Art

Pattern Recognition: Merion Estes Brings New Life to an Old World

Merion Estes has developed works on paper and fabric that incorporate beautifully abstract images along with references principally to Japanese and Chinese art, but the art of other countries is evident as well.

Performance

Revising on the Fly: Adjua Greaves in Performance

In my many years of attending poetry readings, I’ve never encountered a performance technique quite like Greaves’ revisions.

Books

Alan Felsenthal Emerges from His Song Cave and Sings to Us

In all of his poems, you feel Felsenthal finding his way from word to word and from line to line: he is not trying to tell a story or replay an anecdote so much as go where the words and phrases, sounds and meanings, lead him.

Art

Peter Acheson’s Argument with Painting

Instead of thinking of Acheson’s works as paintings, I have come to think of them as battered talismans, unfinished letters, and broken odes to his heroes, many of whom are artists.

Art

All Ideas Are Not Equal

What does it mean to depict anything? Is a point of view implied by straightforward depiction? Does it amount to (oh, shit) an endorsement?

Art

The Sweet Life: Carlo Dolci at the Davis Museum, Wellesley

Dolci (1616-1686), like Michelangelo and Botticelli 150 years before him, worked in Florence in the employ of the Medici family.

Art

Gina Ruggeri’s “Maneuver X”

Beginning around 2012, Ruggeri’s work underwent a shift, then an overhaul, then something like a transformation.

Art

In Texas, Valton Tyler’s Unusual Art Conjures Up an Extraordinary World

Tyler not only believes that his art-making prowess is a gift from God, and that he is merely the vehicle through which such a divine gift must be dutifully expressed, but he also regards his drawn or painted “shapes” as somehow alive.

Art

Painting on Message at the 2017 Whitney Biennial

This year, the Whitney Biennial includes plenty of painting. And — for the most part — the painting is on message. It’s eccentric figuration with political content.

Art

Digging into the History of Cake at Mrs. Gallery

Learn about the history of this many-layered dessert — and pick up a freshly baked cake art zine — on March 19 at the Maspeth, Queens gallery.

Art

Perform the Movements of a Santa Monica Neighborhood

Brendan Fernandes has been studying people's movements in the area around 18th Street Arts Center. On March 18, he'll lead a workshop on what he's found.

Art

Mourning Extinction with a Museum’s Animal Artifacts

In Next of Kin at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, artist Christina Seely repurposes natural history specimens for an emotional exhibition about animal extinction.