In the latest news in the battle for arts funding in the US, The Art Newspaper reported yesterday that the Boston Mayor has greatly increased payments under his Payment in Lieu of Taxes scheme that asks nonprofits, including museums to make “voluntary” contributions to city services such as the fire and police department.
Museum of Fine Arts Boston
Posted inOpinion
Museum Places Donation Box Next to Sculpture to Help Them Buy It
Boston’s Museum of Fine Art is asking visitors to donate so they can add the 42-foot-high, 10,000 pound, 2,400 piece “Lime Green Icicle Tower” sculpture that is a highlight of the current Dale Chihuly show.
Posted inArt
When a Social Circle Became an Art Movement
The artistic avant garde is often a pretty insular group — when you’re doing something new, odds are that few people besides your immediate friends and collaborators know what’s up. A jewel box of an exhibition at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts proves just how small the art world is with Modernist Photography 1910-1950, a show that’s just as much about the aesthetic (and physical) interrelationships between artists as it is about the advent of modernist photography in the United States.
Posted inArt
Dale Chihuly Mounts World’s Biggest Bong Retrospective
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts is going totally psychedelic, man. It’s like, all these colors swirling everywhere, all these curly pieces of glass like crazy mutant sea creatures. You feel me? Crowd-pleasing sculptor and glass artist Dale Chihuly has a big show up at the MFA, and it’s like, totally sweet.
Posted inNews
Met Museum Raises Admission Prices That We Don’t Pay
The Metropolitan Museum is raising its suggested admission prices for adults from $20 to $25, reports the New York Times. Good thing we’ll still be paying the ticket price with whatever change we have in our back pockets.
Posted inOpinion
Why Are So Many Museums Buying Christian Marclay’s “The Clock”?
The Boston MFA is purchasing Christian Marclay’s epic movie mash-up “The Clock” (2010) (recently on view in NYC) for $250,000. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art bought the piece in April, and there are rumors that MoMA plans to do the same. What’s up with this collecting fad?
Posted inOpinion
Denver Museum Re-Install Heralds Rethinking of Native American Art
The re-installation of the Denver Art Museum’s American Indian art galleries has an important new feature: individual artist names are now included on its wall labels. The comprehensive re-installation heralds a new move towards recognition of the history of Native American art, as well as Native American artists’ contribution to a larger American art history.
Posted inArt
What is “American” Art?
The purpose of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ new Art of the Americas wing to provide a space to tell the entire story of American art. Yet visitors may be surprised to find the ground floor of the new wing occupied by Aztec, Mayan and Native American art, sharing space with early colonial work. The new galleries question the idea that “American” art is solely defined by work created in the United States, tied to the too-strong connection between “America” and the colonial US. The MFA instead presents art from this era of both Americas, South and North, as a continuum, part of a dynamic intercultural milieu. But how far does the museum go in redefining what we mean by “American” art?
Posted inArt
A Colonial Ghost House in Boston MFA’s Americas Wing
At the new Art of the Americas wing at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, four floors of galleries tell the story of American art in a new expansion designed by architect Norman Foster. The expansion marks a big moment for the museum, whose collection of American art (particularly colonial North American) is unparalleled. The new galleries showcase everything from Aztec and Mayan art to colonial silver craft, 19th century aristocratic portraiture and modern art. One particular space in the bottom floor, featuring an installation of the beams from a late 17th century North American house, makes a spectacular impact, both in terms of the art viewing experience and innovative gallery installation.
Posted inNews
Gallery Hangings Gone Wrong at Boston MFA’s New Wing
At the Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ new Wing of the Americas, the story of American art is told over the course of four floors, ranging from colonial and indigenous art through modernism. Stopping before contemporary, the third floor above ground level is the home of American modernism. The opening gallery of the floor tells a story that’s neither comprehensive nor diverse, instead presenting a kind of multifaceted, unfocused face to greet the public. How does this hanging impact the works on view in the gallery, and museum-goers’ experience of the art?
Posted inArt
Sourcing Local for Boston Art
Greg Cook is proud to be a yokel. As an art critic for The Boston Phoenix weekly, an independent blogger and artist, Greg is a staunch fan and supporter of the Boston contemporary art community. What bugs him about this city’s art scene is that he might have a better opinion of the scene than it does of itself. In a series of blog posts on his New England Journal for Aesthetic Research, Greg has outlined a Yokelist manifesto for a Boston art community with enough confidence to drive itself to greater heights, art world capital or not.
