View Our Facebook PageView Our Facebook PageView Our Facebook Page
Your Guide to Cultural
Arts in America
Art Museums, Theater, Dance
& Music Happenings in 90+ Cities!
or go to

Arts America Blog

IT GETS BETTER in Cincinnati

The Cincinnati Mens Choir is bringing It Gets Better to town for only two days! This in depth, thought provoking look at LGBT bullying is based on Testimony by Stephen Schwartz. With popular songs by Katy Perry, Mariah Carrey, and Lady Gaga as well as actual narrative from the It Gets Better Project, this show is meant to inspire and bring hope to LGBT youth. Performances are this weekend only, June 23 and 24 at the Mayerson Theatre at the School for Performing Arts in Over the Rhine. ...more...

The Lace Room at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Mrs. Gardner called it the Veronese Room, but I always think of it as “the lace room.” It’s not so strange; many of the rooms in the faux-Venetian palace are named for one of their singular features. Once you have climbed two sets of heavy stone stairs and you are on the third floor of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, you have a choice to turn behind you …more…

Must-see exhibit at the Frameworks Gallery

The current show at the Frameworks Gallery, “Polly Norman – Summer Blast,” offers an unexpected treat—while Norman’s photography alone is worth seeing, it is sharing space with some very fine paintings and sculptures by a diverse group of artists.    

"Clarin y Caja"

Hugo Mercado, a painter who recently moved here from Cajamarca, Peru, is showing works that capture the colors and popular culture of his native land. His oils on …more…

Pittsburgh Kicks Off Summer With Three Rivers Arts Festival

The 53rd annual Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival is underway, and the event promises a chance to view a wide variety of art. Organized by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, the festival spreads out over Point State Park, Hertz Gateway Center, and throughout the Cultural District, delivering a number of attractions dedicated to showcasing new and emerging artists.

At the Artists Market, visitors can browse over 300 booths offering original, handmade, …more…

Flower of the Prairie: George Grosz in Dallas

The Dallas Museum of Art is running an exhibit through August 19th entitled Flower of the Prairie: George Grosz in Dallas.  Last weekend I went and viewed this collection of art which is a lovely homage to Dallas.  In 1952 Leon Harris Jr, Vice President of the Harris and Company department store, commissioned Grosz, a controversial political artist and dadaist originally from Germany, to paint a series of works depicting …more…

Inventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts at the World’s Fairs, 1851-1939

Through August 19, 2012 the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri will be displaying a treasure trove of objects from around the world that all debuted at a World’s Fair ($8 adult/$5 students/free for members and children under 12). Inventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts at the World’s Fairs, 1851-1939 showcases the talent of artists and manufacturers who reinvented old styles and techniques or invented new ones …more…

My Experience at 2012 ArtWalk, Simsbury!

Last ­­Saturday May 19th Simsbury, Connecticut welcomed local artists onto their main street and into their shops for the Simsbury ArtWalk.  It was a gorgeous, sunny day, perfect for the artists that hope to make the event an annual celebration of the arts.  The diversity of the event made it enjoyable for all ages, and allowed many to experience local fine art, music, dance, and craft.  A wide array of styles and …more…

Santa Fe International Folk Art Market

photo credit Bob Smith

 

July 13 – 15, the largest global pop up market comes to town.  Part shopping fest, global eatery, and cultural + world music extravaganza, The International Folk Art Market captures large interest (last year 20,000 people descended on Museum Hill just for this event).  To promote some continuity, the city of Santa Fe hosts an entire week dedicated to International Folk Art. Of the many …more…

Beat the Heat: A Summer Art Walking Tour of Austin

Now that school’s out, there are some fantastic new art shows on view in Austin. If you can stand to walk outside in those soon to be 100 degree temps, there are some very cool stops along this short tour of museums and galleries.

New and noteworthy at the Jones Center are the three finalists in the illustrious Texas Prize, a juried exhibition in which one finalists receives the coveted $30,000 …more…

Guessing Icons on Memory Lane

Cheryl Cabrera’s sixth exhibit at D.o.c.s. gallery is an amazing collection that will keep you guessing and maybe take you on a stroll down memory lane. Her inspiration was taking famous Icons from her childhood and brilliantly dissecting them on canvas. The symmetry of the lines and the distortion of the faces takes the art to a childhood place. The viewer somewhat feels like they are playing pictionary with an …more…

Expose Yourself to (Public) Art

Michael Ryerson_expose-yourself-to-art

Visitors to Portland, Oregon are sometimes astounded by the number of public art installations in the downtown area.  Strolling through the central city, a person encounters a diversity of artworks on nearly every block.

Since 1980, the City of Portland and Multnomah County have required a percentage of the cost of new construction or major building renovation projects within their jurisdictions to be earmarked for purchase of permanent artworks. …more…

Embrace your inner weirdness at The Cincinnati Fringe Festival

 

   

Are you weird? Do you like things just a little….abnormal? If so, you won’t feel alone in Cincinnati during the 9th annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival! From May 29 to June 9, artists and art lovers will converge on Over the Rhine for a 12 day long festival of all things avant garde, offbeat, or just plain out there. Inspired by the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Cincinnati Fringe Festival …more…

Lois Dodd Retrospective at Kansas City’s Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

The first painting I saw at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art’s exhibition Lois Dodd: Catching the Light, perfectly set the stage for the rest of the show. Dodd’s 2010 Shadow with Easel (above) portrays the essential qualities of her works: observations of herself, the place(s) she inhabits, and the interaction between the two. The painting also shows playful brushstrokes and a bent towards the representational.

Dodd’s retrospective is a testament …more…

Bemis $100 Art Sale is Back!

If you’re looking to get your hands on some great art for your own collection you need to mark Friday, June 8th on your calendar. The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts hosts its $100 Art Sale for BemisUNDERGROUND from 7-9 PM.

Get some art!

The art offered for sale is from artists all over the place, but the proceeds from the sale benefit the local art scene here in Omaha. You might …more…

Pop Art Powerhouse Roy Lichtenstein at the Art Institute of Chicago

This summer, comic book heroes, beautiful women, and colorful explosions will invade the Art Institute of Chicago with Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective. The blockbuster show is the first to examine the life’s work of the famous Pop artist, bringing together a collection of his famous comic-inspired paintings, in addition to lesser-known but equally striking works from the length of his career – early abstractions, landscapes, sculpture, and much more. In …more…

The Western Federation of Watercolor Societies’ 37th Annual Juried Show in Las Vegas

 

The University of Nevada Las Vegas is currently featuring the Western Federation of Watercolor Societies’ annual juried show. The exhibit shows the work of over 100 artists who live and work in one of the eleven states that are part of the WFWS: the Arizona Watercolor Association, the Colorado Watercolor Society, the Idaho Watercolor Society, the Nevada Watercolor Society, the New Mexico Watercolor Society, the San Diego Watercolor Society, the Southern …more…

Seattle Galleries in May: New Twists on Familiar Genres

Fused plastic and acrylic portraits of abstractions by Paula Maratea Fuld at Gallery 110.

Seattle’s lively gallery scene fires the imagination with innovative takes on well-worn artistic genres and edgy reinventions of cultural clichés. Here’s how some of our favorite galleries are turning art on its head in the coming weeks.

Portraits Redux

Gallery 110 (110 3rd Ave. S) is hosting a double exhibition now through June 2 that shakes up the …more…

Ceci N’est Pas Une Map: George Deem exhibit at the Boston Athenaeum

On the right when you enter the exhibit George Deem: The Art of Art History at the Boston Athenaeum, there is a very large map of the coast of a foreign land. Looking closer, you see that this is not an ordinary hand-drawn or printed map done in ink, and it is not on paper or parchment as it appears to be at first glance. Instead, it’s mixed media – …more…

Cultural Community Art at the Fridge DC

For my next adventure into new art realms in Washington D.C., I decided to drop by a place called the “Fridge.” After weaving through some tricky DC traffic, I ended up parking the car and walked along some pleasant streets in a neighborhood southeast of the U.S. Capitol Building. I ended up in an alleyway, facing a colorfully-painted building. A small, swinging orange sign read: The Fridge.

The Fridge is a …more…

Happy Art Museum Day!

Today, May 18th, is Art Museum Day. Across the US and Canada, over 120 institutions are offering free admission—including the Detroit Institute of Arts. An initiative of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), Art Museum Day coincides with International Museum Day, an annual event organized by the International Council of Museums. Both events emphasize the importance museums have in society, while at the same time showing appreciation to patrons …more…

Five Monets in Portland

Now on display at the Portland Art Museum (Portland, Oregon) through August 5, 2012 are five works by Monet. The Museum has supplemented two of Monet’s paintings from its permanent collection, Waterlilies and River at Lavacourt, with three works from a private collection to stage this special showing entitled “Five Monets / 100 Days.”

The five paintings cover a 25-year period of Monet’s career and show his development as an artist …more…

The Art of Cooking

There is nothing more satisfying  than when art bleeds with culinary brilliance. It is an indulgence for the senses that shouldn’t be skipped. In Gustave Blanche III’s exhibit of paintings showcasing long-time chef Leah Chase, a slice of Louisiana’s food history is preserved. Wearing her signature pink hat and seen slicing and dicing various colorful vegetables, the onlooker can’t help but be swept up in the long standing history of …more…

Mandy Greer and Environmental Art at Seattle Center

Photo of Mater Matrix Mother and Medium multimedia performance by Rodrigo Valenzuela.

An intricate 250-foot fiber web of brilliant blue and white flows around the Alki Courtyard at Seattle Center, just north of Key Arena—Mater Matrix Mother and Medium, an ever-evolving art installation by Seattle-based multi-disciplinary artist Mandy Greer. The crocheted river twists and winds its way around columns and trees, rising up to 15 feet overhead.

This masterpiece also formed …more…

ArtWalk Simsbury! on May 19, 2012

This weekend the Simsbury ArtWalk will take place from 11am-5pm in the center of the town on Hopmeadow Street (Route 10).  This will be the first ever ArtWalk, and will not only display the talent of local artists but also will benefit the Simsbury ABC House, a nonprofit that provides education and aid to young men in disadvantaged school districts.  Not only can you experience the wonderful work of local …more…

Last Chance! Take Your Dad “Golfing” this Weekend at Laguna Gloria

If you haven’t yet ventured over to Laguna Gloria during this breezy Spring in Austin to check out the Art on the Green installation, take advantage before it closes this Sunday. The nine hole course is unlike any you’ve ever seen, featuring elegant, minimalist metal constructions, post-apocalyptic scenes of destruction, and a grotesque rodent-like creature the size of ice cream truck that is sure to amuse both the high and …more…