PASSING TIME
The multiple and converging meanings of the phrase “passing time”—spending time, time to die—are explored in the evocative imagery of recent art by international artists in video, photography, sculpture and works on paper. Much of the work is, appropriately, time-based. Some artists turn to sport, some to dance, and others music; some refer to nature and its rhythms to explore concepts of time—short term, long term and terminating. Others frankly partner with time itself in their making of art.
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FoodWaterLife/LUCY+JORGE ORTA
The work of LUCY+JORGE ORTA explores major concerns that define the 21st century: biodiversity, environment and climate change, and communication. At the same time, their work embodies the philosophy that steers their pioneering art practice, ‘the ethics of aesthetics.’ This exhibition will explore how the artists’ unique visual language tackles the global issues at stake that are affecting our lives. As their artwork communicates widely to audiences beyond the field of contemporary art, it demonstrates…
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Mashup/Modern
Preservationists have noted that the most vulnerable time for architecture is fifty years after construction: the structure is out of fashion but not yet historic. It looms as outdated, not yet historic or nostalgic. The architecture of the 1950s has just passed through this danger zone, and along with the furniture and furnishings of that era, are prized, collectible and even have become the basis for a body of work by artists who, too young to have experienced this design when it was new, largely know of the period through…
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Guilty Pleasures
The serious state of our environment and the world economy leave little room for levity. While many in the art world are predicting a new seriousness in art as a result, there are a number of artists choosing to reflect an alternative response. What the work proposed has in common is an element of pleasure, indulgence, decadence. In stark contrast to the current mood that promotes sustainability and sacrifice, these artists flaunt work that can only be described as confection. It is precisely at these historic moments…
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LightStyle
Today, the image and concept of light has shifted away from a metaphorical connection with truth. Instead, light and light fixtures have become the medium through which lifestyle is projected and reflected. The societal obsession with celebrity, glamor and wealth, and with identity and control are beautifully and eloquently communicated through light. Disco balls are rendered in all of their superficial glory, paparazzi-like flashbulbs flash but reveal little, chandeliers glint with memories recalled and aspirations…
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StereoType
Historically typography has been designed with two axes in mind, x and y. Today, in contrast, designers are broadening their perceptions about type to accommodate the added dimensions of a digital and experiential world. Recent innovations in type design take principles of animation, interactivity, and kinetic movement and combine them with traditional components of typography, resulting in pioneering explorations in motion typography. It follows that these “live” fonts would embody…
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Manufactured Reality
Just as Alice viewed the world Through the Looking Glass, artists included in this exhibition see reality through a technological filter of mediated experiences, and then articulate the schism between original source and resulting perception. The generation that came of age without the Internet, and then witnessed the explosion of that technology within a short period of time have a unique relationship with that endless resource. With unlimited and random information at our fingertips, we…
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Mechanical Couture: Fashioning a New Order
Haute Couture, by definition, is made-to-order, high-quality and hand-executed, and for centuries has signified the ultimate in luxury and exclusivity. Conversely, machines typify the antithesis of couture, implying mass-production and decreased standards. Currently, however, we are witnessing a fascinating phenomenon of mechanical luxury, whereby designers are reinterpreting couture as a hybrid of both mechanized process and customized craftsmanship…
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Connectivity Lost
Connections between the systems that shape our existence are frayed, eroded, even gone. A major shift in our social environment has occurred, removing the direct and instinctual connection with our fellow man and environment. Instead, simple interactions have become complex, awkward, tenuous, requiring mediation and facilitation. Points of interface, of systems coming together, are no longer seamless, but instead have broader environmental and social implications. We may have hundreds of “friends”…
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WOWdesign: Marloes ten Bhömer
We are presently in an environment that is hyper-conscious of design. Target brings major high-brow fashion labels to the masses, IKEA makes the dream kitchen a reality for anyone, cable television is overrun with design how-to’s, and the local newsstands are spilling over with specialty design periodicals. This phenomenon makes it even harder for truly inspired and innovative designers work to stand out, to WOW us. This designer has an incredible product, a…
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Mildred’s Lane Renovating Walden: J.Morgan Puett and Mark Dion
Mark Dion and J. Morgan Puett, who work collaboratively, will realize for the Tufts University Art Gallery their long-held dream to “renovate Walden.” Located 20 miles from the historic site, Tufts University is the ideal locus for this project that draws on their engagement with innovative models of education, community, and sustainability. The artists conceive the gallery space as the center of exchange and dialogue around a replica of Thoreau’s…
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Facades
This multimedia exhibition explored the interdisciplinary concept of the façade: the meanings and questions it raises in art, architecture and personality theory. The exhibition presented the work of 21 artists who work in film, photography, performance, painting and sculpture. Programming involved practitioners, historians and theorists of Japanese studies, psychology, philosophy, medicine and theater. Faculty members from these fields contributed concise 1-2 page essays on the concept of façades…
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Blown Away
Serving as the visual focus of Hollywood blockbuster films and television news stories on wars, explosions have become a part of popular culture. A healthy fascination that begins with a childhood fireworks display becomes an uncomfortable attraction to the more disturbing displays of car crashes and bomb detonations. As physical forms, explosions are simultaneously unnerving and beautiful. As subjects, they offer an extreme image through which artists can convey powerful anti-war…
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Branded and On Display
With one of our country’s founding fathers – Thomas Jefferson – a compulsive shopper, marketing and acquiring may just be part of being American. Virtually every activity in our lives is experienced through purchases, from bassinets to caskets. The landscape is studded with logos, brand names and billboards – inducements to participate in a culture defined by the acquisition of commodities. Branded and On Display examined the work of artists who explore specific strategies of branding and presentation…
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Without a Trace? Artists Imagine a World Without Us
Global warming, depleting natural resources and terrorism are just some of the daily threats and realities that we face. A relatively quiet movement promoting recycling and renewable energy sources has evolved into a major trend towards “green” living, with organic and earth-friendly products available not just in specialty retailers but in mainstream markets as well. There is no doubt this profitable trend is tapping into a larger concern on the part of humanity…
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Art On Speed
Conveying the abstract notion of speed has been a challenge to artists since the early twentieth century when the invention of photography and advent of the automobile offered an exciting and entirely new vantage point from which to experience time and space. The experiments of Eadweard Muybridge, Marcel Duchamp, the Italian Futurists and the Cubists were the beginnings of this fascination and romance with speed and artists’ efforts to capture in visual terms a phenomenon that is more aligned with…
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Under Control
Global financial intrigues stretching from Little Rock to the Vatican bank, government-sponsored spying, corrupt political lobbies, secret societies and, of course, preemptive war: the news headlines that have intrigued and horrified us of late have become, not surprisingly, inspiration for many contemporary artists worldwide. Whether exposing the complexity or folly of conspiracy theory, or analyzing money trails and their surprising beneficiaries, all of the artists in this exhibition are essentially questioning control…
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Over + Over: Passion For Process
As the digitized image on the plasma screen becomes the ubiquitous means of communication today, and the keyboard supplants the hand, a number of artists draw inspiration instead from the tenets of the Arts and Crafts movement of a hundred years ago. Their materials are ordinary, their patience and results extraordinary. Informed by process art of the 1970s and attached to the grid, which has organized much of the art of the last fifty years, these artists use hobby and craft skills, including…
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