Formerly the Berkshire Review for the Arts. Performances, Exhibitions, Articles, and Interviews about the Arts from the Berkshires and Hudson Valley
Dan Rose has published another artist book. This one, FACES, is a group of invented portraits that delve into, visually fiddle with, and vainly try to comb over the thinning hair spots of robots—and ask:
What are we to make of the evolving relationship between human and robosapiens?
To begin with, the word infinity needn’t be capitalized as I’ve done here. Infinity is everywhere―which is the key to understanding what this show is about. In the 1980’s Douglas Hostaedtler in Goedel, Escher, Bach, devoted an entire chapter to why infinity ought not be capitalized, that may be why we decided to name the show finite infinity.
A few years ago I went to a lecture of which the most compelling theme was the link between 20th century architectural practice and toy design. I can’t remember the specific architects who were mentioned back then, but I can think of two practitioners from the Northeast who, I believe, at least partially fit into that thesis—Ann McCallum and Andrus Burr of Burr & McCallum in Williamstown, Massachusetts:
The toy is sometimes the object and the by-product of obsession, invention, tinkering, and learning. In the right person’s hands, the toy can express elevated aesthetic thought and highly selective insight, instances where rigorous work and play are so closely linked that they can become indistinguishable from each other. Another way to say it is that
Virtuosos make what they do look easy.
Adapting the themes of this exhibition to the space at Greylock Arts has been a joy. My goal was to be minimally intrusive to the stunning integrity of the materials of the gallery space which are almost all original to when the building was made in the 1920’s. The ornamental high tin ceiling, period cabinetry, hardwood floor, original deep jamb windows, ornamental light fixtures, and clear uncluttered walls make artwork shine. In short, its magnificence is quite a bit more than a clean well-lighted space.
I’m also inclined to believe that the less you try to do the better. This “bias” has come from many encounters where trying to do “more” has always resulted in disaster. So there is also an inclination on my part to use less light, rather than more.
I’ve been familiar with Steve Levin’s paintings for several years now, and have admired their polished originality. It’s great to have the opportunity to discuss what makes them so mystifying. I said have the opportunity, it’s actually more like the opportunity was created. Williamstown is easier to get to than the other national locations, where Steve has had representation.
Julia Morgan Leamon is a painter and adjunct faculty member at Williams College and, among other things, an equally gifted video artist. http://www.jmorganart.com/
When talking with her it’s hard not to be aware that a deeper level of insight is at work in the ways that visual artists channel imagery and memory. Maybe it’s because she processes language and vision in equal measure. She acknowledges Virginia Woolf and Francesco Goya among her greatest influences.
For the second time in as many years, Williams College Museum of Art is presenting a cross-disciplinary exhibition and symposium that challenges the conventional compartmentalization that has characterized educational and aesthetic definitions of math, and art or, in this instance, neuroscience, psychology, and art.
This hypnotic light graphic, which was commissioned by the Polaroid Corporation, was done using a 20″ x 24″ Land camera.
It illustrates a few intriguing things about color perception in Polaroid technology and Mr. Kepes’s unique insight about how to make it effective within his own artistic methods and intentions. If the colors that are being photographed are somewhat achromatic, i.e., neutral, they appear to be more “real”, i.e., because the viewer is not searching his color memory to decide whether the colors resemble the vividness of a rose, for example. The gray gridded background, crossword puzzle on paper, ink-on canvas, Braille sample, half-silvered prism, reflections and cast shadows are virtually achromatic, in spite of the fact that this is a color photograph.
