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RANDI HOPKINS

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Return to the edge of the world

The year ahead in art
Photography and new media loom large on the horizon in 2007, with cameras pointed in every direction.

By RANDI HOPKINS | December 27, 2006

Karma chameleon

‘A Sense of Place’ at the Peabody Essex Museum, a guided tour of the ‘MFA Thesis Exhibition’ at Tufts, and the last Mad Dash at Green Street
“Kesa” is the term for the traditional, oblong prayer robes worn by Buddhist monks in Japan — and this spiritually rich garment is the subject of Betsy Sterling Benjamin’s “A Sense of Place, an Artist's Tribute to the Seven Continents,” which opens at the Peabody Essex Museum on December 16.

By RANDI HOPKINS | December 12, 2006

Dream on

Strange dreams in Lowell, ‘Icons + Altars’ in Newton, and 2006 Maud Morgan Prize Winner Ambreen Butt
Imagery that springs from the mysterious depths of the unconscious holds a powerful fascination for artists, and the quirky world of dreams has inspired countless works of art.

By RANDI HOPKINS | December 06, 2006

Holiday, it would be so nice!

Seasonal cheer at the MFA and the SMFA, Helen Molesworth at the Carpenter Center, Andrea Modica at BU
The Museum of Fine Arts offers a full-out festive immersion approach to the impending holidays this year — a line of attack that, in keeping with the contemporary spirit of art, embraces performing arts, multimedia, and site-specific.

By RANDI HOPKINS | November 28, 2006

I’m your fan

The new ICA opens with ‘Super Vision,’ ‘2006 James and Audrey Foster Prize,’ ‘Momentum 6: Sergio Vega,’ and ‘Chiho Aoshima’
It’s time to smash that big bottle of champagne over the bow of Boston’s glossy, glassy new Institute of Contemporary Art, as the museum throws open the lofty doors to its new Diller Scofidio + Renfro–designed digs on Boston’s Fan Pier.

By RANDI HOPKINS | November 21, 2006

Around the edges

‘Boundaries and Infinities’ in Lawrence, ‘Medicine Wheel’ and the Rhys Gallery in the South End
Focus and framing, two devices that help us zoom in on what we are interested in looking at, and to filter out what we would rather not see, are critical tools not only for artists but for humans in general, as we make our way through a visually complex world.

By RANDI HOPKINS | November 15, 2006

Long time passing

Annual Wasserman Forum at MIT, Deb Todd Wheeler at Green Street, David Rees at Harvard
Early video art set itself apart from movie-theater cinema by its grainy insistence on real time and real actions, as opposed to the dramatic conventions and fictions of big-screen blockbusters.

By RANDI HOPKINS | November 08, 2006

Say it loud

‘Dissent!’ at Harvard, ‘Media Machines’ at Tufts, ‘Fashion Show’ at the MFA, and Michael Smith at MIT
Unrest is in the crisp fall air as Election Day 2006 rolls around, and examples of artists who are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore abound.

By RANDI HOPKINS | October 31, 2006

War paint

Steve Mumford’s ‘Baghdad and Beyond,’ plus ‘Pure Thought’ in Brighton and ‘Urban Art’ from Los Angeles
There’s no shortage of photographic images of the war in Iraq — live footage on TV, front-page news photos, streaming video on-line.

By RANDI HOPKINS | October 24, 2006

Life is a highway

‘Lost Highway Expedition Symposium’ at MIT; ‘Inspired by China’ at the Peabody Essex
In August 2006, more than 200 artists, architects, and assorted citizens of the world traversed the former Yugoslavia’s former Highway of Brotherhood and Unity, exploring the cultural and urban landscape of nine cities in the Western Balkans as an experimental, temporary society.

By RANDI HOPKINS | October 17, 2006

Back in the USSR

Studying the Gulag at BU, Mexican women in art at Brandeis, and Pedro Reyes at Harvard
Gulag is the Russian acronym for the government agency that administered the famously harsh system of forced labor camps in the former Soviet Union, but it has come to refer more generally to that system of prisons and detention facilities.

By RANDI HOPKINS | October 10, 2006

Coming to your senses

“Sensorium, Part 1” and Alix Pearlstein at MIT, Cecily Brown at the MFA
This heady, two-part exhibition examines the influence of technology on the experiences our bodies are having in this world.

By RANDI HOPKINS | October 03, 2006

Tiny heavy animals

‘A Bronze Menagerie’ at the Gardner, ‘Art & Science’ at AXIOM, and ‘Seeing Red’ and ‘Terrae Incognitae’ at Boston Sculptors
The traditional way of being seated in ancient China, prior to the introduction of Western-style furniture, was on a floor mat, possibly anchored at its four corners by decorative weights.

By RANDI HOPKINS | September 26, 2006

Photo op

‘Benefit Auction’ at the PRC, ‘History in a Shoebox’ at Wellesley, and glass pumpkins at MIT
The more than 200 works on view as part of the Photographic Resource Center's Benefit Auction represent a variety of photographic techniques, approaches, eras, sensibilities, and price tags.

By RANDI HOPKINS | September 19, 2006

I spy

Video surveillance and Clare Rojas at the Rose, Indian painting at the MFA, and imperial Chinese art at the Peabody Essex
Artist Julia Scher was way ahead of the Homeland Security gang’s obsession with electronic eavesdropping and video voyeurism, having made high-tech installations that allowed museum and gallery goers to watch each other watching each other since the late 1980s.

By RANDI HOPKINS | September 12, 2006

Fight the power

Artists protest war, scrutinize surveillance, explore usefulness, and embrace couture
Art mixes it up with history and politics, peers closely at electronic surveillance, worries about its own usefulness, traipses down the fashion runway, and brings cool stuff back from China and Puerto Rico in exhibitions opening this fall.

By RANDI HOPKINS | September 13, 2006

Full disclosure

‘Reveal’ at the New Art Center, Loïs Mailou Jones at the Museum School, Sharon Harper and Helen Mirra at the Carpenter Center, and a new gallery in Malden
Back in 1927, Hermann Hesse in Steppenwolf likened the hidden layers of the human personality to an onion: “made up of a hundred integuments, a texture made up of many threads.”

By RANDI HOPKINS | September 05, 2006

Wild things

‘Going Ape’ at the DeCordova, George McNeil at Montserrat, and ‘Offspring’ at BU
One hundred corrugated cardboard monkeys hanging from trapezes greet visitors to “Going Ape: Confronting Animals in Contemporary Art,” which opens at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park on September 2.

By RANDI HOPKINS | August 23, 2006

OOH-OO CHILD

Sharon Lockhart’s ‘Pine Flat’ at Harvard, Frank Gehry and Matthew Barney Films at the MFA
Childhood in America comes under the artist’s gaze in Pine Flat , the fifth film by Sharon Lockhart, and it’s examined with precision and attention to detail.

By RANDI HOPKINS | August 17, 2006

Scroll down

‘The New Chinese Landscape’ at Harvard, Raked Sand at ArtSTRAND, Future Shock at Green Street
It’s always a treat to spend time in the several clustered museums at Harvard, where scholarly mini exhibitions co-exist with larger surveys and familiar favorites from the permanent collection complement surprises in the galleries.

By RANDI HOPKINS | August 08, 2006

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