If you’re in Boston this weekend, check out the Fort Point Arts Community 8th Annual Art Walk. It’s a great opportunity to see the work of 75 artists who defiantly create work in this vibrant, eclectic, artist community.
And if you have the economic luxury to dream of ways to spend your federal rebate check, how about considering supporting some talented local artists by purchasing a work of art?
Image: Jason Pechinski, A Street, 24″ x 30″, oil on canvas
Whether you do it outside, inside, solo, with a group, upside down, swinging from ropes, or on a stage, there’s bound to be something for everyone interested in dance at the upcoming free two-day dance conference hosted by Summer Stages Dance at the Concord Academy. Organized by NEFA, the event promises to be a fabulous opportunity to see and discuss all things related to the regional dance scene. Plus there will be live performances by Adele Myers, Polly Motley, Bronwen MacArthur, Aparna Sindhoor and Talya Epstein. Word has it you have to RSVP, so be sure to do the hustle and contact NEFA if you plan on attending.
Photo: Adele Myers and Dancers from website jumpcut.com
Good on ya!
Great news from Laura Harrington (Playwriting/New Theater Works Fellow ‘97, ‘05). She won a Kleban Award for most promising librettist from New Dramatists (funded by the Kleban Foundation).
This after a well-received run of her musical Crossing Brooklyn this past fall and an upcoming production of Alice Unwrapped, both at NYC venues. (Check out some of her earlier work, hosted on our Gallery at MCC.)
For more news of fellows and finalists, check out the Artist Fellows Notes.
The Boston Theater Marathon takes place this weekend (May 11), and a handful of past Playwriting/New Theater Works fellows & finalists have compressed the big stuff of theater into miniature forms. Ten-minute plays by William Donnelly (Fellow ‘05), Deborah Fortson (Fellow ‘05), Monica Raymond (Finalist ‘07), and Leslie Harrell Dillen (Finalist ‘01) will appear alongside works by Robert Brustein, Ed Bullins, Israel Horowitz, and Theresa Rebeck during the daylong festival. The event fits 50 plays by New England playwrights into a 10-hour theater-fest. You buy a pass, then come and go as you please.
Incidentally, for an interesting discussion about ten-minute plays and their role in contemporary theater, check out this online roundtable discussion, hosted by Playwrights’ Center of Minneapolis.
Image: Paul Weiner’s “All the World’s a Stage” (2002), Cibachrome print, 16″ x 20.”
Recently, we posted an Artist to Artist featuring novelist Karl Iagnemma (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘02) and installation artist Brian Knep (Sculpture/Installation Finalist ‘07) discussing science and technology in their art.
In an interview to gather material for the piece, Brian spoke on a number of topics we didn’t have room to include in the Artist to Artist dialogue. Below are some “outtakes,” where his imaginative mind ranges from cell suicide to arts funding to an installation artist’s version of lab research. Intriguing stuff!
On working with scientific concepts in his art
Brian: The way I find deeper meaning is to somehow make associations between the science and questions we all have. So you can look at… there’s this process which I find really fascinating, called apoptosis. It’s basically the process of programmed cell death. Say a cell is damaged, its DNA is damaged, maybe from radiation. So the cell has a process where it’s checking its DNA all the time, and it finds it’s damaged. And so it can decide well, let me try to fix it, or it can decide I can’t fix it and I’m going to kill myself. And that process, of making that decision to commit suicide or not, they’ve found out recently is extra-cellular, meaning it doesn’t do it in isolation. It actually sends signals out to its neighbors, and they signal back to it. And somehow, some consensus is made, and the cell decides whether to kill itself or not.
There are all these metaphors–consensus of a suicide, the decisions we make in our lives, how we might think we’re in isolation, but actually, we’re constantly extending, having interactions with people around us. But the other interesting thing is, the scientist who was explaining this to me said that cells have no state of partial death. In other words, if you look at the signaling mechanism, the actual chemistry, that figures out whether it’s going to kill itself or not, it’s a switch. It’s not a lever. It’s yes, I’m going to kill myself, or no, I’m not. So when I hear that, and I think about cell suicide, I start thinking about how we all live in a state of partial death. There’s a lot there to explore, about the ways we hold ourselves back, about anxiety, neurosis, all these ways that we are not very present in the moment. I’m not saying that there’s this exact connection–at all. It’s the metaphorical connection that fascinates me. So I can make a piece using the science, which hits people on two levels. One, it’s sort of cool science. And the other is that there’s a deeper meaning to it, which I think hopefully can speak on a more unconscious level, and a deeper level, and maybe create some sort of transformative experience. When I have both of those, that’s when I feel like I make some of my best work. Read the rest of this entry »
What happens if you combine a love of glue guns, vinyl records, yummy vegan treats and amazing original tshirt designs all in one hot, sweaty crowded room at Mass Art? Well, for the price of a scratch ticket, this coming Sunday Mass Market may just be the answer to satisfy your every DIY (that means do it yourself) impulse and support local artists and musicians at the same time! The flea market is bound to have something for everyone whether it’s art, books, music, clothes, djs’ and vegan and veggie foods. Pass the tanning butter (vegan of course).
On Tuesday, April 29 at 4:30 PM, Barbara O’Brien, Director of the Trustman Art Gallery at Simmons College, will moderate a roundtable discussion with three MCC 2007 Photography Fellows: Anne Rearick, Rania Matar and Claire Beckett.
The discussion marks the opening of Uncommon Denominator, a new photography exhibition running through May 30 at the Trustman. The exhibition features photography by 10 2007 Fellows and Finalists.
“I’m so excited about this show,” says O’Brien, “and its depth, quality and range of ideas.” She’s interested in the way the artists’ work reflects the documentary tradition, from both a political and a personal perspective, and the intersection of the two.
Since starting at Simmons in 2006, O’Brien, who oversees the arts administration program in addition to directing the gallery, has specialized in organizing group shows “that create dialogue.” She often selects artists that don’t know each other, or several artists from Boston along with one from outside the region. O’Brien, who previously served as editor-in-chief of Art New England for four years, brings an uncommon perspective to her assessment of the Massachusetts contemporary art scene, having served as a critic, curator and photographer in her own right.
As the curator of a college gallery, O’Brien feels a responsibility to create opportunities for artists that commercial galleries do not. She sees the density of colleges and universities in the region as the biggest asset to its professional art scene.
We’ve posted the May installment of MCC Fellows Notes, with loads of good news about former fellows and finalists, including:
Read the MCC Fellows Notes here.
Image: Hannah Barrett’s “The Luddites” (2003), oil on montage, 50″ x 69 1/2″. Hannah is one of the artists featured in the Artadia Boston 2007 show at the Boston Center for the Arts.
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