieces that seemed Science-fiction only after you read the clever titles, which some might argue means They're Good. She did win an art show award after all.
Altogether too many hipless women/anthropomorphized creatures with enormous breasts, wings, etc. O, and painted on feathers! The realistic animals on feathers is trying enough. I suppose, out of context, those are kinda pretty. But I grew up in a world of kitten calendars. It's very hard for me to accept cat depictions as art and not marketing.
Tufts: Girl Culture/Time Signatures
this review lifted from a locked entry
I can't recommend Tufts shows enough. They apparently don't ticket non-campus cars during the opening. They're within walking distance of the T. They plan for feeding meal-plan phobic students, ergo put up a good spread. (That makes for an adequate south bitch dinner.) Most important, their program director(s) have a real talent for putting together fantastic shows. (If the current show bores you, one of the connecting hallways has a curio case full of elephants that could probably keep you busy for hours, while I go enjoy the art.)
Speaking of my diet (which I mean to strictly follow again, Real Soon Now), the new exhibit is all about body image. Girl Culture is a photo essay comparing showgirls, toddler models, variations on debutantes, fat camp commandos, etc. A number of viewers wondered if such image obsession was exaggerated. (You find that insecurity beyond comprehension? Oooh, you're SO from The Blue State!) I felt morally obliged to (cheat on my diet and) eat some of the chocolate-dipped strawberries.
The other part of the show was Time Signatures, a polite term for "wrinkles". Executed in such a way that some of you will probably be inspired to scrounge metal sheeting and make some of your own after seeing the show.
Because it was such a Girly show, a Tufts all girl a capella group serenaded us for most of the reception. Bonus!
the nave gallery: renewed: the tranformation of objects
http://www.artsomerville.org/nave_renewed.htm
I am a sucker for found object art. Well, mostly. I blame Nick Bantock... and most of Neil Gaiman's illustrators. I did some assemblages as a teen, but got over it shortly after mom insisted I dust all that stuff off regularly. I also gravitate towards the twisted: Wayne Viens, Hilary Scott, Rosamund Purcell, and, featured in this show, Martha Friend, who I think is the artist who totally creeped outdancingdeer at an Open Studios some years ago. Friend's work is more hit ot miss for me. She uses too much magazine cut-outs for my tastes, but I like her cleverness. Her effort was sometimes overshadowed by the coolness of her found objects. "That's a great spice rack!"
Marcella Anna Stasa, however, gets a little precious, weaving together dried flowers and pods and giving it a Really Deep Name, which recalls my days at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies a little too much for comfort. In the instance of her lamp, it worked. Perhaps it's my attraction to functional art from rubbish. Kathy Neustadt's lamps were consistently amusing. Paul Gray managed to be both amusing and art-snob in numerous pieces. His primary piece, "Second Nature" greeted us as we entered the Nave. I didn't immediately notice that he was anatomically correct. (The archive page links you to a javascript image of the piece.)
East Boston: Ted Cantrell's Chinese New Year
Actually, he was the co-host. Most of the show was by the other guy, who's name is probably on a flyer in my car somewhere. TOG's work was mostly of color studies. Sometimes it looked like there was a landscape underneath that he decided to paint over. Since his entire (Chinese?) extended family was there, I never had the opportunity to ask him about that. Some of the colors were satisfyingly rich.
Ted's stuff was Damned Creepy. (Yay!) Tortured cloth hung in open/floating frames, with worked holes and rips and chaotic sewing, including some 7-pointed stars in circles. I could easily have seen this stuff on the cover of a record a lot like The Downward Spiral. In fact, he was approached by a performer who thought the full-wall-sized pieces would make great backdrops for her dance show, sometime next fall. It will be Grim and Meaningful, I'm sure.
Since this was hosted in the studio, I paid as much attention to the bits of found art stowed in the windows, or on the pipes, or suddenly commandeered into being a coat-rack. And petting the buidling cat. A working cat, apparently. They haven't had a mouse problem since she turned up.
(hmmm, long, today's prowls should be a new post.)
This year, my goal is to try to write at least a paragraph about every show.
Arisia Art Show
Ah, the problem with trying to write these so much after the fact.
There was a spiffy beaded bowl. The Luggage sculptures. Several e-collage tarot decks in progress. (Including
sunspiral's. (No, mine are designed as card size, and would be too pixelated if much larger.) miss_chance's pieces that seemed Science-fiction only after you read the clever titles, which some might argue means They're Good. She did win an art show award after all. Altogether too many hipless women/anthropomorphized creatures with enormous breasts, wings, etc. O, and painted on feathers! The realistic animals on feathers is trying enough. I suppose, out of context, those are kinda pretty. But I grew up in a world of kitten calendars. It's very hard for me to accept cat depictions as art and not marketing.
Tufts: Girl Culture/Time Signatures
this review lifted from a locked entry
I can't recommend Tufts shows enough. They apparently don't ticket non-campus cars during the opening. They're within walking distance of the T. They plan for feeding meal-plan phobic students, ergo put up a good spread. (That makes for an adequate south bitch dinner.) Most important, their program director(s) have a real talent for putting together fantastic shows. (If the current show bores you, one of the connecting hallways has a curio case full of elephants that could probably keep you busy for hours, while I go enjoy the art.)
Speaking of my diet (which I mean to strictly follow again, Real Soon Now), the new exhibit is all about body image. Girl Culture is a photo essay comparing showgirls, toddler models, variations on debutantes, fat camp commandos, etc. A number of viewers wondered if such image obsession was exaggerated. (You find that insecurity beyond comprehension? Oooh, you're SO from The Blue State!) I felt morally obliged to (cheat on my diet and) eat some of the chocolate-dipped strawberries.
The other part of the show was Time Signatures, a polite term for "wrinkles". Executed in such a way that some of you will probably be inspired to scrounge metal sheeting and make some of your own after seeing the show.
Because it was such a Girly show, a Tufts all girl a capella group serenaded us for most of the reception. Bonus!
the nave gallery: renewed: the tranformation of objects
http://www.artsomerville.org/nave_renewed.htm
I am a sucker for found object art. Well, mostly. I blame Nick Bantock... and most of Neil Gaiman's illustrators. I did some assemblages as a teen, but got over it shortly after mom insisted I dust all that stuff off regularly. I also gravitate towards the twisted: Wayne Viens, Hilary Scott, Rosamund Purcell, and, featured in this show, Martha Friend, who I think is the artist who totally creeped out
dancingdeer at an Open Studios some years ago. Friend's work is more hit ot miss for me. She uses too much magazine cut-outs for my tastes, but I like her cleverness. Her effort was sometimes overshadowed by the coolness of her found objects. "That's a great spice rack!"Marcella Anna Stasa, however, gets a little precious, weaving together dried flowers and pods and giving it a Really Deep Name, which recalls my days at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies a little too much for comfort. In the instance of her lamp, it worked. Perhaps it's my attraction to functional art from rubbish. Kathy Neustadt's lamps were consistently amusing. Paul Gray managed to be both amusing and art-snob in numerous pieces. His primary piece, "Second Nature" greeted us as we entered the Nave. I didn't immediately notice that he was anatomically correct. (The archive page links you to a javascript image of the piece.)
East Boston: Ted Cantrell's Chinese New Year
Actually, he was the co-host. Most of the show was by the other guy, who's name is probably on a flyer in my car somewhere. TOG's work was mostly of color studies. Sometimes it looked like there was a landscape underneath that he decided to paint over. Since his entire (Chinese?) extended family was there, I never had the opportunity to ask him about that. Some of the colors were satisfyingly rich.
Ted's stuff was Damned Creepy. (Yay!) Tortured cloth hung in open/floating frames, with worked holes and rips and chaotic sewing, including some 7-pointed stars in circles. I could easily have seen this stuff on the cover of a record a lot like The Downward Spiral. In fact, he was approached by a performer who thought the full-wall-sized pieces would make great backdrops for her dance show, sometime next fall. It will be Grim and Meaningful, I'm sure.
Since this was hosted in the studio, I paid as much attention to the bits of found art stowed in the windows, or on the pipes, or suddenly commandeered into being a coat-rack. And petting the buidling cat. A working cat, apparently. They haven't had a mouse problem since she turned up.
(hmmm, long, today's prowls should be a new post.)
