American Art Phillips Academy

Latest Articles

Don’t leave me this way

Botanical Forms at Harvard’s Museum of Natural History, Carroll Dunham and more at the Addison, and Renzo Piano at the Fogg
Leaves lead a wild life, and each leaf’s physical structure reflects both its individual biography — revealing the pathways, for example, of insects that have eaten their way across a leaf’s surface.
By RANDI HOPKINS | May 06, 2008

In our nature

Frank Gohlke at the Addison, ‘Pulp Function’ at the Worcester Center for Crafts, and ‘Expanded Sculpture 2’ at 119 Gallery
Gohlke looks at nature not as something that we gaze on from a distance but as the often defiant or disappointing environment where we live.
By RANDI HOPKINS | April 02, 2008

Across the Universe

“Cosmic Energy” at Tufts, Aerial Photography at BU, Dawoud Bey at the Addison, and 2007 Photo Biennial at the Danforth
Intuition tells us that certain places are powerful, that certain spaces are sacred, and that we are sometimes in the presence of cosmic energy.
By RANDI HOPKINS | August 28, 2007

Playing with history

Kara Walker's civil war
In February 1862, with the Civil War not yet a year old, Union forces took Fort Henry, a Confederate outpost on the Tennessee River, as they began to open up Southern waterways for supply lines.
By GREG COOK | January 30, 2007

The right profile

African-Americans in Andover, nudes in Winchester, sunglasses and cellphones in Essex
Contemporary African-American artists have taken on issues of race and American identity in a wealth of ways, from Kara Walker’s provocative silhouette narratives to Fred Wilson’s discomforting black "collectibles" to William Pope L’s agonizing acts of crawling.
By RANDI HOPKINS | January 17, 2006