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End-of-year exhibitions reveal mystery and beauty

Museum And Gallery

I wanna rock

Down the street, Proof has its own round-up of local talent: “Boston Does Boston II.” Bennitt picked five Bostonians, who then chose five other locals to join the show. There are some overlaps with the LaMontagne show, such as another (but not quite as good) Wardwell rock-lyrics landscape. Mowbray presents a video that shows him standing atop a big lazy susan on a South Boston rooftop. He’s strapped into a giant revolving-cup anemometer or holding a big windvane and spinning a bit in the wind. I wish the sculptures used in the performance were here, but even if they were, I’m not sure that Mowbray’s subject (weather, in general) is enough to hold me.

Darren Foote fashions a table and desk lamp out of black walnut, with rods radiating from the lamp as if they were rays of light. The piece is exquisitely crafted, but the subject is a bit cutesy. In recent years, John Guthrie has made excellent, bright, hard-edged abstract paintings. I don’t much care for his black-and-white watercolor here, which seems like a value-painting exercise combined with a Morris Louis abstraction. It’s like much of the show: okay work with potential that makes me want to see where the artists will go next.

Read Greg Cook’s blog at gregcookland.com/journal.

An earlier version of this story misidentified Ami Bennitt as curator of “Boston Does Boston II” at Proof gallery. The actual curators are Julia Hecthman and Kara Braciale.

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