School of the Museum of Fine Arts

Latest Articles

Id vicious

The Museum School Art Sale at SMFA, ‘Sex, Drugs and Rock + Roll’ at Steven Zevitas Gallery
Money is a dominant topic of conversation in the art world even when there isn’t a global financial crisis.
By EVAN J. GARZA | November 13, 2008

Boys’ life

Childhood play becomes macho in Boston galleries
The art features boy toys (no dolls, thank you very much), gadgets, and secret clubhouses.
By GREG COOK | October 15, 2008

The devil in the details

‘Drawn to Detail’ and ‘Laylah Ali’ at the DeCordova, Esteban Pastorino Díaz at the SMFA, and Student Loan Art Program at MIT
It’s hard to imagine stopping to look at drawings that don’t coalesce till you let them pull you in and spin you around a bit.
By RANDI HOPKINS | August 28, 2008

Documentary evidence

‘War Stories’ and Maori tattoos, plus the SMFA’s ‘Traveling Scholars’
The theme of MassArt’s “War Stories” is what we talk about when we talk about war — the Iraq War in particular.
By GREG COOK | February 27, 2008

Skin deep

‘Maori Tattoo’ at the Peabody Essex, Jim Henderson and Ann Torke at Boston Sculptors, and Student Shows at the MFA and SMFA
The facial and body tattoos of New Zealand’s indigenous Maori people were originally chiseled into the skin by means of an albatross bone and vegetable-based pigments.
By RANDI HOPKINS | February 12, 2008

Land ho!

Matthew Coolidge at the Carpenter Center, ‘Ana Maria Pacheco’ at the Danforth, and the December Sale at the SMFA
The Los Angeles site of the Center for Land Use Interpretation keeps a low physical profile.
By RANDI HOPKINS | November 27, 2007

Utopia station

Contemporary Caribbean Art at the Museum School, “Gods In Color” at Harvard, “Arts Of Japan” at the MFA, and the new Proof Gallery
The grimy surfaces of walls, sidewalks, and utility poles in neighborhoods of San Juan have replaced canvas as a medium for Puerto Rican artist Rafael Trelles.
By RANDI HOPKINS | September 12, 2007

Staged?

Philip-Lorca diCorcia at the ICA, ‘Self-Entanglements’ at GASP, Jim Falck at Montserrat, and ‘Jamaica Plain Spoken’ in JP
In a photograph taken in 1978, you see a kid staring blankly into an open refrigerator.
By RANDI HOPKINS | May 22, 2007

Real women do burlesque

Putting the tease — and some other things — back in striptease
The catcalls get louder just before I peel off my top.
By SARA FAITH ALTERMAN | February 17, 2007

Must warn others

"It's Alive!" at Montserrat, "2007 North American Print Biennial" at 808 Gallery
It’s a cliché of bad novels and late-night movies that scientists and artists represent two extreme — and mutually exclusive — poles of objectivity and subjectivity.
By RANDI HOPKINS | February 06, 2007

Who are you?

"Identy Construction" at G-A-S-P, "Sensorium II" at MIT, "Traveling Scholars" at the MFA
I’d hazard that when most of us think of pictures with “hidden meanings,” we don’t envision portraits, a genre that usually entails straight-ahead representations of, well, heads, at least.
By RANDI HOPKINS | January 30, 2007

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

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

Hand made

Loïs Mailou Jones and Clare Rojas
Eight years after Loïs Mailou Jones’s death, School of the Museum of Fine Arts curator Joanna Soltan is proclaiming her to be “among the most significant African-American artists of the 20th century.”
By GREG COOK | October 04, 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