Arthur M. Sackler Museum

Latest Articles

I am I said

‘Empire and Its Discontents’ and more at Tufts; ‘Re-View’ and visiting faculty at Harvard; GASP’s Fourth Anniversary
Tufts University Art Gallery presents “Empire And Its Discontents,” which opens September 15 with work by 11 artists tied to previously colonized regions in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.
By RANDI HOPKINS | September 03, 2008

Fabulous faker

Zhang Daqian’s imaginary landscapes, plus “A Tradition Redefined”
It was a sublime scene, even though the seven-foot-tall painting was cracked, threadbare in places, patched in others, and dulled by a gray-brown murk.
By GREG COOK | December 31, 2007

Whitewash

Can a striking exhibit at Harvard really make us see ancient Greek and Roman sculpture — and the roots of racism — as we never have before?
“Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture in Classical Antiquity” presents striking evidence that the white marbles were once painted in bold Technicolor.
By GREG COOK | December 09, 2007

Auntie Em! Auntie Em!

‘Ozspirations’ at NESAD, Icons + Altars in Newton, Glenn Ligon at Harvard, Donald Kuspit at Simmons
Those utterly disturbing flying monkeys, the little ruby-slippered feet sticking out from under the farmhouse, the freaky talking apple trees . . .
By RANDI HOPKINS | November 06, 2007

The Candy Man

Félix González-Torres at The Carpenter Center, Modern and Contemporary Chinese Ink Painting at the Sackler, and Chuck Close and Robert Storr at BU
Glittering piles of cheap candies are probably Cuban-born artist Félix González-Torres’s most iconic works.
By RANDI HOPKINS | October 23, 2007

Not a girl who misses much

Sound and video at MIT, “Eyewitness” at Axiom, Carolee Schneemann at Pierre Menard, and Kaspar König at the Sackler
Sound is all around: pop music acts as a hair trigger for memory.
By RANDI HOPKINS | October 01, 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

Power surge

The Boston Cyberarts Festival launches everywhere, Gabriel Orozco and Benjamin Buchloh converse at Harvard
The Boston Cyberarts Festival arrives to blanket the town with an onslaught of visual-art events and exhibitions connected by their use of technology.
By RANDI HOPKINS | April 09, 2007

Every picture tells a story

Children’s-book illustrators at the New Art Center, Alexander Ross at WAM, and Hélio Oiticica at Harvard
“Dear Diary: I know I should be asleep already, but I just can’t sleep if I don’t write this all down. I’ll burst!”
By RANDI HOPKINS | March 06, 2007

My Baby Shot Me Down

'Big Bang!' at the DeCordova, 'Classified Documents' at Harvard, 'Trans am' at the New Art Center
“Abstract painting” is a broad historical category that takes in everything from the utopian spiritual and formal purity of the early decades of the 20th century to the macho of the purely visual as championed by Clement Greenberg later in that century.
By RANDI HOPKINS | January 09, 2007

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

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

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

Symbolic nature

East Asian botanical motifs at the Sackler; Eighth Annual Lantern Festival at Forest Hills
The flowering landscape is more than just beautiful and awe-inspiring for East Asian artists and poets, who have always attributed layers of symbolic meaning and to nature’s blooms and branches.
By RANDI HOPKINS | June 29, 2006

Cheap thrills

Paw Sox, Penny Slots, and Ponies — so cheap, it might cost you
Summertime inevitably raises the question: what are we going to do with our crazy, hot selves? Summer Guide 2006: Cheap thrills from Bar Harbor to New Haven.
By ELLEE DEAN | June 14, 2006

Something old, something new

Shintaro Miyake’s beavers, Frank Stella’s stripes
For his first major show in the US, Shintaro Miyake would create a pond filled with real water, a dam, beaver lodges, and drawings of beavers and kayakers.
By GREG COOK | March 01, 2006

Dam cute

“The Beaver Project”; documentary photos at BU, Stella at Harvard, and the opening of Second Gallery
There has been a great wave of Cute in Japanese contemporary art in recent years — colorful nodding mushrooms and balloons from Takashi Murakami, big-headed kiddies and doggies from Yoshitomo Nara, and Dark Cute in the form of movies like Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away .
By RANDI HOPKINS | January 24, 2006

HOT TOPICS

Michael Flaherty , David Longstreth , Harvard University , U.S. Supreme Court , Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Deval Patrick , Equality Maine , Aerosmith , Boston Ballet , Jay Severin

Arthur M. Sackler Museum

Harvard University

Museums

Museum of Fine Arts

Frank Stella

Cultural Institutions and Parks

Visual Arts

Yale University

Tufts University

Photographic Resource Center

David Rees