Author Finds Beauty in Guarding Art

Even for those who frequent art museums, the daily routines of museum guards can be enigmatic. In uniform in the corner of galleries, guards are responsible for the difficult task of keeping priceless artworks safe from hoards of curious onlookers. In his celebrated 2023 memoir All the Beauty in the World, author Patrick Bringley shares insights about art and life from the perspective of a museum guard. The result is a text that makes readers reconsider the art workers who safeguard cultural treasures and provides a new appreciation for how to look closely at works of art.

A former guard at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Bringley came to a profession in security after working in the events department at The New Yorker. The career change was triggered by the passing of his brother from cancer at a young age. In the ensuing years of guarding and looking closely at centuries of human creativity on view at The Met, Bringley found solace and learned about the power of beauty to uplift the human spirit. In his book he movingly explores what he learned and how it changed his life. There are lessons in his story for those who have experienced grief and who might in turn find meaning from encountering art in the aftermath.

Bringley’s descriptions of some of his favorite artworks from The Met are both precise and extravagant. He is able to weave stories about art and artists with experience and aesthetic impact in a book that becomes its own tour through the museum and through his decade of working at one of the world’s largest art institutions. In between the author’s entrancing ekphrases, evocative illustrations contributed by Maya McMahon bring artworks to life visually.

Some of Bringley’s anecdotes include details one might expect. For instance, he shares that keeping watch over boisterous crowds during blockbuster shows is challenging work and that standing all day is hard on the body. Other details from his years of observing people and art are more nuanced and share poignant aspects of what it means to look at, and engage with, art. These episodes tend to come from human encounters with visitors, students, art enthusiasts, and co-workers, among others.

Many of the writer’s insights go beyond the galleries of The Met and reveal the inner workings of the museum’s guard corps. Bringley shares personal stories about many of his co-workers, illustrating the rich and vibrant diversity of those with whom he worked at the museum. The book becomes something of an accidental portrait of New York in the process, depicting the city and the institution as the nexus of a beautifully interconnected world with many profound stories to share.

All the Beauty in the World is a pleasurable jaunt and one that encourages its readers to take their time on their next museum visit, whether it be at The Met or elsewhere. Certainly, Bringley had an advantage of being alone in galleries for hours on end as part of his job, but he also brings to the endeavor a keen sensitivity for looking at art and for incisive commentary on how it touched and uplifted his life. In doing so he inspires readers to look closer, see better, and experience more deeply.

All the Beauty in the World was published by Simon and Schuster and is available at popular book sellers as well as through the publisher. For readers in the Providence area interested in supporting local bookstores, Books on the Square is also a great venue for book purchases. Learn more about Patrick Bringley at www.patrickbringley.com.

Review: Douglas Breault at Carole Calo Gallery

Photography, grief, and memory are linked. Joan Didion, in her autobiographical chronicle The Year of Magical Thinking shares the advice that in order to get over the death of a family member one must “let them become the photograph on the table”. For photographer and mixed media artist Douglas Breault, his art practice often centers on the elegiac, and beyond that on the mournful quality of memory that can embed itself in the photographic image. A solo exhibition of Breault’s photo-based work at Stonehill College’s Carole Calo Gallery allows viewers to experience the artist’s immersive use of photography to probe these potent themes in ways that are beautiful and deeply affecting.

Breault’s exhibition, evocatively titled who decides where a roof ends, includes straightforward photographs exhibited alongside works that blur the bounds of photography, sculpture, and assemblage. In addition to photographs, Breault employs found objects: a whistle, a pane of glass, a clamp, a block of wood with a nail jutting out. The sum of all these parts is a collection that probes ideas of home, memory, grief, and the ways in which vision and remembrance are shaped.

One of the through lines in Breault’s work is light, both in specific forms - like a lamp or a flame - and the general light which acts as the foundational tool in all photography. The lights in Breault’s work feel like demarcation points but also hint at the ephemeral nature of all things. Times change, passages occur, lights are snuffed out. Much of Breault’s art is connected to his own experience of familial grief and the expressive and poetic elements of his visual work have a magnetic quality for others with similar experiences.

Breault describes his exploration of loss in his statement by saying, “My curiosity questions the limitations of a photograph to accurately depict a life, contemplating how an image can be unfolded or obscured to describe a person or place that is paradoxically missing.”

Breault is one of the most promising photographic practitioners in the Northeast. In addition to his work as an artist, he is also the Exhibitions Director at Gallery 263 in Cambridge and has also taught art at area colleges, including at Bridgewater State University, Babson College, Holyoke Community College, and the Rhode Island School of Design. He earned his BA from Bridgewater State and his MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. I previously interviewed Doug for my Fine Art Insights podcast, and he also exhibited work in the exhibition Housewarming at my Project Space in Providence.

For emerging artists studying art at Stonehill, and for those who are able to visit Breault’s show at the Carole Calo Gallery, his work offers an exciting alternative to the staid and static interpretations that photographers regularly present. In a world full of images, often consumed through cold screens as social media content, the engaging and inventive way in which Breault manipulates photography to make it real and present merits recognition. His photographs go beyond the expected and break out of the frame to become something entirely new.

Breault’s solo exhibition at Stonehill College is one of the best shows to see right now in New England and offers a chance to fundamentally change the way viewers read photography.

Douglas Breault’s exhibition, who decides where a roof ends, continues through January 26, 2024 in the Carole Calo Gallery at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. Learn more about Breault’s work at his website www.douglasbreault.com, or follow his studio work on Instagram at @dug_bro. Click on the images below for expanded installation views.

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Exploring American Art in New Britain

Numerous prominent arts organizations in the United States trace their roots to the turn of the century, a moment of turbulent excitement on the nation’s cultural scene. Connecticut’s New Britain Museum of American Art is one such institution. Founded in 1903, it is considered to be the first museum dedicated exclusively to the acquisition of American art. In its galleries, a wide ranging collection tells a broad story of art made in and about the United States.

While the museum has holdings that span from the Colonial period to Contemporary, some of the most compelling areas of its collection are those that chart the realities of art being made around the time of its founding. American artists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were newly emboldened to create artworks that were in their own voice and reflective of their own concerns. In a period prior to widely accessible art education in the United States, many of these artists traveled to, and studied in, Europe and the evidence of that is displayed in New Britain’s galleries.

A contemporary painting by Titus Kaphar (far right) reflects on an earlier piece by artist Ralph Earl.

One standout sample of an American in Paris comes from Childe Hassam’s ambitious 1887 painting Le Jour du Grand Prix. In his scintillating treatment of the scene, Hassam reduces the iconic Arch de Triomphe to the edge of the canvas while dedicating the bulk of the image to the street, the trees, the people, and the atmosphere. The recipient of the 1888 Paris Salon’s Gold Medal, Le Jour du Grand Prix was also shown at the influential World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. A highlight of New Britain’s collection, it is emblematic of where the interests of American artists laid in the late nineteenth century. It exemplifies the thrill of urban life, the drama and spectacle of a metropolis, and, of course, the cultural inspiration drawn from European travel.

Childe Hassam’s 1887 Le Jour du Grand Prix is a highlight of the museum’s late nineteenth century holdings.

Beyond Hassam, other paintings from the likes of John Sloan, Everett Shinn, and Gifford Beal continue the trend of Americans’ passion for urban scenes and city life in the first decades of the twentieth century. As Americans poured into cities in pursuit of economic opportunities, artists turned their collective gaze toward the benefits and ills of life in places like New York. Nearby examples by Maurice Prendergrast and Rockwell Kent are more bucolic but no less engaging, and exemplify the ways in which avante-garde approaches to art-making inspired American artists. An immersive installation of murals originally created by Thomas Hart Benton for The Whitney Museum exhibits the aspirations of the Regionalist School in American art and bridges the concerns of Americans both urban and rural.

An immersive installation of Thomas Hart Benton’s Arts of Life in America mural cycle, originally designed for 10 West 8th Street in New York, the first home of The Whitney Museum.

In upstairs galleries, an exhibition on view through October 29, 2023 focuses on highlights from the Museum’s collection of Post-War and Contemporary Art. This show is broad and offers everything from explorations of Contemporary Realism to samplings from Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism. The variety is a celebration of the mixed interests of American artists in the decades after the Second World War and breaks down often monolithic art historical storylines.

An installation view of a current exhibition focused on Post-War and Contemporary Art.

Many of the museum’s sleek and well-appointed galleries date to an early 2000’s expansion project spearheaded by Boston’s Ann Beha Architects. The adjoining Landers House, which was the original venue for the museum was restored in 2021 and currently hosts an exhibition of 1970’s portraits honoring Black women who were active community leaders in the New Britain region. The entire complex hugs Walnut Hill Park. An early work of Frederick Law Olmstead, the space was designed by the nation’s preeminent landscape architect of the nineteenth century, who is best known for shaping Central Park but left a lasting impact on many public spaces.

The elegant library of the museum’s Landers House.

In addition to its permanent collection, which includes strong holdings in expected areas like the Hudson River School and American Illustration, the museum also mounts rotating exhibitions. Through September 3, 2023 it is hosting a significant show of work by photographer Walter Wick, creator of the I Spy books series, which will appeal to families. Other exhibitions on view probe topics as far afield as Shaker design and Post-War and Contemporary art. 

A view from one of the museum’s current rotating exhibitions, focused on Walter Wick.

For those interested in experiencing a primer of the story of art in the United States, the New Britain Museum of American Art offers compelling opportunities to consider the legacy of visual art in the context of the American experience.

The New Britain Museum of American Art is located at 56 Lexington Street in New Britain Connecticut. It is open Wednesday - Sunday from 10am - 5pm each day and Thursdays from 10am - 8pm. Admission is $15 for adults. For more details and to plan your visit, go to www.nbmaa.org.

The New Britain Museum of American Art’s campus at 56 Lexington Street in New Britain Connecticut.

Review: Impressionism Explored at Worcester Art Museum

Impressionism remains one of the most revered movements in Western art history. The soft focus paintings of Monet continue to hold sway with contemporary audiences sheerly through their unbridled beauty. The divergent influences and aftereffects of the Impressionist movement are less well-known by audiences but are no less worthy of exploration. In a current exhibition at the Worcester Art Museum, some of the complex realities of this art historical moment are explored, resulting in new insights that go beyond a popular aesthetic.

The entrance to the exhibition is a wall-spanning tribute to the Worcester Art Museum’s prized Monet Waterlilies.

Fronters of Impressionism, curated by Claire C. Whitner and Erin Corrales-Diaz, aims to unpack the nuances of artmaking in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. On view through June 25, the show probes the world as it was when Impressionism arrived and shares works produced by concurrently occurring artistic movements. The narrative the exhibition unfolds will give many museum visitors their first broad readings of a period that is often characterized in the popular imagination as being dominated by the likes of Renoir or Cassatt.

The exhibition of course has fine examples of European paintings like Claude Monet’s 1908 Waterlilies, which was purchased by WAM within just a couple years of its creation. This is the kind of image that springs to mind when the term Impressionism is raised. But alongside Monet, the exhibition also contextualizes movements like the Barbizon School or later Pointellist creations and does an excellent job of illustrating how artists outside of Europe digested and influenced the avant-garde ideas of the Impressionist vanguard.

Corot’s A Fisherman on the Banks of the Pond, created between 1865-70, is a prototypical Barbzon artwork, and the type that would inspire generations of American landscape painters.

Works by Puerto Rican artist Francisco Oller y Cestero (1833-1917) are featured in the exhibition, highlighting an artist who was intimately involved in the zeitgeist of the turn of the century and who had friendships with peers like Pissarro. In a small painting from 1864, Oller y Cestero captures his friend Paul Cézanne painting out of doors, documenting one of the more important strategies of boundary-breaking artists in the nineteenth century. Where the powerful French Academy of Fine Arts demanded that polished artworks be produced in the studio, young artists rejected this and painted “finished” works en plein air, giving life to a tradition that continues today.

Both a product and document of the Impressionism moment, Francisco Oller y Cestero’s painting of his friend Cézanne depicts the technique behind the avant-garde plein air painters.

Artists of the United States also make up a sizable component of the show. A fine example by landscapist Edward Mitchell Bannister is shown alongside portraits by John Singer Sargent and Cecilia Beaux. One of the best paintings in the show is by fellow American Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862-1938). Titled The Venetian Blind and produced in 1898, the painting was another early acquisition by WAM and has been owned by the museum since 1904. A award-winning work in its day, Tarbell’s figure is bathed in diffused golden light and interior elements like the titular shades bear his distinctive and painterly hand. It is at once a romantic and modern image, hinting at European precedents while tackling a contemporary subject in a novel way.

One of the exhibitions most interesting pieces, Edmund Tarbell’s The Venetian Blind, produced in 1898, presages the type of figurative artwork that has only recently returned to vogue in the twenty-first century.

Through the show, viewers will be able to follow the influences of Impressionism through to their various conclusions. The reality is that the ways in which these intrepid artists shaped the works made by ensuing generations are hard to define. But Frontiers of Impressionism provides a great sampler, and in doing so promises to encourage visitors to find new connections between individual artists, discrete schools, and varying periods.

Towards the end of the exhibition, some of the more radical offspring of the changing art world are shown. A vivid and lush Paul Signac painting from 1896 shows off a technicolor Pointellist technique. Capturing the Golfe Juan in the South of France, the image of a pink horizon over the seaside is scintillating and celebratory. Nearby, Georges Braque’s Olive Trees from 1907 tackles another landscape subject with similar zeal. While Signac’s coastal scene is a coalescence of painted dots, Braque’s tree is a disintegration of limbs executed in utterly unnatural tones. Looking at it, the thrilling modernisms of the twentieth century that owe so much to their nineteenth century predecessors can be seen and felt in the distance.

Georges Bracque’s 1907 Olive Trees heralds the excitement of forthcoming modernisms that would define art in the twentieth century.

Frontiers of Impressionism is on view now through June 25, 2023 at the Worcester Art Museum. After the exhibition concludes in Worcester it will travel to the Tampa Museum of Art, the Tokyo Museum of Art, and other venues. Learn more about the exhibition and plan your visit while it is on view in New England at www.worcesterart.org.

Nearby Gallery Exhibits Strong Trio with Into the Ether

While New Englanders enjoy a culturally rich region, there are always precious few opportunities for local artists to see their work exhibited in high quality spaces. Nearby Gallery in Newton, Massachusetts, was founded during the pandemic to share the work of emerging and mid-career art-makers in their community. On view through July 13, 2022, the gallery’s current exhibition Into the Ether is the product of an open curatorial call hosted by the space. The resulting show brings together works by Massachusetts artists Monica DeSalvo, Tatiana Flis, and Rob Trumbour. The exhibition is excellent and serves as a testament to the talent of the exhibiting artists as well as the vision of those behind Nearby Gallery.

Nearby Gallery’s dramatic brick clad main space sets off artworks on display.

Featuring work in a variety of media, from prints and collage to hand-made books and sculpture, Into the Ether is a survey of three artists probing issues around loss, grief, and fragility. Many of the artworks on view are achingly sensitive and entice audiences to experience them with a distinct depth of feeling. 

Monica DeSalvo is an artist and graphic designer based in Arlington, Massachusetts. Much of her work is influenced by her caregiving for her late father, who experienced dementia. DeSalvo was one of the artists featured in a strong recent installment of the Attleboro Arts Museum’s lauded 8 Visions Exhibition. Into the Ether provides viewers an opportunity to see another selection of DeSalvo’s work thoughtfully presented alongside two fellow artists who also relish in craft, surface, design, and texture. One standout is her Resting on Water, a collection of ten small mixed media works that juxtapose forms and invite close examination. Lines and surfaces appear to buck and sway, throwing the viewer off course and challenging them to recalibrate. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, DeSalvo is an active exhibitor and is now a Core Member of SoWA’s Fountain Street Gallery. 

Monica DeSalvo’s Resting on Water on view at Nearby Gallery.

Tatiana Flis creates works that are, like DeSalvo’s, multi-layered and incisive. The overlaps between Flis and DeSalvo tend to be a keen sensitivity towards design and construction of images. In Flis’ Prairie Night, multiple ambiguous geometries overlap and interplay across the surfaces of a large triptych. Nearby, a monoprint titled What Goes Unseen #1 sees Flis’ technique played out on a smaller scale. The installation of two works at such divergent sizes alongside one another shows off how the artist’s sense of structure, composition, and precision serves her artmaking in whatever format she chooses. Working out of a studio in Millbury, Massachusetts, Flis has exhibited widely. She completed her BFA at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Florida and earned her MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan.

Prairie Night and What Goes Unseen #1 by Tatiana Flis.

Rob Trumbour is both an art-maker and an architect. An associate professor at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, Trumbour earned his Master of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin and his MFA at MassArt. His contributions to Into the Ether push boundaries and meld media from sculpture to printmaking to create a cohesive body of work. At the heart of the show, Trumbour’s Before Half of Two is a three-dimensional work that tilts into and out of space. Created using burnt out fallen tree limbs in cast concrete, the sculpture has the aroma of fire. Another strong entry by Trumbour is his collection of carbon composite prints titled Becoming, in which burnt casts are employed again. The finished pieces play with language and obsolescence. Trumbour’s work is complementary to that of Flis and DeSalvo, bringing to bear different forms of making with no less attention to detail.

Rob Trumbour’s triptych of prints titled Becoming.

Nearby Gallery bills itself as an “artist-owned showroom and community art space”, but it could also be called one of the sleekest venues in the region. A vast space by retail gallery standards, Nearby Gallery offers artists the opportunity to share their work in an environment where viewers can step back and look at things more deeply. A large open gallery at the front of the space is clad in brick, while two smaller rooms at the rear counterbalance the aesthetic with pristine white walls.

In addition to Into the Ether, a collection of works in a range of scale and style by other artists associated with the gallery are on view in their own space. The resulting installation is something akin to a contemporary salon show, celebrating many talents at once. Both the main show and this space offer works at accessible price points, with many pieces on offer at less than $500.

Another space within Nearby Gallery is dedicated to an eclectic display of many artists’ work.

Nearby Gallery’s Into the Ether offers three sensitive takes on issues of concern to many. Whether marveling at the artistic acumen of any of the three artists, or reading into their works for meditations on loss and impermanence, there is much to appreciate in this show and it is well worth seeing before it closes on July 13.

Nearby Gallery is located at 101 Union Street in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. The gallery is open Wednesday and Thursday 1-6pm, Friday and Saturday from 1-8pm, and Sunday from 11am - 4pm. Into the Ether continues through July 13. Learn more and plan your visit at www.nearbygallery.com.

South Coast Art Celebrated at DeDee Shattuck Gallery

Community-based art organizations serve a number of important roles and among them naturally is their capacity to give artists space to celebrate their town or region. South Coast Artists (SCA), a non-profit collective of creatives based in Southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, is one such organization. On view through May 29, 2022, SCA is hosting its Spring Invitational Exhibition at DeDee Shattuck Gallery in Westport, Massachusetts. A richly varied salon-style show, the exhibition includes many highlights which find inspiration locally and further afield.

Featuring one hundred and seventy-five artworks by seventy-five SCA artists, the group’s Spring Invitational Exhibition is an opportunity for viewers based in the South Coast area to explore a survey of artworks by their neighbors. Works on view boast a wide range of media, from paintings and photographs to metal, ceramics, and mixed media. The styles employed are equally diverse and run the gamut from intense photorealism to gauzy abstraction. The show fills the generous exhibition space nearly from floor to ceiling and merits a lengthy visit.

Nearly two hundred works are on view in the exhibition at DeDee Shattuck Gallery in Westport.

Among the highlights in the show, many draw on themes specific to the South Coast region, which SCA defines roughly as the towns of Westport and Dartmouth in Massachusetts and Tiverton and Little Compton in Rhode Island. The scenic localities have close ties to both the farming and maritime communities, which both show up repeatedly throughout the exhibition. 

In Road Kill, a super illustrative painting by JP Powel, a gnarled and leafless tree takes up the foreground of a landscape sliced through by the sun-dappled asphalt of a country road and the stone walls which characterize the area. Carolyn Baker’s, Toven, a multi-part work executed in painted wood and vinyl, hints at compasses and nautical maps in an inventive format.

The coastal connection shows up in many artworks in the exhibition. Ron Fortier probes whaling history in his paintings, one of which features a ghostly sailing ship with flames rising from the deck under moonlight. Barbara Healy’s painting, Waiting, focuses on the prow of a sailboat within the context of the marbled surface of water. Not all of the artists look outdoors for their subjects, though. Jim Wright’s Austere Interior is a pensive meditation on domestic space.

A variety of media and stylistic approaches abound in the Spring Invitational Exhibition.

While some of the favorites pull from local places, other strong works in the show find inspiration elsewhere. A collection of three portraits by Dina Doyle utilize punchy primary colors to set off their subjects in highly refined oil paintings. Nearby, a large-scale image of a cactus by Elizabeth Larrimore invites viewers to look more closely at an abstracted view of a familiar botanical subject. 

Abstraction is the basis for yet another subset of works on view. Alongside a staircase in the center of the gallery, a series of works by Marjorie Jensen, William Kendall, Beth Russo, and Cindy Sachs explore varying aspects of non-obective art making. Jensen’s mixed media work, which includes a rough-edged canvas surface, is particularly appealing.

The range of media in the show is wonderful. A series of wool felt paintings by Stephanie Stroud have a fantastically tactile quality. Serena Parente Charlebois exhibits an image of a piazza using another novel method: a gilded photograph on vellum. The result is a modern day illuminated manuscript.

The architecture of DeDee Shattuck Gallery encourages visitors to look to the landscape beyond the artwork.

DeDee Shattuck Gallery, which is playing host to the SCA Spring Invitational, is one of the region’s premiere exhibition venues. Housed in a spare and barn-like building within a pastoral setting, the gallery is a place where any artist would be delighted to see their work. The main exhibition space is soaring and light, and windows and the four corners of the structure look out onto the bucolic landscape of Westport. The quality of the gallery elevates this exhibition of artists connected with and dedicated to their locale.

In a show packed with local inflection, perhaps those most celebratory of the South Coast are submissions by Josie Richmond. Employing intaglio printmaking combined with velvety encaustic, Richmond layers imagery of nearby flora and fauna on maps detailing the intricate contours of the many coves and inlets that define the South Coast. Inventive and enjoyable, they are full of community pride.

The South Coast Artists Spring Invitational Exhibition is a celebration of local art made in and around a series of charming towns nestled by the sea. The show at DeDee Shattuck Gallery invites visitors to travel to Westport to experience a fine array of artworks as well as the environment that inspired their authors. With its walls piled high with art of the region, the exhibition is an ideal opportunity to discover art made on the South Coast. 

The South Coast Artists Spring Invitational Exhibition is on view at DeDee Shattuck Gallery at 1 Partners Lane in Westport, Massachusetts, through May 29, 2022. Gallery hours are are Wednesday - Saturday from 10am - 5pm each day and Sunday from 12 - 5pm. Learn more at www.dedeeshattuckgallery.com, or at www.southcoastartists.org.

DeDee Shattuck Gallery is located at 1 Partners Lane in Westport, MA, and will host the South Coast Artists Spring Invitational Exhibition through May 29, 2022.

Attleboro Arts Museum Presents Eight Compelling Visions

Through August 28, an exhibition at the Attleboro Arts Museum explores the remarkable variety one can find within the work of just eight artists. The show, titled 8 Visions, features photographic collages by Monica DeSalvo, drawings by Craig Elliott, ceramics by Lindsey Epstein, textile-based work by Virginia Mahoney, paintings by Kat Masella and Alexander Morris, photographs by Lisa Redburn and jewelry by Chuck Tramontana. The process for selecting these eight artists began with sixty applications, first juried down to twenty finalists by Jennifer Jean Okumura, with exhibitors selected by Anne Corso and Lauren Riviello. The result is an impressive group that speaks to the richness of style and technique that can be found in the New England art community.

The show is wonderfully varied and viewers will find captivating details around every corner of the museum’s generous gallery located in the heart of downtown Attleboro. Across a spectrum of media, the exhibition brings out the individuality of the featured artists. The connecting thread is often a distinct interest in texture and surface, be it real or illusion. Particular standouts in the exhibition include the highly tactile drawings and paintings of Craig Elliott and Alexander Morris, the poignant mixed media works of Monica DeSalvo, and quiet photographic triptychs executed by Lisa Redburn.

Craig Elliott, an artist who trained as an architect, exhibits a series of charcoal drawings undergirded with thoughtful design. Included in the exhibition, one finds a collection of diminutive preparatory sketches for Totemic, one of Elliott’s large scale drawings. This gives a deep sense of the artist’s knack for craftsmanship and informs a better appreciation for the completed works on view. The little drawings, though preliminary, are actually quite exquisite and hold their own against the more “finished” works on offer.

A wall of Craig Elliott’s large charcoal drawings invites close inspection.

When looking closely at the surfaces of Elliott’s images, one can find folds in the underlying paper layered over with shadowy details that have a sculptural sensibility. Elliott’s artworks elevate charcoal, often considered an elementary medium, bringing it to the same level as painting. Once completed, the artist’s intricate drawings are varnished. This technique has the effect of coalescing the surfaces of his images into velvety and satisfying wholes. 

The painter Alexander Morris, originally from Utah and now based in Rhode Island, is exhibiting a collection of highly textured works that include, among other details, great use of mysterious calligraphic line. Morris’ paintings in the exhibition are tall and columnular, a scale and format which takes on an almost architectural significance. One can return to his work again and again, constantly finding new details. It is tempting to puzzle out how exactly Morris has applied his paints but the weathered quality of his work tends to hold its secrets even to the sophisticated observer.

Like Elliott, Morris has a smaller study included in the exhibition. Although tiny by comparison to his wall-height paintings nearby, Crow’s Nest has an equal compositional power that is impressive and merits admiration.

Wall-height paintings by Alexander Morris are rich in weathered textures.

Monica DeSalvo’s contributions to 8 Visions are deeply personal and unravel issues related to her care of her late father, who experienced dementia. In layered artworks that collage and enhance photography and found objects, DeSalvo excavates her father’s archive, unearthing materials that she combines with imagery to evoke his own words near the end of his life.

An accordion book titled What Do You Think About When You’re Not Sleeping? brings a wonderful dimensionality and duality to the experience of DeSalvo’s work, which will be impactful for the many viewers who have experienced dementia first-hand in their own families.

An accordion book by Monica DeSalvo stands out alongside her two-dimensional collages.

Some of the textural complexity found in artworks on view is captured with great sensitivity by a camera lens, rather than by pencil, pen, or brush. In alluring triptychs, Lisa Redburn utilizes a well-known historical template to honor nature. While the format with which she frames her images echoes tiny altarpieces, Redburn’s subject matter is bright and botanical. In her photographs, one finds a certain meditative quality that can also be found in the solace of the natural world, on a hike, or in a garden. They are beautiful photographs with a hint of Transcendentalism. 

A collection of Lisa Redburn’s triptych photographs paired with ceramics by Lindsey Epstein.

While Redburn, DeSalvo, Morris, and Elliott have some of the strongest works on view, all of the participating artists should be lauded for the aesthetic verdancy of their contributions to this delightful show. 8 Visions is a thoughtfully assembled exhibition that invites visitors to relish in an exciting variety of art-making by talented creators living and working in New England today.

8 Visions is on view at the Attleboro Arts Museum through August 28, 2021. The Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10am - 4pm each day. Masks are required for all visitors regardless of vaccination status and admission is a suggested $3 donation. Learn more at www.attleboroartsmuseum.org.

My "Inside Art" Articles from July 2021

In July, I contributed four new articles to GoLocalProv. My column, which premiered in early June, continues to focus on local exhibitions and artists, contextualizing local art for a broad audience. This month, I wrote about Rhode Island Latino Arts reopening their gallery space in Central Falls and reviewed an exhibition of photographs by Mary Beth Meehan at WaterFire Arts Center. I also reviewed an exhibition of contemporary art at Jamestown Arts Center and produced a profile of artist and arts advocate Paula Martiesian.

Below, you can find links to each of these articles. I hope you will read them and consider sharing one or more with your own network. By sharing stories of art and artists in Rhode Island, we can support our creative community, encouraging patronage of our artists and galleries.

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I hope you will consider following me on social media, where I will be announcing each new article and other ongoing projects. Joining me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Pinterest is the best way to stay up to date.

I will continue to regularly share highlights from Inside Art here on my own blog, and will continue to produce articles here on the visual arts outside Rhode Island as well as interviews and other content. Your continued readership is deeply appreciated. If you have a tip for a show I should review, please feel free to email me.

-Michael

In New Bedford, a Rare and Wonderful Exhibition of Albert Pinkham Ryder

Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847 - 1917), may not be a household name but his contributions to American art are significant. An exhibition on view through October in the artist’s birthplace of New Bedford, Massachusetts, explores his art in its own right as well as within the context of modernist movements that came in his wake. Mounted by the New Bedford Whaling Museum, the show is a rare and wonderful opportunity to see many of Ryder’s paintings in one place. A Wild Note of Longing: Albert Pinkham Ryder and a Century of American Art is a must-see exhibition which will reshape perceptions of American art history.

One of the most exciting elements of the show is that it gathers together many of the artist’s paintings in one exhibition. This is the first significant display of Ryder’s work since a 1990 retrospective at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. Some of the paintings on view are indeed on loan from the same institution and give viewers the opportunity to explore works that they might otherwise have to travel to Washington, D.C. to experience. Other artworks come from major institutions like the Metropolitan Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Phillips Collection, making this a mini-blockbuster exhibition.

A quote from Ryder illustrates his independent sensibilities alongside his paintings.

Seeing Ryder’s work in his hometown rather than in New York or the nation’s capital is part of the thrill of this show. Not far from the Whaling Museum’s galleries, the sights and sounds of this historic maritime city are reminders of some of Ryder’s inspirations. Bells are heard from nearby trawlers and seagulls fly low overhead. New Bedford’s bustling port is one of the busiest and most lucrative in the country. In Ryder’s day it was a similarly busy place and the realities of seafaring play into the aesthetic and philosophy of his art.

Ryder’s work is not easily classified but many of his treatments of land and sea bear markings most readily associated with the Tonalist school which heavily influenced American art in the late nineteenth century. Inspired by European counterparts, such artists often sought to create poetic and romantic imagery defined by particularly moody palettes. Where Ryder’s work often differs from his contemporaries is in brushwork, composition, and the sheer expressive energy of his scenes. Ryder’s paintings give viewers a sense of the raw power of the sea, the glittering beauty of atmosphere, and the possibilities of historical or mythological narratives. 

A painting by Wolf Kahn (1927 - 2020) forms an interesting contrast to an earlier piece by Ryder.

The exhibition does not feature Ryder alone, though. The show pairs a wonderful range of the title artist’s paintings with works by later makers who similarly broke boundaries and reconsidered the potential of expression. Works by artists such as Jackson Pollock, Marsden Hartley, Wolf Kahn, and Richard Pousette-Dart form a fascinating pendant to the excellent selection of paintings on view by Ryder.

While Ryder was born in New Bedford, he spent a good portion of his adult life in New York before returning to his hometown at the time of his death. He was an unusual and often lone individual who cuts something of a melancholic figure. While his painterly contributions may not be fully appreciated by a broad audience, this exhibition is an important step in bringing viewers a more complete picture of American art. Ryder’s paintings are beautiful and mournful and provoke emotional reactions as well as appreciation for his remarkable handling of paint. He is, in short, one of the great American artists of any generation and this exhibition is a fantastic chance to learn more about him and his incredible impact.

A Wild Note of Longing: Albert Pinkham Ryder and a Century of American Art is on view at the New Bedford Whaling Museum through October 31, 2021. For full details and information on planning your visit, go to www.whalingmuseum.org.

"Inside Art" Column Premiers on GoLocalProv

Arts writing and reporting is an essential element of a thriving local art community. As someone who believes in the importance of such arts journalism and crticism, I am happy to share that I was recently invited to write a regular column on the visual arts in Rhode Island for the local online news service GoLocalProv. My column, which premiered in early June, will focus on local exhibitions and artists and will contextualize local art for a broad audience. Below, I have included the announcement about this new feature as well as my first three articles from June, 2021. I hope you will follow along with this new project and consider reading and sharing my articles.

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My first piece for GoLocalProv focused on a summer exhibition at Bert Gallery in Providence that will highlight the work of local modernists Walter Feldman, Gordon Peers, and Florence Leif.

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My second article for GoLocalProv previewed the schedule for summer salons focused on a variety of contemporary artists at Coastal Contemporary Gallery in Newport, Rhode Island.

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My third column for GoLocalProv was a review of the reopened RISD Museum in Providence.

I hope you will consider following me on social media, where I will be announcing each new article and other ongoing projects. Joining me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Pinterest is the best way to stay up to date.

I plan to regularly share highlights from this new project on my personal blog, and will continue to produce occasional articles here on the visual arts outside Rhode Island as well as interviews and other content. Your continued readership is appreciated!

-Michael

An Artful Perch Remade at the Providence Athenaeum

The nineteenth century in America was a notable boom time for the visual arts in the United States. Between the end of the American Civil War and 1900, many of the nation’s most notable arts institutions were founded, including Yale’s School of Art, the Metropolitan Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Pennsylvania Academy, to name a few. Americans were, more or less en masse, taking hold of their own cultural aspirations. They developed their own schools in which to study art and museums in which to showcase their growing collections. In Providence, Rhode Island, the arty excitement of the moment was borne out too. In 1877 the Rhode Island School of Design was founded, in 1880 the Providence Art Club followed, and in the mid 1890s the established Providence Athenaeum added a new space dedicated to the visual arts. Recently, the Athenaeum’s Art Room was remade in glorious style. The result is a delightfully artful enclave within a bookworm’s paradise.

The Athenaeum is one of the region’s cultural gems. Founded in 1836, it draws on a heritage of book lovers that can be traced as far back as 1753 when one of its predecessor organizations, The Providence Library Company, was established. A members’ lending library with a populist appeal, the Athenaeum is housed in a stoic temple designed by William Strickland and sited gracefully on the brow of College Hill. The building, which has the look of an ancient vault of knowledge, was opened in 1838. A stone's throw from Brown University and RISD, the Athenaeum is not only the reserve of bibliophiles, but counts among its membership and its wider fanbase people of diverse backgrounds. These days it isn’t uncommon to find an Instagram influencer making a pitstop in the library’s hallowed carrels.

The stately facade of the Athenaeum on a late spring afternoon. A banner with the Rhode Island state motto “Hope” is strung between the doric columns that flank the main entry.

Recently, Athenaeum Director of Collections and Library services Kate Wodehouse generously offered to host me for a visit to the library’s refurbished Art Room. On a bright afternoon I made the five minute walk from my office at the Providence Art Club to our neighboring organization to take Kate up on her collegial hospitality. Located on Benefit Street, itself lined with an unparalleled collection of homes dating to the eighteenth century, the Athenaeum’s crisp and stoney grey facade is set off against the verdant foliage of late spring in New England. Upon my arrival Kate quickly whisked me through the library’s warren of stacks to the uppermost room of the building. Ushered through an unassuming door, one finds a glimpse of the enthusiasm for art that abounded just prior to the turn of the century.

Created in 1896, the Art Room was to be both a place of studious solitude, as well as a latter day cabinet of curiosities. It is tucked away just behind the revival pediment of the Athenaeum’s facade and is accessed from the library’s distinctive and cozy mezzanines. At the entrance one is greeted by a bust of the Providence-born art critic Albert J. Jones, who famously left the bequest that resulted in the foundation of the neighboring RISD Museum. This was to be another hallmark moment in the advancement of art in the city during the period. Just outside the entry to the Art Room the careful observer will also find a fantastic diminutive nocturne of the Athenaeum painted by printmaker Eliza Gardiner hung discreetly under a sconce.

Entering the Art Room from this curated landing, one finds a space that has received a top-to-bottom restoration. Refreshed in new tones, a lush green canopy of a ceiling overhangs the space, where paintings and busts from the Athenaeum’s collection are displayed together in artful repose. Here, portraits of the likes of Edgar Allan Poe surmount shelves filled with texts on art of all kinds. A window in the space looks out on the library’s photogenic main hall. It is both a suitable backdrop for cultured contemplation as well as a fitting vantage point for people-watching. The window’s inviting seat is newly bedecked in a William Morris textile, a pattern popular among Arts and Crafts devotees who were also experiencing an expansion in their ranks around the time the space was devised.

The Athenaeum’s refurbished Art Room sports freshly repainted surfaces and newly reinstalled art.

Within this context, one is immediately impressed by the density of the installation. Although wall space is at a premium in this bookcase-lined room, there is ample art on view. Primarily a collection of portraiture, the result is a feeling of accompaniment in the pursuit of knowledge.

In the center of the ceiling, a generous skylight has also been glitteringly refurbished. It fills the room with natural light, which falls glintingly on the glass-topped stuffed raven that holds court at the center of a Chinese-export inlay table. Nearby, a bust of Charles Darwin by nineteenth century sculptor Jane Nye Hammond stares out unflinchingly. Pendant tables at either end of the room are now encircled with elegant black chairs designed by the local firm O&G Studio in a style appropriate for an institution of this period. Each has a brass plaque with the name of a donor who commissioned it for the purpose of this restoration.

Other details include an expertly conserved portrait by Hugo Breul, tiny silhouettes of reading characters, and an enormous patriotic bronze relief installed creatively to hide a meddlesome air vent.

A window in the Art Room looks out on the main hall of the historic library. It is topped by a bronze frieze installed during the restoration.

Even after an all-too-brief visit, the Athenaeum’s Art Room is already one of my new favorite places in town. To those who were already well-acquainted with it, seeing the remodel is akin to reuniting with an old friend who looks better than ever. The whole assemblage is not only a beautiful and thoughtful restoration, but a tribute to the spirit of the library’s community throughout the years and an exploration of a zest for art that dates to the 1890’s.

Much of the handiwork involved in making this revised Art Room a reality was that of Tripp Evans, a passionate member and volunteer. When he is not busy painting woodwork and reinstalling art, he also teaches art history as a professor at Wheaton College. The work he, and other volunteers, and Athenaeum staff like Kate have done is a continuation of the labor of many art lovers through history.

To step into the Art Room is to step back in time and to be in the blossoming art world of the late nineteenth century. I found myself at one point saying to my host that I myself wish art people today might take the same sort of bohemian glee in creating an environment as our counterparts did over a century ago. Far from being stuffy or staid or polite, the American cultural scene of this time was an exciting and even boisterous one. Rooms like the one recently restored at the Athenaeum were not just venues for quiet reading, but for serious and spirited debates about the visual arts in America.

It would be appropriate then, if this renovation sparks the kind of excitement that it merits and helps those who enter the Athenaeum’s Art Room to reimagine and interrogate art’s histories and its futures.

Under the glow of brass light fixtures and the Art Room’s skylight, portraits peer out over art books.

As much as it was an exciting place when the Art Room was added in 1896, The Athenaeum is also one today. In the last decade or so it has undergone, to use a much overused word, something of a renaissance. Always a great institution, it has recently become a decidedly hip one. It has mounted exciting public programs, refreshed its digital presence, and even restored the long dormant fountain which stands in front of its main entrance on stately Benefit Street. The renovation of the Art Room is just another feather in the cap, and a crowning one, which celebrates the unique and timeless spirit associated with this great landmark.

As my visit to the wonderfully inspiring Art Room came to a close I headed back out into the main body of the library. When exiting the space, one passes through a door newly clad in supple caramel leather. Tacks in the center of the door spell out “1836”, the year of the institution’s founding. Exiting onto the snug landing outside, one is faced with the latin phrase Ars Longa, Vita Brevis freshly stenciled in gilded letters on the green wall. To one side, the bust of Albert J. Jones stands sentry next to a vintage photograph of the Roman ruins that inspired him.

The quotation above the steps, which was added to the space during the successful remodel, rings true from antiquity to today. It means Art is Long, Life is Brief.

Below, enjoy a gallery of photographs below that I took on my recent visit to the Athenaeum’s Art Room. Thanks again to my colleague Kate Wodehouse for her gracious hospitality. As of this writing, the Athenaeum is open only to their members due to current restrictions. Visit providenceathenaeum.org for more information.

Balance, Tension, and The Art of Robert Rohm

It is easy to misread sculpture as a static medium, or as one dedicated to inward-looking stillness. Great art, though, can upend such preconceived notions of its genre. One of the best regarded Baroque sculptures, Bernini’s David, for instance, is known for its remarkable torsion. Building up in the subject’s taut body, the drama inherent in tension and expected release is the key to this great work. In Down to Earth, a career-spanning survey of work by twentieth century sculptor Robert Rohm (1934-2013) another artist’s relationship with notions of tension, balance, and even motion is explored in depth. On view through April 25, 2021, at The WaterFire Arts Center in Providence, it includes selections from a diverse oeuvre created over four decades. A remarkable exhibition, it shows off the artist’s use of quotidien elements to create transcendent sculptural forms.

Down to Earth at The WaterFire Arts Center opens with a kinetic wood sculpture.

Rohm, a longtime professor at The University of Rhode Island, was an maker steeped in craft, an educator with a giving character, and an artist unparalleled in his capacity to examine structure through unassuming materials. Whereas predecessors like Bernini sculpted in marble, Rohm preferred rope, lead, encaustic, wood, and rebar. These components are used and reused, resulting in cohesive ties binding the far flung aesthetics of differing bodies of work.

The earliest objects in the exhibition were produced in the heady days of 1960’s conceptualism. The show opens with a rough hewn kinetic work in wood and moves into Rohm’s notable rope sculptures. The enormous rope work, Untitled May 16th, 1969, engages an entire wall but is constructed of simple Manila rope. Exhibited at The Whitney Museum alongside the likes of Carl Andre and Eva Hesse, the piece consists of a sixteen foot tall by twenty-two foot wide grid of two foot squares. Nailed to the wall, the work is based on the interplay between construction and disruption. When Rohm released several of the identical knots from their nails on the wall, the overwhelming grid began to give way and to dive into the viewer’s space. In Down to Earth, viewers see a reconstruction of this work executed to the exacting standards of the artist. This activation of the artist’s original intent is an essential element of conceptual art.

In later works, Rohm explored familiar figurative forms made up of materials like rebar and encaustic. This series is spookily fleshy and corporeal. In one piece, Untitled (Large Cascade), from 1996, a massive hand balances on a lone finger as its iridescent blue surface disintegrates into the sketchy contours of digits shaped in metal mesh. Hands and fingers are a reappearing motif in this group, as are shapely torsos and mantle-like forms empty of bodies. Limbs flexed and tense, or still and resolute shoulders, or a cupped palm, are all fashioned out of elements which could be procured from the hardware store. Rohm was able to play with material, with form, with the tensions between subject and object, in ways that reward the viewer who takes the time to look closely.

A view of Untitled (Large Cascade) in Down to Earth at The WaterFire Arts Center.

A grouping of tables, described in exhibition text as “Platonic work benches”, shows off Rohm’s taste for material as well as his wry sense of humor. Leaden wheels and sleigh runners serve as feet on two such tables, while another is ankle deep in metal buckets. Overhead, shop lights dangle to illuminate mysterious objects. The  whole series is a sampler of sketches in the type of craftsmanship Rohm enjoyed. These benches are strangely personified, totemic, and even altarlike. In one table, the viewer is invited to look through a glass surface into a void below which is shaped in the outline of a basilica or cathedral. Architectural forms undergird crafted objects. The hard lines of this series counterbalance the soft and amorphous edges of other sculptures on view.

Almost a quarter of the space is dedicated to a series of columns, all using rebar in one form or another. In this group, objects within cages seem to defy gravity, with the hand-formed metal canopies being the only thing to stop encaustic balloons from floating away into the cavernous space above them. These works are all about verticality, but also are almost leaden in their weighty footings. They are also largely transparent, with voids between rebar acting as windows onto still other sculptures beyond. Both solid and punctured, they are firmly clung to the ground but aspire to be aloft. The sense of the totemic object found in Rohm’s tables might be noticed here as well, as might a sense of the ceremonial.

Rohm’s production was singular, but while early works correlate to those of co-exhibitors like Andre and Hesse, some later objects reflect the sensitivity for materials more common in a different contemporary like Martin Puryear. Rohm and Puryear overlapped for a period and the warmly tactile quality found in Rohm’s work can also be seen in Puryear’s. Finding such stylistic connections between divergent artists is one of the delights of this exhibition.

Rohm was in command of an array of sculptural techniques, but also made enviable drawings. Throughout the exhibition, there is a smattering of works on paper by the artist which are nearly as obsessively textured as the surfaces of his encaustic-covered forms. Recurring objects like pianos, lightbulbs, or the jagged map of Rhode Island appear in these two dimensional pieces. They are lively and colorful. In two-dimensions, they express the same knack for specificity and exactitude that one sees in the artist’s three-dimensional work.

To close out the exhibition, a separate gallery features stage sets the artist created as well as intricate and beautiful maquettes. Rohm used these as the basis for many of his projects, some of which are on view in the exhibition. These tiny alter egos are so fantastically detailed that they could be mistaken for their full size counterparts. Here, macabre subject matter works itself out. Little gibbeted and dismembered figures that recall Goya are examples of such imagery. In another maquette, a window looks onto a winch, where a coiled rope appears on the verge of snapping. Another small sculpture features an electric chair. The tension in these small works is as intense as that in the full scale objects nearby.

The last gallery of the exhibition is lined with maquettes and features stage sets created by Rohm.

As one exits the show, there is a drawing on view Rohm made in the days before he passed away. In this diminutive work, a forest of brown trees parts to reveal a sliver of sky, which transitions through tones of blue. Depending on how it is read, it could either be a scene of dawn breaking or evening falling. This type of tension or ambiguity is poetic, and beautiful, and is present throughout much of the work on view. 

This is a rich and varied exhibition, and one which serves as a necessary primer for Rohm’s significant production over a lifetime. From the 1960’s into the 2000’s, it charts his skillful craftsmanship of core materials and his sensibility for design, balance, and tension in many wonderful forms. 

Down to Earth: Robert Rohm Sculpture, 1963-2013 will run March 24 – April 25, 2021. The exhibit is free for all, donations encouraged. The WaterFire Arts Center hours are: Wednesday – Sunday, 10:00 a.m.- 5:00 p.m, Thursday 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. In following Rhode Island’s COVID-19 protocols, all visitors are required to self-screen before entering the WaterFire Arts Center and practice safety rules: keeping a 6’ distance from others and wear a mask at all times. For more information, visit www.waterfire.org.

Below, explore a slideshow of my photographs of my favorite details from the exhibition.

My Go-To Art Book Shops in Providence, Rhode Island

I live out the philosophy that one can never have too many art books. Having acquired my art library from a variety of sources, I’ve also found that one doesn’t have to trek to The Strand for great selection, though. Closer to home, in New England, a couple other favorite vendors include Harvard Book Store in Cambridge and the Book Barn in Connecticut.

I’m sure there are many great art bookstores in your own backyard, and in my case that’s Providence, Rhode Island. In spite of the size of this relatively small city, I have several go-to spots where even the most discerning reader is certain to find choice used and new art tomes to add to their own ever-growing “to read” piles.

I frequently recommend the following spots to students, colleagues, and friends, and I hope you’ll explore these stores if you’re in the area, or support your own local booksellers when adding books to your art library.

Paper Nautilus Books
19 South Angell Street
Website: www.papernautilusbooks.com
Instagram: @papernautilusbooks

Paper Nautilus was founded in 1996 and is a staple of the Wayland Square neighborhood. They feature a selection of both new and used books in a range of subjects, but their art section is particularly excellent. Whenever I visit, I find a book I didn’t know I had to have from a vintage two volume biography of Michelangelo to Preziosi’s Oxford Critical Anthology of Art History. As a bonus, they also regularly host art exhibitions and have shared the work of many talented artists from the area.

Cellar Stories Bookstore
11 Mathewson Street
Website: www.cellarstories.com
Instagram: @cellarstories

In business for over 35 years, Cellar Stories bills itself as the largest used and rare bookstore in the nation’s smallest state. In spite of its name, the store is actually up, not down, a flight of stairs in a nondescript building downtown. When you stumble inside you’ll find rows of shelves packed from floor to ceiling in every conceivable subject. Their art section is set aside in its own room and is typically a good place to find larger format texts. I’ve found more than a few gems in this “cellar”.

Symposium Books
240 Westminster Street
Website: www.symposiumbooks.com
Instagram: @symposiumbooks

Symposium Books is another downtown fixture. A well-appointed shop that fills a graceful storefront in the heart of Westminster Street, Symposium always has a great selection of erudite art books. Focused on new volumes, Symposium is the perfect spot to find cerebral and sometimes unexpected books on a range of specialized topics, from conceptual art to American furniture. It’s also a great place to browse before grabbing a cocktail downtown.

If you can’t find something that suits your fancy at Paper Nautilus, Cellar Stories, or Symposium, you can always order from Books on the Square, another Wayland Square landmark that sources harder to find books and offers pickup within a few days usually. Their friendly staff are always extremely helpful. You can’t go wrong with any of the booksellers I’ve mentioned here. Stop in and you’ll be sure to find something for your own library’s art section.

Before you visit, be sure to check with all the above mentioned book dealers about their current hours and shopping policies, but remember to shop local when buying your art books this spring!

Remembering Howard Ben Tré at The WaterFire Arts Center

If Rhode Island named a Sculptor Laureate, it is almost certain that Howard Ben Tré would have held the mantle. The artist, who passed away in June of 2020 at the age of 71, was one of the most significant contemporary artists to call the state home. Sure, many notables have passed through the doors of institutions like RISD only to disappear into New York or Los Angeles, with their local connections appearing merely as a footnote on their resume. For Ben Tré, however, many of his most productive years were had in the Ocean State and his final studio was housed in a modest industrial building in Pawtucket. On view through March 7, 2021 at The WaterFire Arts Center, an engaging exhibition captures Howard Ben Tré’s important legacy, a fitting tribute to an international artist who made his home in Rhode Island. 

Ben Tré was born in Brooklyn and his dedication to the craft of making objects can be traced back to his carpenter father. The artist’s dad studied at Cooper Hewitt before serving in the Second World War, but was denied the dream of being an artist out of a necessity to provide for his family. Ben Tré gained experience in the way many young people do, tinkering in his father’s shop and receiving a first hand apprenticeship in a more or less industrial setting. This dual beginning, which included a dedication to craft and an admiration for industriousness, has been noted as an influence that remained throughout his career. After spending formative years focused on political activism, he earned his undergraduate degree at Portland State University in Oregon before traveling back east with his family to pursue an MFA at RISD under the auspices of Dale Chihuly. 

For many graduates, Providence is a way post, but Ben Tré made it his base. The apex of his storied vocation as an artist coincided with the ambitious 1990’s renaissance of Rhode Island’s capitol city, which saw rail lines rerouted and rivers uncovered, transforming a mostly derelict downtown into a markedly more vibrant place. In those days, city leaders threw their lot behind the arts as a key engine driving urban rebirth, with the installation work WaterFire coming to the fore as an essential element of the city’s new identity as a creative hub. For this reason, it seems appropriate that The WaterFire Arts Center is hosting Private Visions, Public Ideals – The Legacy of Howard Ben Tré, a truly stunning exhibition charting the significance of Ben Tré’s output. 

Ben Tré’s cast glass forms glow in WaterFire’s bright space.

Rhode Islanders are spoiled to have a number of Ben Tré works accessible in important public places. In 1996, he installed his Bearing Figure at the gateway to the Rhode Island Convention Center, one of the key landmarks in the overhaul of Providence. His BankBoston Plaza design, from 1998, offers a soothing oasis at the city’s densest crossroads. At the RISD Museum, Mantled Figure, completed in 1993, greets visitors who arrive through the Benefit Street entrance. Other projects were sited at Brown University, Wheeler School, and Hasbro Children’s Hospital. In November 2020, the Newport Art Museum unveiled a new installation of Ben Tré’s 2010 sculpture Two Capped as part of their campus renovation project. In short, examples of his work are ample here, but this exhibition puts a fine point on the best characteristics of his production, while helping local viewers to assemble a more cohesive understanding of an artist whose innovative techniques and global reach they may not fully appreciate.

Private Visions, Public Ideals captures the artist’s contributions to the realm of sculpture, to the technique of casting glass, and to the idea of public art itself. Shown off in the cavernous central hall of The WaterFire Arts Center, one will find an array of pieces that exhibit both creative process and artistic product. Maquettes of unrealized projects are paired with models for public plazas that were completed and are still being enjoyed by neighborhoods some twenty years on. Videos give visitors insights into Ben Tré’s background, his technical acumen, and his way of seeing. It is an engaging show, and one that poses a rare and excellent opportunity for guests to view a broad collection of work all in one place. As a bonus, the end of the exhibition space hosts an imposing array of monolithic moving crates, testifying to the complex art-handling necessary for works like these. This is an aspect of the art trade few gallery goers get to see, but one that is the specialty of the late artist’s wife, Wendy MacGaw, who worked with WaterFire staff to organize the exhibition alongside longtime Ben Tré patron Dr. Joseph Chazan.

A collection of Ben Tré shipping crates shows off hidden aspects of art exhibition preparation.

Ben Tré had a magpie-like ability to collect ideas from wide-ranging sources, from the ancient world to contemporary spirituality. The creative innovations he found in glass casting made his ideas, which occasionally verged on the utopic, a reality for all to enjoy. Part figurative, part totemic, and seemingly able to speak across time, his forms are minimal and essential, but also thrillingly alive. Repeating patterns can occasionally be found but perhaps the most direct is that of the glass form seemingly belted with metal, creating cinctures that underscore their medium-bending enormity and curvaceousness. Other exquisite details include bubbles frozen in the interior of the solid glass, cracks and striations that enliven their surfaces, and the incandescent quality they acquire in the bright sunlight. They reward close looking. And in the magnificent space of The WaterFire Arts Center, the next best thing to being outside, Ben Tré’s sculptures sing.

There is a sensuous quality to the works on display, something that invites the viewer to engage with them. It takes restraint to not run a hand along their cool surfaces. While Ben Tré’s work has a timeless beauty, it is also couched in the buoyant Postmodernism of the 1980’s and 90’s, one that imagined a kind of public art that could be transformational for the good. In his commissions for public spaces, the artist sought to make this dream a reality. One section of the exhibition is dedicated to the conceptualization and unveiling of BankBoston Plaza in downtown Providence, a case study in how the artist labored to improve common areas of city living.

The artist’s model for BankBoston Plaza (1998)

This large-scale installation, completed in 1998, includes, as many of Ben Tré’s projects did, several independent vignettes within a cohesive whole. First, a tall urn-like fountain encircled with high-backed benches, then undulating sets of seating that double as planters for a miniature grove of trees, and finally a wall-based installation and water feature. This work activated the urban core and gave a place of respite to the workers toiling in the surrounding high-rises. It brought the quintessential quietness and introspection of Ben Tré’s work to the center of the hustle and bustle. In doing so, it became a stage set against which the drama of urban life could be muted and tamed. After seeing the exhibition on Valley Street, visitors should travel downtown to see this site-specific work in order to feel, first hand, how objects like those on view in a contemporary art exhibition can translate to real life usefulness.

Coming away from Private Visions, Public Ideals, it is difficult not to appreciate the wide-ranging qualities of an artist like Howard Ben Tré. To create the oeuvre attributed to him, he recognized the need to build a team of dedicated collaborators in a variety of fields. He was equal parts creator, innovator, engineer, partner, diplomat, translator, and the list must go on. These are skills that go beyond those of a single-minded artist and towards ones associated with a creative visionary. Through his art he brought together talented craftspeople and industry professionals to make work that often served their counterparts in the more rarified environments of offices, apartments, and cities. Not to mention works that are appreciated in museum collections around the globe.  These interconnected linkages between the artist, his extended studio, and the world, are important ones and they are as much on display in this exhibition as Ben Tré’s elegant glass and metal sculptures.

It is indisputable that Howard Ben Tré will be remembered for his remarkable legacy, both in Rhode Island and far beyond its little borders. And in the years to come, this exhibition too will rightly be seen as a key work itself, thoughtfully and beautifully documenting the life and the creations of a uniquely visionary man.

Private Visions, Public Ideals is on view at The WaterFire Arts Center at 475 Valley Street in Providence through March 7. The exhibition is free and open to the public Wednesday - Sunday 10:00am - 5:00pm. Masks are required and guest temperatures are taken upon arrival. To learn more and plan your visit, go to www.waterfire.org.

Below, view a slideshow of scenes from the exhibition.

Destination: The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

It had been about a year since my last museum visit, until this past weekend when I made a visit to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut. Founded in 1842, and open to the public since 1844, the Wadsworth is the oldest continuously operating public art museum in the country. It has strong holdings in American art of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as in European paintings. It was the first museum in the United States to buy a painting by Caravaggio. His St. Francis in Ecstasy remains a major draw. The Wadsworth is not just a particularly good smaller museum, but also a worthy destination for a reintroduction to the world of museums in the time of Covid-19. 

At an hour and a half, the drive from Providence to Hartford is a picturesque one. The route linking the capital cities of Connecticut and Rhode Island runs through kind of small and charming towns for which New England is renowned. At certain points the roadside becomes thickly dotted with fine Federal houses bedecked in Doric-columned porches. Occasionally, a ramshackle red barn is silhouetted against the backdrop of a rolling hill as the road curves through the shallow valleys of Eastern Connecticut. The snow of the last few weeks is still clinging to the roofs of houses, and barns, and general stores, whose eves are lined with perfect icicles. In a parallel universe, the whole scene doubtlessly lives on the lid of a cookie tin in some grandmother’s cupboard. When I arrive at Hartford, the city emerges almost as a surprise, startling me out of the idyll at the end of this country road.

The Wadsworth is situated in the shadow of the Travelers Insurance Tower in the heart of the city’s downtown. Comprised of five interconnected structures in varying styles, the museum is a labyrinthine collection of galleries, each with its own distinct personality. In 2015, the facility reopened after a multi-year renovation effort, which added thousands of square feet of exhibition space and saw the reinstallation of swaths of the museum’s collection. The result remains, some five years on, an impressive feat of reimagination. The Wadsworth, which has a collection in the range of 50,000 objects, is a museum of diverse and beautiful spaces, which are rarely at odds with each other. 

As of this writing, the museum is offering free admission to all guests, and is organizing visits with timed ticketed slots. Upon my arrival over the weekend, temperatures were taken and visitors were instructed to follow the paths laid out by directional arrows on the floors of the galleries. At certain points, specific paintings were paired with vinyl dots adhered to the floor to indicate where visitors should stand to look at a work whilst also maintaining social distance. Most of the museum-goers I encountered were considerate and well behaved, with Wadsworth staff providing courteous assistance and direction. As a first experience of museum life in this unusual time, the museum’s policies felt well thought out and geared toward visitor safety. It was reassuring of the potential for cultural life to return to something we all might recognize in the coming months.

The Wadsworth’s 1842 entrance is defined by its imposing Gothic tracery and rooftop crenellation. In the background, The Travelers Insurance Tower looms. Photo by the author.

Walking through the Helen and Harry Gray Court, the museum’s original building and grand main entrance, one is immediately entranced by Sol Lewitt’s Wall Drawing Number 793 C, a massive mural that encompasses the space and draws the eye up a storey. From there, arrows guide visitors into contemporary galleries, which were in between exhibitions on my visit, and through to The Avery Memorial. Constructed in 1934 and billed as the first museum wing built in the International Style in the nation, this space exhibits an array of objects and is dedicated to dealer, collector, and museum donor Samuel P. Avery. Around a central court surmounted by a gracious skylight, its three floors of galleries feature three-quarter-height walls, which are punctuated by Juliet balconies that look down onto a central fountain. It is a light-filled and buoyant and unusual assemblage of exhibition spaces, featuring a strong collection of work. One standout is a particularly stunning Georgia O’Keeffe painting dating to 1929. The subject is the brilliant night sky of New Mexico seen through the sinuous limbs of a ponderosa pine.

Georgia O'Keeffe, The Lawrence Tree, 1929, Oil on canvas, 31 x 40 inches, The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1981.23

For the Valentine’s Day Weekend, the museum hired a harpist who played contemporary classics while I milled through a gallery filled with treasures from the Hudson River School. Getting lost in the incandescent horizon of a Thomas Cole while strains of Elton John’s Your Song filter through the gallery is the type of surreal experience that can only be had in real life in a museum, and I was grateful for it. Later, while I examined the museum’s ruminative Caravaggio of St. Francis receiving the stigmata, echoes of applause could be heard for the musical performance concluding galleries away. 

At the heart of the intimate but rambling museum, the Morgan Great Hall holds an impressive salon style installation of European paintings. This is the prototypical art museum one imagines as emerging out of central casting, and gives viewers a sense of the substantiality of the permanent collection. Smaller galleries that circumscribe this space and others hold more specific treasures including a jewel-like portrait of an angel by Fra Angelico. Upstairs, paintings by the likes of Delacroix, Ingres, Rousseau, Monet and van Gogh illuminate later moments in art making. Another particular bright spot is William Holman Hunt’s dazzling interpretation of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Lady of Shallott”.

William Holman Hunt, The Lady of Shalott, c. 1888–1905, Oil on canvas, 74 x 57 inches, The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1961.470

A number of laudable temporary exhibitions are currently on view at the museum. One show highlights the rhythmic paintings of the Iranian-born artist Ali Banisadr, which draw their compositions in part from the phenomenon of synesthesia. Another exhibition focuses on the ancient inspirations that shaped the Art Deco sculptures of Paul Manship, whose work will be recognized by anyone who has visited the artist’s famous Prometheus at Rockefeller Center in New York. Nearby, the museum’s Amistad Center for Art and Culture shares engaging works that in the museum’s description “document the experience, expressions, and history of people of African American heritage”.

A day trip to the Wadsworth is always a delight and it is always worth the beautiful drive. Particularly now, as many of us are just beginning to cautiously dip our toes back into the types of experiences we once foolishly took for granted, a visit to a museum of such digestible scope and scale is a renewing experience. One of my favorite, if overused, quotes is John Keats’s assertion that “a thing of beauty is a joy forever”. The Wadsworth’s collection is indeed a joy – and one which is more compelling now than ever.

To learn more about the Wadsworth, visit their website at www.thewadsworth.org. 

Note: Current guidelines in the State of Connecticut permit visitors from only Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey to visit without quarantining. Be sure to apprise yourself of the most up to date health guidelines before planning your visit and be sure to act responsibly when making such a trip.

Wallpapered in Velvet: Fall TEFAF and The (Old) Art World

This weekend, I made a trip to the New York installment of The European Fine Art Fair (popularly known as TEFAF). I wanted to share my takeaways from an event I genuinely very much enjoyed and one I see as an important indicator of issues at play in the art market at large.

Held in the Seventh Regiment Park Avenue Armory, itself a relic of a bygone type of elegance, the The European Fine Art Fair’s (TEFAF) Fall Installment includes galleries specializing in fine and decorative arts dated prior to 1920 and primarily from Europe and the United States. First mounted in 1988 and now hosted three times a year (once in Maastricht in the Netherlands and twice in New York City), the show follows the art fair model it helped to popularize. Galleries and art dealers rent individual booths and exhibit a selection of works drawn from their regular inventory, or new discoveries shown for the first time. The participating exhibitors are vetted in advance as a form of quality control and the Fair’s website boasts a preponderance of museum quality objects. The resulting event features work ranging widely, from drawings by Egon Schiele and Le Corbusier, to Old Master paintings, as well as Ancient and Classical sculpture. The fall iteration of TEFAF is known for featuring older, and potentially more traditional, work whereas the spring show is focused on more modern objects. This show is truly a place to see some of the finest artworks available in retail environments up close and also to examine the workings of an art market in transition.

To say that TEFAF is a refined experience would be an understatement. A visit to the show requires an admission fee more expensive than any museum and most of the visitors are dressed well enough to make it difficult to distinguish collector from dealer. There is something decidedly old world about it and decidedly old school, too. Fitted out in bespoke suits and designer garments, an army of dealers and assistants charm serious connoisseurs and collectors or merely those morbidly curious enough to spend $55 and the better part of a Saturday looking at beautiful things that, barring a bank heist, they will never be able to afford. In addition to crossing paths with a stunning Picasso or two, one is also bound to come in contact with what F. Scott Fitzgerald called “the consoling proximity of millionaires”.

It all feels slightly of another time. Most of the artworks on offer at TEFAF would not have been out of place in the homes of popes or princes, Romanovs or Bourbons. Reviewing the provenance on some object labels, it is not at all uncommon to find a former famous owner or a previous place in a great collection. The contemporary titans of finance or tech who are able drop a cool million on a painting here are not far off from Gilded Age patrons like Henry Clay Frick or J.P. Morgan, who would have delighted in such an event and undoubtedly would have greedily used it to add to their own hoards as well.

This show largely remains the domain of this same archetypal self-assured collector, but one occasionally can spot the unmistakeable look of an art advisor dragging nouveau riche clients through booths of artworks which they do not necessarily appreciate. The phrase “no, Jackson Pollock is much later than this…” might be overheard, or so too an admonishment about manners that, in another generation, were seen as de rigueur. A business degree from Syracuse is as likely an attribute now as one in art history from the Sorbonne. But, it is still a deeply worldly event, where guests in line for the Fair’s restaurant chat languidly in German, French, or Italian. As I walk by, two Japanese women in traditional Kimono are seen in by a maître d’.

Behind all of this old and new international glamour, though, it is worth noting the audible whispers of Brexit and the unsightly murmurs of “return on investment”. It is now unavoidable as ever for art, regardless of age or genre, to be seen and used as a financial tool, and one which is tied inextricably to the fickle fortunes of complex and global systems. As much as taste and quality can determine value, so too can a myriad of other factors, which are speedily defined and redefined in terms far removed from the theoretical values of the art world. There is an incestuous tangle between financial and political power brokers and the art dealers who remain dependent on their patronage, while also being impacted by the workings of economies over which these king-makers often hold some sway.

Although the Fall Installment of TEFAF primarily focuses on objects prior to 1920, errant contemporary items find their way in, mostly through specialty collaborations. It must be said that there is something a little inelegant about a Fontana next to a fine Classical sculpture, or a Warhol adjacent to a Bonnard - something of the whiff of defeat. Dealers and gallerists formerly full of confidence in the market for artworks now seen in some quarters as a little too conventional are finding themselves engaging with the red hot objects of the Modern and Contemporary market in order to buoy their fortunes. The veneer of a fictional well-rounded and broadly interested collector is applied to a decision that is one of purely economic necessity. The market is changing and so too are buyers’ interests. If the pairings that result from these real world realties seem a little odd, they are also easily understandable. A commercial gallery is a business after all, not a religion.

Such is the world today. Gallerists are attempting to make an argument that eighteenth century continental portraiture or medieval polychrome sculpture can be as exciting a proposition as a Basquiat. It remains to be seen if their tactics will be fruitful, or if the one-to-one comparison between newer and more avant-garde objects with their elders will serve only to illustrate the retrograde aspects of the latter to a new generation of collectors more interested in the art and design of the mid-twentieth century than that of the Middle Ages.

All of these details add to the intrigue of TEFAF. It is, indeed, a place to see exceptional things from some of the best dealers in the world. It is also a place to rub shoulders with the art world literati on duty: a curator from the Metropolitan photographing a piece with their phone, a museum official negotiating a deal with a seller, a prominent collector using emphatic, and course, language to describe a dealer’s prices. These details, this vague camaraderie, point to the ways in which the Fall iteration of TEFAF also harkens back to a time when the art world was far less complicated than it is now.

A booth near the entrance of the Fair features a Venitian scene by Bellotto mounted on a partition wallpapered in rich blue velvet. One cannot help but imagine a time when pedigreed art aficionados invited similarly pedigreed collectors into private rooms nearly identically accoutered. Over old cigars and older scotch, sales were ironed out and relationships were built. Of course, such appointments, slightly altered, still take place in the converted townhouses of the Upper East Side, or in the fine interiors of St. James’s in London, or in still more fashionable corners of Berlin or Zurich, Paris or Rome. But now these rarified dealers are working publicly too, on a world stage, and in an art market that is being radically remade by the modern, the new, and the digital.

While TEFAF definitely represents long-standing values of vetting and connoisseurship along with a seriousness of research, purpose, and quality, it is unclear if the Fall show can also represent a future that is largely defined by the excitement around Modern and Contemporary, or by art as financial asset, as investment, as collateral, as splashy, if hollow, political activism.

TEFAF is a preeminent art event and a place to see beautiful things, important things, things that are of rare and spectacular quality. It also will be a place of importance as a testing ground for market realities and one of many barometers measuring the tastes and trends within a labyrinthine, globalized art economy.

The next installment of The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) will focus on Modern and Contemporary Art and Design and will take place May 8-12, 2020 at the Park Avenue Armory.

To learn more, visit tefaf.com.

A Few Favorite Things From The Boston International Fine Art Show

I was thrilled to be invited to give a talk at the first day of this year’s Boston International Fine Art Show (BIFAS) at the historic Cyclorama Building in the Back Bay. I gave a talk titled What Has Your Gallery Done For You Lately? about the complexities of the modern artist-gallery relationship.

BIFAS is presented in the historic Cyclorama Building at the Boston Center for The Arts, a stunning backdrop for booths containing work from a range of time periods.

After my lecture, I had a chance to visit the Show and explore some of the great booths representing a wide range of galleries. BIFAS is a diverse and approachably scaled art fair that gives visitors of all backgrounds access to galleries presenting exciting work, including some truly museum-quality pieces. I enjoyed much of the Show, but wanted to highlight a few of my favorite presentations and objects throughout the Show, which continues through Sunday, October 27.

A selection of work by John Wilson in Martha Richardson’s booth.

Martha Richardson Fine Art

Martha Richardson Fine Art is located at 38 Newbury Street and handles American and European work in a variety of media, primarily from the Modern period. I particularly enjoyed a section of Martha’s booth dedicated to works by John Wilson (1922 - 2015), a great Roxbury-born artist. In particular, Wilson’s powerful depictions of African-American figures which were given pride of place in Richardson’s booth caught my eye and drew me in.

Learn more about Martha Richardson at martharichardsonfineart.com.

A mini salon style hanging of drawings in Jasmine Doussiere’s booth.

Jasmine Doussiere’s Silver Art by D and R

Jasmine and her husband are dealers based in Marseilles and New York who show an array of drawings as well as fine French silver at shows throughout the East Coast, from Philadelphia and Baltimore, to Newport, Boston, and New York. I love drawings and couldn’t help but look closely at her selection of works on paper. They were elegantly exhibited and the price points were quite affordable considering their quality.

Learn more about Jasmine at silverartbydandr.com.

A lovely and dramatic Ralph Blakelock offered by Questroyal Fine Art.

Questroyal Fine Art

Questroyal Gallery is an established dealer of important American paintings primarily from the Hudson River School. They also work with paintings dating into the twentieth century. Their booth was well stocked with pieces of the quality you would expect from such an institution. I was especially enamoured with paintings by Ralph Blakelock,  Guy Wiggins, Fairfield Porter, Henry Martin Gasser, and James Beckwith. These pieces from various periods show off the skills and interests of talented American artists.

Learn more about Questroyal at questroyalfineart.com.

A display of work by Winslow Homer presented by Avery Galleries.

Avery Galleries

Avery Galleries was founded by collector Richard Rossello in 2001 and, like Questroyal, deals in work by important American artists. Based in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Avery had a selection of enticing pieces by names any art lover would recognize. My favorite spot in their booth was a corner dedicated to prints, drawings, and one very fine painting by Winslow Homer, one of the most important American artists of the nineteenth century.

Learn more about Avery Galleries at averygalleries.com.

Pre-nineteenth century items on offer from Christine Magne Antiquaire.

Christine Magne Antiquaire

Like Avery Galleries, Christine Magne Antiquaire is based in Pennsylvania, with a showroom in a converted industrial space in Philadelphia. Her booth was full of a variety of European work from Old Master to Tonalist painting. She deals primarily in works of European fine and decorative arts from prior to the nineteenth century, and her space offered a well curated selection of her unique inventory.

Learn more about Christine at franceantique.com.

A beautifully simple Jean Dufy offered by Trinity House Paintings.

Trinity House Paintings

Trinity House Paintings was founded in 2006 by Steven Beale and now has multiple locations in the United Kingdom and the United States. Their booth was full of the types of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works which they deal regularly. But I was particularly drawn in by a simple line drawing by the French artist Jean Dufy from 1924. It’s minimalism speaks to a tendency to more refined tastes among Millenial collectors.

Learn more about Trinity House Paintings at trinityhousepaintings.com.

A selection of 1920’s and 30’s prints from Fusco Four Modern.

Fusco Four Modern

In addition to being the organizers behind the Boston International Fine Art Show, Tony Fusco and Robert Four have been collecting works of art for decades. One specific passion has been fine prints from the 1920’s and 30’s, an interest I also share. Their booth had a wonderful group of prints by Rockwell Kent, as well as a selection of works on paper by Vera Andrus, whose estate they handle and whose catalogue raissone they are in the final stages of completing. One standout work was Carl Hoeckner’s Jazz Age of 1935, a print also held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago which depicts the feverish striptease of a burlesque performer.

Learn more about Fusco Four Modern at fuscofourmodern.com.

Visit BIFAS

The Show continues through Sunday, October 27. BIFAS is open to the public Saturday 11-8 and Sunday 11-5. For more information and to purchase advance tickets, visit fineartboston.com.

The Genius of Beyoncé and Jay-Z at the Louvre

A detail from The Carters' Apeshit music video directed by Ricky Saiz, 2018

On Saturday, Beyoncé and Jay-Z released a surprise new album, Everything is Love, on Tidal the streaming service they co-own. The first music video for the album accompanies the single Apeshit and was released under the duo's co-moniker The Carters. The video was filmed entirely at the Louvre and was directed by Ricky Saiz, who previously collaborated with Beyoncé on the video for her track Yoncé. The new video, shared with unwitting fans via Instagram on Saturday afternoon, has over seven million views as of this writing (a little more than 24 hours after release). It features Beyoncé and Jay-Z in the empty Louvre Museum; perhaps the greatest bastion of so-called "high culture", and also the center of the predominantly white and male tradition of Western Art. The Apeshit video is stunningly styled, choreographed, and filmed. And it is also highly conceptual. It takes part in an ongoing tradition of celebrities engaging with high art, it places the uniquely American art form of rap on the same level with European masterpieces, and it corrects the lack of diversity that is often taken for granted in cultural institutions, not only in the Old World, but in the New as well.

The video opens with a cinematic shot of a black figure with angel wings standing guard outside the Louvre by night; bells chiming in the distance. It then transitions inside the museum with lavishly gilt interiors appropriate to a former palace and details of fine European paintings. In the next scene Beyoncé and Jay-Z are pictured dramatically standing alongside La Jaconde, The Mona Lisa. Jay-Z wears a pale teal suit with a gold medallion, Beyoncé is in a pink silk smoking jacket, richly accessorized with diamonds. They are presented one-to-one with the best known portrait in Western Art, equaling it in regality. The scene is also a reference to their viral photo shoot at the Museum in 2014, in which they also took a photo alongside Da Vinci's most famous painting. In both scenes they are compared directly to their painted co-star. They, like she, stare out at the viewer. They too, are iconic. And The Carters, like The Mona Lisa, are celebrities with far reaching influence.

George Clooney, a la Yayoi Kusama, W Magazine, 2013

Other celebrities, too, have engaged with the art world. The painter Will Cotton was the artistic director for Katy Perry's California Gurls music video in 2010. George Clooney was styled by the Japanese conceptual artist Yayoi Kusama for a W Magazine spread in 2013. John Currin was commissioned to paint a portrait of Jennifer Lawrence for the cover of Vogue's 125th Anniversary Issue in 2017. Louis Vuitton created a line of bags designed with Jeff Koons that feature paintings by Rubens, Monet, and others. The list goes on. Celebrities and luxury brands regularly utilize blue chip artists in their own projects both to establish their cultural bona fides and also to raise the cachet of their own brands. In the case of The Carters, the hallowed halls of the Louvre and the paintings within it become not a sales pitch, but rather a backdrop for an effective performance about culture and race that undermines traditional assumptions about art, the vagueries of high versus low culture, and the institutions that broker mass interpretations of these topics.

Whereas the media of the artworks presented in the video are sculptures and oils, the media of the performers are hip-hop and dance. The uniqueness of hip-hop, rap, and their associated dance styles can be traced back to their foundations in The Bronx of the 1970's, and other mostly African-American enclaves in cities throughout the United States. The Carters' merging of this American musical tradition with the Parisian art establishment is reminiscent in so many ways of Jazz Age ex-patriotism, when American-American Jazz singer, dancer, and performer Josephine Baker rose to spectacular popularity in the Paris of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Gertrude Stein. Beyoncé and Jay-Z are interested in the unique history of African-American performers in France, and engage with that story in the video. Like Baker, their cultural prominence abroad has been achieved not through the avenues of the establishment but through a mass popularity built on the currency of their own work. Lyrics in Apeshit directly reference their popularity and success:

I can't believe we made it (this is what we made, made)
This is what we're thankful for (this is what we thank, thank)
I can't believe we made it (this a different angle)
Have you ever seen the crowd goin' apeshit? Rah!

This popularity comes from a broad and diverse fan-base, which has already raised ecstatic support for their new album and the Apeshit video. Throughout the already viral video, the iconic American music duo is presented as equal to not only The Mona Lisa, but also to the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and Egyptian Pharonic sculpture. Beyoncé and Jay-Z perform as art historical subjects with the same gravitas afforded to the works of art they reference. Dancers perform too, alongside Beyoncé in front of works from the academic canon of art history, including Jacques Louis David's The Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon and the Coronation of Empress Joséphine, while Jay-Z raps in front of Gericault's Raft of the Medusa. The mostly white faces of art history are contrasted with contemporary African-American artists. Rigid paintings by dead painters are challenged and redefined by rap and the ecstatic movement of individuals who are very much alive. And importantly, this redefinition is undertaken utilizing African-American music and choreography, with a cast made up of people of color. People who have been mostly left out of institutions like the Louvre, as evidenced by the artworks scanned in the video, claim their rightful place in the cultural pantheon.

Beyoncé (center) accompanied by dancers, performs in front of Jacques-Louis David's monumental painting The Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon and the Coronation of Empress Joséphine, 1807

Through performance in the Louvre and amongst works deemed "important" by the art establishment The Carters remind the viewer of their own cultural import, which comes not institutionally but communally. Beyoncé and Jay-Z are clearly and unarguably cultural leaders in their own right, and have been for some time. They have millions of followers around the world and, in a reference to the current political climate, they note that they fill stadiums as successfully as the NFL. So the Apeshit video is more of a statement of fact than anything else. These artists are as recognizable and as recognized as The Mona Lisa. They are as successful and as respected in music as painters like David or Da Vinci have been in the visual arts. The video shows though that The Carters share in the kind of creative "genius" formerly associated with white, male, European artists. Although it was produced commercially to promote their music, and does not fit the mold that has been set out for a work of high art, The Carters' Apeshit tells a compelling story and helps to reframe popular visions of culture and cultural institutions.

The video concludes with Beyoncé and Jay-Z in front of The Mona Lisa again. The two, who are previously pictured in the same spot facing the audience, slowly turn to regard each other and then the turn away from the audience to look at famous painting. The point is clear: two uniquely American celebrities considering an iconically European celebrity and thinking about her and their roles in the history of visual culture. In the video, audiences are enjoined not only to reflect on the status of great art or great celebrities within the mass culture, but to reconsider who is deserving of their status and who might have been left out of the popular story and history of art.

Vivacious Shapes: Justine Hill's Paintings at Denny Gallery

Justine Hill (b. 1985) is a Brooklyn-based painter who, in her own words, "collages different ways of making marks to accomplish a desired texture, color, or opacity for each form. Most marks are made from paint, crayon, pencil or pastel. The final painting is simply a composite of these varied marks and based on their formation can behave as animated creature or moving environments."

Hill's current solo exhibition, Freestanding, on view at Denny Gallery on New York's Lower East Side, shows off the range of her considerable technical capabilities and the breadth of her vision. Her lively and vibrant paintings are made up of shaped, canvas-covered panels. Layers of texture and color are built up within each shaped form, which are assembled together to create complete objects. The formal elements of each unit in Hill's paintings bounce off one another, resulting in a rich and varied interplay within, without, and between her cutout panels. The work is also full of energy; producing the occasional hallucinatory vibration. Hill's paintings are, in short, exciting.

To paraphrase Denny Gallery's description of the show, the objective of Hill's exhibition is to explore how her paintings can reassert themselves in space, reacquire their background, and become “freestanding”. The show succeeds in every regard. Through her considerate use of line, color, layer, and texture, Hill transforms the viewer's understanding of her shaped supports. In some instances, the painted surface underscores a preconceived notion about the form below. In others, the surface seemingly rebels against its own panel. Hill's work keeps the audience guessing, and the details of her paintings are transfixing.

The strengths of Hill's work are in the rigorous thinking that underpins them. She explores and re-explores the potentials and drawbacks of shape, of line, of content. Her marks are at once practiced and improvisational, but always very purposeful. By utilizing traditional formal elements of construction in novel ways and by undermining or second-guessing their usefulness, the artist engages with the history of the artform. In her work Hill interrogates the very medium of painting to dazzling effect.

Hill earned her BA at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, and her MFA at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been featured in four previous solo exhibitions at Galerie Protégé, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, and Denny Gallery in New York, as well as at Blueshift Project in Miami. Her work has been widely reviewed including mentions in Artsy, ArtNet, Two Coats of Paint, Hyperallergic, and The Huffington Post. Her work is in numerous private collections and was recently acquired by the Davis Museum at Wellesley College. Her extensive CV, and her excellent current solo exhibition at Denny Gallery are indicative of her well-deserved status as a rising star of contemporary painting.

Freestanding is on view through March 6, 2018 at Denny Gallery.

Dwarf Set and Cyclops, by Justine Hill

Bookend 3, by Justine Hill

Encountering The Divine: Fra Angelico at the Gardner Museum

Fra Angelico (born Guido di Pietro, c.1395 - 1455) was described by Vasari in his Le Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori as "an excellent painter and illuminator, and ... a perfect monk". Vasari also lauded the Angelic Friar's surprising piety in the face of his immense artistic talents. Angelico ably captured the Catholic imagination of the Early Renaissance with his unusually sensitive and humanistic depictions of normally distant saints. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's current exhibition on the artist provides an incredible opportunity to see a series of Angelico's gold-drenched reliquaries, which invite viewers to look deeply and intimately at revelatory and beatific scenes.

On view at the Gardner Museum in Boston February 22 - May 20, Fra Angelico: Heaven on Earth is an excellent show featuring stunning pieces. It is described by the Museum thus: 

Heaven on Earth reunites the Gardner's magnificent Assumption and Dormition of the Virgin, acquired by Isabella in 1899 and the first Fra Angelico to reach the United States, with its three companions from the Museo di San Marco, Florence. Conceived as a set of jewel-like reliquaries for the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella, they tell the story of the Virgin Mary's life. This exhibition invites you to explore Fra Angelico's ground-breaking narrative art, marvel at his peerless creativity, and immerse yourself in the material splendor of his craftsmanship.

The exhibition lives up to its promise, bringing together companion artworks that are rarely seen outside of their home at the Museo di San Marco in Florence. The reliquaries are presented in an ecclesiastically-inspired architectural setting constructed within the Museum's rotating exhibitions gallery. This context serves the practical purpose of highlighting the relatively small works within the Gardner's relatively large exhibition space. It also reminds viewers of the original intent of the pieces, which were housed at the Dominican Friars' Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence and were meant for quite a personal kind of devotion.

Fra Angelico (c. 1395 - 1455), Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin, tempera with oil glazes and gold on panel, 1424-1434, 24 5/16"x15 1/16", Collection of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA

The works on view are full of lively interactions between God and his holy courtiers. These are underscored by Angelico's eye for the humanity of his subjects, which gives them a vitality remarkable for the time. Each reliquary is also imbued with a sense of humor. Looking closely one can find a waiting angel with hands on hips, or St. Peter looking over his shoulder at the viewer. There are a few moments in which saintly observers of heavenly sights turn to the on-looker and invite them closer into the scene, fulfilling their traditional intercessory role.

In 1899, when Isabella Stewart Gardner purchased Angelico's Assumption and Dormition of The Virgin (1424-1434) it was the first piece by the artist to come to the United States. Gardner and her contemporaries were no doubt drawn to Angelico's work due to his technical virtuosity and the timeless beauty of his paintings. In bringing this stunning object to Boston, Gardner added to her own esteem as a collector with a refined eye. She also set the stage for viewers to encounter Fra Angelico's vision of the divine.

This exhibition is a rare and wonderful opportunity not only to see the Gardner's Angelico reunited with its peer reliquaries from Florence, but also to see these works in relation to the Gardner Museum's extensive and eclectic holdings. By viewing Gardner's collection in her original "Fenway Court" and carefully looking at the works in Heaven on Earth, visitors will not only gain an understanding of the connoisseurship that compelled Isabella to buy her Fra Angelico. They will come away with a sense of the deep faith and spirituality that drove the artist to create it in the first place.