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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…

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…

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…

MoCA: a place full of place

Last Saturday, I visited the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (familiarly known as Mass MoCA or just MoCA) in North Adams. It was my first time there, and while it’s on the other side of the state, I would say that it’s worth the road trip from Boston. One of the best things about this museum is its space; the buildings were originally a 19th-century fabric printing factory, then a …more…

Grand Center Art Walk 2012

grandcenter.org

The Grand Center, St. Louis’ cultural arts center, is hosting its 2012 Annual Spring Art Walk on Friday, May 11, from 5 to 9 pm. Every year, the Grand Center hosts this celebration of art in its four blocks of galleries, museums, theaters, and restaurants. The Art Walk brings together art lovers all over the city for a joyous spring evening. Visitors can follow the 1.5 mile …more…

Portland Photo Month

April is Portland Photo Month, an event which is not a product of any one organization, but rather a collaboration of art galleries, nonprofits and individual artists. Portland, Oregon is a city of artists and art enthusiasts and accordingly is home to a multitude of artists who express themselves through the medium of photography.

Numerous Portland art galleries specialize in photography. Among these are Black Box Gallery, Blue Sky Gallery, Camerawork …more…

Bill Viola’s “The Raft” Examines Human Reactions to Disaster

Still from "The Raft"

Today in the Bloch Building at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Missouri), I saw The Raft by Bill Viola, a 10 and a half minute video. The Raft begins with a diverse group of people waiting, as if for a bus. The group is a mixture of ages and races, both men and women as well as a transgender person.  Filmed at high speed and …more…

New Britain Museum of American Art

The New Britain Museum of American Art holds one of the most fascinating collections of American art in the country.  Located on Lexington Street in New Britain, the museum has free parking for guests as well as free admission every Saturday from 10 a.m.-noon.  Not only is the museum an excellent source for information about American art, it was “designated the first museum of strictly American Art in the Country”.  …more…

Free Admission to Joslyn Art Museum Saturdays

You have officially run out of excuses for not visiting Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum.

Thanks to a variety of corporate sponsors, general admission is free on Saturdays from 10:00 AM to noon. That saves you $8 per person (or $6 for seniors/students or $5 for kids). That’s money you can spend in the gift shop or cafe. ...more...

The Life and Work of Mark Rothko

For a limited time, Portlanders have the opportunity to not only view a retrospective of work by Mark Rothko (1903-1970) at the Portland Art Museum, but also to see a theatrical presentation at Portland Center Stage that allows a glimpse into his life.

Considered to be one of the foremost American painters of the 20th Century, Rothko spent his early years in Portland, Oregon. Immigrating from Russia in 1913 at the …more…

Zoe Strauss and her Philadelphia Party

It’s the month of Zoe Strauss at the PMA. Or should I say months? Her 10 Year retrospective is on view now and has received much critical acclaim. (I heard even Joe Biden took a break from his vice presidential duties to come see it.) She’s throwing dance parties in the museum and sitting for office hours to meet viewers. It all feels very Strauss-esque in the desire to make sure she hasn’t created too much of a distance between herself and those she photographs. ...more...

Polynesia Lost: Gauguin’s Quest for Paradise

Double figure, ti’i. Late 18th century. Wood, 24 x 22 13/16 in. Society Islands, Tahiti. The British Museum, London.

Gauguin and Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise at the Seattle Art Museum tells not one powerful story, but two.

Rarely, if ever, has a major exhibition on post-impressionist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) dedicated such attention to the arts of Polynesia, which Gauguin discovered at the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris. Their primal, symbolic forms …more…

Looking Ahead for Spring –The Annual Five x Seven Fundraiser at AMOA-Art House

Benefiting the exhibitions and educational programs at the Austin Museum of Art and Art House at the Jones Center, the Five x Seven event has come to represent what’s best about springtime–a sense of fun, socializing, and reawakening after a mildly cool Texas Winter. ...more...

Zoe Strauss Celebrates 10 Years!

Billboard 13: ”Fortune,” Atlantic City, NJ by Zoe Strauss Zoe Strauss: 10 Years at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is causing quite a stir in the city. Not only is there a beautifully curated retrospective, but located throughout Philadelphia are enormous billboard-sized photographs by Strauss. The project features 54 different billboards structured around the idea of the Odyssey. Strauss will also be working with the Philadelphia duo MegaWords on …more…

The Art of Self Tracking: An Artist Talk with Laurie Frick

“I’m convinced the way we unconsciously slice our time reflects the underlying structure of our mind,” Frick says in a statement. “I began self-tracking as a way to measure and then reverse engineer the unique pattern of ourselves. I believe there is something comforting and compelling about human metrics and realized I was not alone. Many, many people measure something about themselves every day.” ...more...

Painting in the Dutch Golden Age at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

On view until February 12th (and, incidentally, the last stop on the national tour) is Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection, one of the four part series, Life and Luxury: the Art of Living at the MFAH. Paintings produced in Seventeenth century Holland and Belgium during the period known as the Dutch Golden Age are marked by a radiant luminosity not seen since the 16th …more…

The Olympic Sculpture Park Celebrates Its 5th Anniversary

“Does anyone have a business card?” our docent asks.

Ripping the offered card carefully and expanding it to a rough Z shape, the docent explains how the project designers, Weiss/Manfredi of New York, came up with the Olympic Sculpture Park’s unusual layout. Voilà! ...more...

An Interview with Isaac Layman: A Seattle Artist Finding Paradise in His Own Home

Isaac Layman. Untitled, 2011. Photographic construction, ink-jet on paper. 95" X 59".

Isaac Layman has taken the art world by storm with his evocative, large-scale photographic constructions, which transform the banal into the hyper-realistic, haunting and enigmatic. Drinking glasses, used tissues, heating vents: Any object in Layman’s Seattle home can become the object of an intense visual meditation, captured over and over from subtly different angles by the artist’s high-resolution, …more…

Woman Damages Painting Worth Over $30 Million at Clyfford Still Museum

On December 29th, 2011, an intoxicated 36-year-old Denver woman allegedly attacked and damaged a painting worth between $30-40 million at the newly-opened Clyfford Still Museum. According to the Denver Post, at 3:30pm, Carmen Lucette Tisch leaned against the painting, repeatedly struck the canvas with her fist, slid down the face of the painting, and then urinated on herself. ...more...

Anchorage Museum: Cool Stuff Made Of “Weird” Animal Parts

It’s a great week to visit the Anchorage Museum: over the next eight days, the museum will be closing four special exhibits to make way for three new ones, opening in February. Since its expansion in 2010, the Anchorage Museum is now large enough that you can easily miss the great stuff. Here are my suggestions on what to see over the next week. ...more...

Five Hot Seattle Art Shows to Catch This Year End

Time is running out for 2011, as it is for a number of top-notch Seattle-area exhibitions. If you’re yearning for a little culture fix to fill your holiday leisure hours, here are five shows to catch in the next few weeks: ...more...

Will Work For Art

Fundraising for arts organizations can be a challenge even in a strong economy. In Portland, Oregon the Work for Art program helps to support the arts by facilitating employee-giving campaigns at public and private workplaces throughout Oregon and SW Washington. Some of the participating employers even provide matching funds.

These Work for Art donations are then re-directed back to the community, with 100% of the funds that are raised benefiting arts …more…

Through the Looking Glass

Once again the Portland Art Museum (PAM) in Oregon has delved into its permanent collection to mount an exhibition. This time, the Museum is mining its photographic print archive of approximately 5,000 images produced throughout the 19th and 20th century. The exhibit, titled “Through the Looking Glass: Photography’s Use of Windows, Doorways, and Mirrors,” runs through the end of February 2012 and includes over sixty photographs in which these objects play a dominant role. ...more...

The Artist’s Touch, The Craftsman’s Hand

Drawing from its extensive permanent collection of over 2,500 Japanese woodblock prints, the Portland Art Museum (PAM) has carefully selected about 250 of the most unique and historically significant items for a special exhibition, The Artist’s Touch, The Craftsman’s Hand: Three Centuries of Japanese Prints from the Portland Art Museum.

The permanent collection began in 1932 with a donation by Mary Andrews Ladd of over 750 traditional woodblock prints. Over the …more…

Sojourner Truth Multicultural Arts Center

Photo: LJ Bottjer

Explosions of colors are melded with history at the Sojourner Truth Multicultural Arts Center in South Sacramento.

Located in a strip mall at the corner of 24th Street and Florian Road the museum is far from a formal venue. Instead fabulous murals decorate walls down hallways and between doorways of businesses.

The murals, painted by Sacramentan artists – professional and volunteer, tell stories that resonate with many people of …more…