The Museum School Art Sale at SMFA, ‘Sex, Drugs and Rock + Roll’ at Steven Zevitas Gallery
By EVAN J. GARZA | November 13, 2008
Allison Schulnik, Small Girl |
“Inside Out: The Museum School Art Sale” at School of the Museum of Fine Arts, 230 the Fenway, Boston | November 19–November 23 | 617.267.6100
“Sex, Drugs and Rock + Roll” at Steven Zevitas Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave #47, Boston | Through November 22 | 617.778.5265 |
Money is a dominant topic of conversation in the art world even when there isn’t a global financial crisis. These days, the speculation of collectors with increasingly hemorrhaged pockets, which once seemed full and endless, has caused the loss of millions of dollars in guarantees (and profits) at major auction houses around the world, not to mention a huge increase in anxiety. For those of us not at risk of losing our hedge funds, but still looking for a handsome work of art on the cheap, there is “INSIDE OUT: THE MUSEUM SCHOOL ART SALE” (formerly the December Sale), the largest public art sale in New England. The SMFA’s annual student scholarship fundraiser, running November 19-23, will feature over 4000 works from more than 800 artists in a wide assortment of contemporary media including paintings, prints, drawings, video, sound art, sculpture, and more, with some pieces setting you back as little as a whopping $5 (and most works priced at $100 and up). It’s enough to drive your id to the point of collapse. Much of the featured work in the show is made by SMFA students, graduates, up-and-coming Boston-based artists like Sean M. Johnson and Reese Inman, and celebrated faculty and alumni like Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons and Ellsworth Kelly. Seasoned collectors on the hunt for blue chip work, however, will also be pleased to find a healthy smattering of SMFA-affiliated artists like Chuck Close, Julian Schnabel, and Kiki Smith. Admission is free, but bring your wallet if you want to have fun.Those wishing to select work from an exponentially smaller number of artists shouldn’t be overwhelmed by the 16 pieces in the current group show at Steven Zevitas Gallery. On view through November 22, “SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK + ROLL” should seem pretty self-explanatory, but the carefully organized show of paintings, drawings, works on paper, and collage is surprisingly refined (and just crass enough to get the point across). San Diego’s Allison Schulnik offers up Small Girl, an oil painting featuring a nude woman on all fours, composed of a heaping and messy mass of thick paint, and surrounded by sweeping bands of color. Michael Krueger’s Palisades, made specifically for the show, is a remarkably crafted drawing made with colored pencil, showcasing giant seaside orange crags, nude figures, and cave graffiti amid a starburst sunset of cream, grey, and black lines. John Copeland’s brand of crudely assembled subjects continues with Get in the Corner Jesus, a large acrylic painting of a seemingly quaint den, complete with strange family portraiture and what appears to be pornography on an old wood-cabinet television set. The exhibition is an interesting investigation of counter culture, music, and sex, executed with relative ease and without the clichés that traditionally come with the territory. Works from Simon English, Peregrine Honig, Wes Lang, David X. Levine, Zak Smith, and Joe Wardwell round out the show.
On the Web
School of the Museum of Fine Arts: www.smfa.edu
Steven Zevitas Gallery: www.stevenzevitasgallery.com
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