P.E.M. misses Ansel Adams's big picture

By GREG COOK | June 12, 2012

In Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park, California (c. 1937), which Prodger includes as "an exploration of water in all its forms" (ice, snow, waterfall, clouds), we gaze over snowy evergreens to awesome storm clouds roiling between mountain peaks. The sun breaks through, defining the deep space and spotlighting a waterfall. But getting sidetracked on water misses the point. The photo is like the climax of a symphony about the American West — vast and sublime and shot through with nostalgia.

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

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Topics: Museum And Gallery , Photography, Peabody Essex Museum, Peabody Essex Museum, More

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March 21, 2013 at 12:59 PM

[Q&A] KMFDM's Sascha Konietzko on art, Columbine and having balls
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See this film series: The Belmont World Film Series @ Studio Cinema in Belmont
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See this film: This is Spinal Tap [with post-film talk by expert from Acoustical Society of America] @ the Coolidge
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ARTICLES BY GREG COOK

A REALLY BIG SHOW! | May 21, 2013
This showcase of tomorrow's-art-stars-today is both invigorating and overwhelming, with work by 194 students.

CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN | May 13, 2013
What does it mean to be a man? That's the question at the heart of this smart, sumptuous exhibit — one of the best shows in the region this year.

MERRY PRANKSTERS | May 07, 2013
Parked out front of Brown University's gray modernist Granoff Center on a recent sunny morning were one of those 15-foot-tall inflatable rats that unions install in front of businesses they're protesting and a limousine sloppily painted to resemble a yellow and black school bus.

ALTERED IMAGES | April 30, 2013
Among the handsome Washington Street storefronts of AS220's renovated Mercantile Block building, with their neo-old-timey signs, is the residents' entrance to the building. It is against AS220's religion to leave any space empty that can be filled with art. So the lobby is the AS220 Resident Gallery, which occupants of the building take turns filling with their stuff.

IN THE CITY | April 23, 2013
One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Providence art scene is how the city itself has been such a rich subject. A decade ago, the city became a galvanizing topic as artists fought to protect the old mills that served as their homes and studios from demolition — with mixed success. But lately, the community's industrial architecture itself has attracted artists' attention.