The MCC Awards at Tufts, 'Flourish' at MassArt, and 'The Cave Project'

By GREG COOK | July 11, 2011

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Tea Party in Father Fort Scott Alario creates fairytale photos starring his toddler daughter.

Scott Alario of Providence represents a more romantic version of this conceptual approach to photography with his invented fairytale photos starring his toddler daughter, including a dreamy one in which the girl sits with a lantern under a backyard tent that turns out to be a sheet thrown over Alario. Lana Z. Caplan of Boston photographs two blurred people walking through the dark tunnel at Beijing's Forbidden City as part of her series documenting former sites of public execution around the world. It prompts thoughts of capital punishment from ancient times to the lethal injections and torture performed more recently and much closer to home.

>> SLIDESHOW: The MCC Awards at Tufts, 'Flourish' at MassArt, and 'The Cave Project' <<

MassArt's crafty tradition comes out in South Boston artist Pat Falco's purposely stumbling, aw-shucks drawing of a guy and lady kissing with the hand-lettered text "i learned everything i know about kissing from Clark gable [sic] . . . oh and you" and Gloucester sculptor Elizabeth Alexander's graphite-and-ink drawings of a hammer and a caliper with the paper around the tools cut out and curled up like flowering vines. I'm not sure why the tools, but the cut paper is awful pretty. Jessica Gath of Jamaica Plain offers a stack of postcards with homey typewritten text inviting you to fill in the blank: "You may or may not know that you have the most beautiful. . . . " It's a sweetheart invitation to pass along a little joy.

At Gallery 263, Laura Francis and Ben Ahles have organized a team of six other mostly local artists to create a cave of papier-mâché over chickenwire. Organizers say "The Cave Project" is an homage to ancient cave paintings that "acts as a metaphor for the modern era, a time of man-made lakes and cities." Last week, the installation felt underdeveloped (work is ongoing) with the papier-mâché still mostly bare newspaper decorated with just two okay paintings — 1) a guy wearing an antler crown and surrounded by three ladies, and 2)Angry Birds (ugh). But the dark room — with sunlight coming in through only a few openings — and the rippling walls and stalactites were cool. You can't help wanting to climb the walls of the cave.

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

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Topics: Museum And Gallery , Tufts, massArt, Mass Art, More

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