A great gallery won’t turn bad art good, and even great art can’t improve a bad gallery. The problem with the Tufts Art Gallery’s first show of the year, a retrospective survey of the work of Vietnamese-American artist Dinh Q. Lê, is the dissonance between the pieces on display and the space in which […]
The Tufts University Art Gallery recently hosted an exhibit of work by thesis candidates from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA). The exhibit ran through May 18 – but the show wasn’t really on display last Tuesday. The glass doors of the gallery were still locked half an hour after opening. Eventually, […]
Just as in economics and politics, the art world is often separated by geography into the center and the periphery. For the past 30 years, the center has always seemed to be New York City, but even here, the world’s flatness has taken its toll. “Antonio López García” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, […]
The Tufts University Art Gallery continues its series of MFA thesis exhibitions from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) this month. The show is a strong representation of the work of emerging artists and allows viewers a rare glance into the SMFA’s studios. The show, including seven different artists’ work, leans more […]
This coming Sunday, “El Greco to Velazquez: Art During the Reign of Philip III” will open at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The show brings together an international collection of Spanish paintings from the Baroque era, including works by Peter Paul Rubens and several masterpieces by El Greco. Philip III was a very important […]
The Boston Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) is currently hosting a small show that, despite its size, packs a punch. Though it only highlights three artists – Mark Bradford, Robin Rhode and William Cordova – “Street Level” is a challenging exhibition that stands as a milestone for “street” artists slowly entering the art world. Those […]
Through the Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ (MFA) affiliation with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), the museum often takes opportunities to show student work. These are usually not the largest shows, nor are they the most impressive, but they contribute a glimpse of the absolute present of art-making. “Students Curate Students: […]
Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) recently purchased and installed a sculpture by the artist Josiah McElheney, titled “Endlessly Reflecting 20th-Century Modernism,” into its West Wing lobby. The piece, located near the stairs going down towards the cafeteria, at first appears to be no more than a mirage or a mistaken perception. It is a […]
“British Prints: Rhythms of Modern Life” collects a selection of prints from a specific era, 1914 to 1939, and a specific country, Great Britain. This simple statement is an easy one to take for granted: The medium of the print is often overlooked in museum exhibitions. Prints are usually put together with no eye for […]
Today, we give drawing a level of importance in the visual arts that it never had in the past. Particularly in the Renaissance, when sketches were just plans for immaculately finished pieces, artists like Michelangelo would not want their drawings shown; the only thing that mattered was the final outcome. Today, we treasure these unfinished, […]