Landmark exhibit First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA gathers more than 100 works the museum has acquired since its 2006 move to the waterfront, from its permanent collection’s very first promised piece—Cornelia Parker’s Hanging Fire (Suspected Arson), featuring a building’s charred remnants strung up and suspended in midair—to recent additions being displayed for the first time. On view through Jan. 16, it’s an exhibition that rewards repeat viewings (and not just because two new sections rotate in on Oct. 8). We tapped four staffers from different departments at the ICA to find out which work in the show keeps them coming back again and again.
1) Ragnar Kjartansson, The Man, 2010 “This 49-minute video by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson, featuring blues legend Pinetop Perkins, really draws me in,” says admissions manager Gail Leavitt. “As a musician, I find his performance captivating and the imagery jarring, with the artist choosing to display this renowned pianist against such a desolate backdrop.”
2) Dana Schutz, Sneeze, 2002 “This small but mighty canvas captures the mundane, grotesque and captivating aspects of a woman sneezing, enhanced by the artist’s tactile brushwork and use of color,” says curatorial assistant Jessica Hong. “What enthralls me about this work are its active paradoxes: The repugnant is beautiful, the ordinary is extraordinary, the static is dynamic, as you find yourself both grimacing and smiling.”
3) Marisol, Couple No. 1, 1965–66 “With its protruding white conic appendage and humming motor, it’s hard to miss Marisol’s Couple No. 1. The cone is inflated by a fan inside the sculpture, so when you stand in front of it, you feel a stream of cool-ish air on your face. I wouldn’t call it pleasant, but it is a tactile way to experience the art—without touching, of course!” says education department assistant Lenny Schnier. “Marisol’s assemblages bring together elements of painting, drawing, sculpture, technology, and nature. Couple No. 1 is blocky, bulky, and its metal façade recalls midcentury futurism. Painted and etched on the front of the work are two figures that, in my opinion, lack distinctive gender markers. This makes possible narratives for the work all the more open-ended. I like to think of the piece as one body comprised of a multitude of genders beyond the binary. The work sits in a lineage of objects and people that have compounded machine and human form, and it’s really freaking awesome that a 50-year-old sculpture resonates with our contemporary selfie-crazed cultural zeitgeist.”
4) Ana Mendieta, Silueta Works in Mexico, 1973–77/1991 “It is incredible to work for a museum that has one of my all-time favorite works of art in its collection,” says membership manager Chris Hoodlet. “In this series, Mendieta blends performance and photography, human and nature, presence and absence in a series that makes you reflect on your relationship to the earth. In these sublime images, Mendieta’s immersion into the landscape of Mexico, and the traces that remain, show how powerful the forces of nature are in comparison to humanity.”
THE IMPROPER’S 2016 FALL ARTS PREVIEW: DANCE | THEATER | MUSIC | COMEDY
Exhibits Worth a Second Look
By Jacqueline Houton | Photo Credit: The Man: Courtesy the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and i8 Gallery, Reykjavík. © 2016 Ragnar Kjartansson | Sneeze: Courtesy the artist and Petzel, New York. © 2016 Dana Schutz | Couple No. 1: © 2016 Marisol/Licensed by VAGA, New York | Silueta Works in Mexico: Courtesy the Galerie Lelong. © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC | Sept. 16, 2016
Collecting Their Thoughts
Landmark exhibit First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA gathers more than 100 works the museum has acquired since its 2006 move to the waterfront, from its permanent collection’s very first promised piece—Cornelia Parker’s Hanging Fire (Suspected Arson), featuring a building’s charred remnants strung up and suspended in midair—to recent additions being displayed for the first time. On view through Jan. 16, it’s an exhibition that rewards repeat viewings (and not just because two new sections rotate in on Oct. 8). We tapped four staffers from different departments at the ICA to find out which work in the show keeps them coming back again and again.
1) Ragnar Kjartansson, The Man, 2010 “This 49-minute video by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson, featuring blues legend Pinetop Perkins, really draws me in,” says admissions manager Gail Leavitt. “As a musician, I find his performance captivating and the imagery jarring, with the artist choosing to display this renowned pianist against such a desolate backdrop.”
2) Dana Schutz, Sneeze, 2002 “This small but mighty canvas captures the mundane, grotesque and captivating aspects of a woman sneezing, enhanced by the artist’s tactile brushwork and use of color,” says curatorial assistant Jessica Hong. “What enthralls me about this work are its active paradoxes: The repugnant is beautiful, the ordinary is extraordinary, the static is dynamic, as you find yourself both grimacing and smiling.”
3) Marisol, Couple No. 1, 1965–66 “With its protruding white conic appendage and humming motor, it’s hard to miss Marisol’s Couple No. 1. The cone is inflated by a fan inside the sculpture, so when you stand in front of it, you feel a stream of cool-ish air on your face. I wouldn’t call it pleasant, but it is a tactile way to experience the art—without touching, of course!” says education department assistant Lenny Schnier. “Marisol’s assemblages bring together elements of painting, drawing, sculpture, technology, and nature. Couple No. 1 is blocky, bulky, and its metal façade recalls midcentury futurism. Painted and etched on the front of the work are two figures that, in my opinion, lack distinctive gender markers. This makes possible narratives for the work all the more open-ended. I like to think of the piece as one body comprised of a multitude of genders beyond the binary. The work sits in a lineage of objects and people that have compounded machine and human form, and it’s really freaking awesome that a 50-year-old sculpture resonates with our contemporary selfie-crazed cultural zeitgeist.”
4) Ana Mendieta, Silueta Works in Mexico, 1973–77/1991 “It is incredible to work for a museum that has one of my all-time favorite works of art in its collection,” says membership manager Chris Hoodlet. “In this series, Mendieta blends performance and photography, human and nature, presence and absence in a series that makes you reflect on your relationship to the earth. In these sublime images, Mendieta’s immersion into the landscape of Mexico, and the traces that remain, show how powerful the forces of nature are in comparison to humanity.”
THE IMPROPER’S 2016 FALL ARTS PREVIEW: DANCE | THEATER | MUSIC | COMEDY
By Jacqueline Houton
A Red-Hot Residency
Libraries are full of stories, but local artist Liz Nofziger is on the hunt for ones that can’t be found in the catalogue. As the Public Library of Brookline’s inaugural artist in residence, Nofziger has been gathering library-related memories for her Library Study project, taking submissions online and IRL at a tiny study room in the main branch, which she’s transformed into the Ruby Carrel—a red-lit nook where visitors can slip handwritten notes into a gap between the desk and the wall. “It feels like you’re kind of giving it to the building, giving it into the architecture, which I like,” says Nofziger, who’ll be creating installations inspired by the responses this fall. She answered some questions about her studio in the stacks.
You started the project by reading written histories of the library. What did you discover? The Public Library of Brookline has always been a really innovative institution. One interesting fact is that they had the first children’s room in the nation. Initially it was in the basement, and the janitor was in charge of the children. There were two publications they were allowed to look at, and only if they had clean hands…. Another crazy fact is that the original library building was moved from one spot to another—the whole building, ground level up. It was moved over two months on jacks and railroad ties, so it was this crazy engineering feat, and they never closed service. You could still go in! Learning this stuff, it totally makes sense that they’re willing to invite an artist in to play with the library.
So what’s it like inside the Ruby Carrel? I used translucent vinyl on all the windows, so it’s a little surface, a chair and these two glass walls that now are covered with this red, which sort of puts you inside a piece of candy. I really like the playful candy association of the color red, but also the kind of seedy, dirtier side—like red-light districts, the whole range of associations with this color. It’s really juicy. You’re getting an altered view of the outside world—I chose the study carrel closest to School Street, so you have traffic going by, kindergartners walking past, life happening outside in this new rose framing—and the sun also brings a spray of red light into the library. So it’s transforming your view of the exterior and experience of the interior.
Any especially memorable submissions so far? There was a really lovely story of two people meeting by chance and connecting over a conversation about a book, and then this led to a life together. She was there to do some research, the kind of research you would do on the internet now. So there’s something about the time before we all had this immediate access to information in our private world, where you had to go somewhere and spend time in a physical place, and this happened to lead her to this conversation that changed the course of her life. So that was cool, and sort of mourning the time before we had computers in our pockets.
Visit brooklinepubliclibraryair.org to submit your own story, and take in a tour and a talk by Nofziger at Library Study’s closing event on Nov. 10.
THE IMPROPER’S 2016 FALL ARTS PREVIEW: DANCE | THEATER | MUSIC | COMEDY
By Jacqueline Houton
Speaking of Volumes
Two fall exhibits are taking a page from the past. First up is Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections, the largest exhibition of medieval and Renaissance books ever staged in North America. On view through fall, the show spans 260 tomes at three venues: Harvard’s Houghton Library, BC’s McMullen Museum and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where you can view lavishly hand-painted works of art that have spent centuries under cover. Then on Oct. 14, the Boston Public Library marks the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death with the opening of Shakespeare Unauthorized, an exhibition of early editions of his plays, including the library’s own First Folio, pictured here. On display through March 31, it also features forgeries, theatrical memorabilia and other rarities related to the drama king.
THE IMPROPER’S 2016 FALL ARTS PREVIEW: DANCE | THEATER | MUSIC | COMEDY
By Jacqueline Houton | Photo Credit: Sebastian Errazuriz, “The Golddigger,” “The Heartbreaker,” and “The Boss,” © 2016 Peabody Essex Museum: Kathy Tarantola
If the Shoe Fits
Then try this pair of exhibits on for size. Running now through Jan. 1, New Sole of the Old Machine brings steampunk creations from nine artists and artisans to the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, once the country’s top producer of shoes. Then from Nov. 19 through March 12, Shoes: Pleasure and Pain treads through Salem’s Peabody Essex Museum, where the 300 pairs on display will include ancient Egyptian sandals, the Vivienne Westwood platforms that famously tripped up Naomi Campbell’s runway walk, pieces from the personal collection of late local fashion icon Marilyn Riseman and this trio from Chilean-born artist/designer Sebastian Errazuriz’s “12 Shoes for 12 Lovers” collection.
THE IMPROPER’S 2016 FALL ARTS PREVIEW: DANCE | THEATER | MUSIC | COMEDY
By Jacqueline Houton | Photo Credit: Young Boy, Pause Pause © The Irving Penn Foundation
Photo Ops
Two influential photographers who shot indelible images for Vogue come in focus this fall. Lesley University’s Lunder Arts Center is hosting the only New England stop for Irving Penn: Beyond Beauty, the first Penn retrospective in nearly 20 years. Pulled from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection, the 146 photographs include his famed fashion photos along with 1930s street scenes, shots from his 1940s travels through the South (like 1941’s Young Boy, Pause Pause, shown here), still-life work, portraits of the likes of Salvador Dali and a never-before-seen video of the photographer in action. It’s all on view now through Nov. 19, but make sure you’re camera-ready for a special event on Oct. 1, when Lesley photography faculty will be taking free Penn-style portraits of gallery goers. Then from Oct. 7 through March 26, the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum presents Edward Steichen: Twentieth-Century Photographer, showcasing early Pictorialist photos, celebrity portraits, cityscapes and commercial work for Condé Nast by a multihyphenate talent often credited with the conducting the first modern fashion shoot way back in 1911.
THE IMPROPER’S 2016 FALL ARTS PREVIEW: DANCE | THEATER | MUSIC | COMEDY
By Jacqueline Houton
Alone Together
You’ll likely want to fly solo to see Fertile Solitude, an exhibit on view at the BCA’s Mills Gallery from Oct. 14 through Dec. 18. Curated by FLUX. Boston founder Elizabeth Devlin, the maze-like installation will feature work by 15 artists emphasizing individualism and introspection. Meanwhile, the New Art Center is taking an opposite tack with Obstacle Course, an exhibition that’s all about collaboration. Exploring the often-unexpected challenges artists face when working with nonartists or inviting participation from the public, it’s on view from Oct. 28 through Nov. 22. Bring a friend.
THE IMPROPER’S 2016 FALL ARTS PREVIEW: DANCE | THEATER | MUSIC | COMEDY
By Jacqueline Houton
More Must-Dos!
Mark your calendar for these arty parties, tours and festivals.
9/30-10/9 Get in on the action when the fall installment of ArtWeek Boston brings dozens of interactive events to venues all over town. artweekboston.org
10/1 Reap the rewards when the inaugural AgriCultural Festival brings farmers and artists to the site of Somerville’s forthcoming ArtFarm. somervilleartscouncil.org
10/8 Enjoy your art with beers and DJ beats when 40 artists display their work at Future Arts Fest, a bash at the BCA that benefits Boston Children’s Hospital. futurearts.net
10/10 Leave your wallet at home when Opening Our Doors offers free access to exhibits and other cultural experiences throughout the Fenway ’hood. fenwayculture.org
10/13 RSVP for Supper Club—William Merritt Chase and A Study in Oysters, and you’ll get a curator’s tour of the MFA’s new exhibit on the American Impressionist, paired with local wines and Long Island oysters. mfa.org
10/20-23 Celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Boston International Fine Art Show when the fair returns to the Cyclorama. fineartboston.com
10/22 Stretch your legs on a Curator Walk with Pedro Alonzo in Hingham at Jeppe Hein’s A New End, one of two public art installations on view as part of Art and the Landscape. thetrustees.org
THE IMPROPER’S 2016 FALL ARTS PREVIEW: DANCE | THEATER | MUSIC | COMEDY
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