Nominations so far: 2008 Boston Art Awards

At bottom are some nominations we’ve received so far for the 2008 Boston Art Awards. We are still seeking submissions. The deadline for nominations is this Sunday, Jan. 4. Details about the awards, making nominations and voting are here.

Please post nominations as comments here – which we hope will promote discussion – and vote by e-mail once a ballot of nominees is posted here in early January. (If you’re shy, please send nominations here. Put “Nominations” in the subject line.) And please invite others to do so too.

Below are some nominations we’ve received so far:
(Note: The Journal has not checked to make sure everything here qualifies.)

Christina Toro at LaMontagne Gallery.
Joe Zane in ICA’s Foster Prize show.
Rachel Perry Welty “Same Difference” at Barbara Krakow Gallery.
Taylor Davis “N W Ab t” at Samson Projects.
Joanne Mattera “Contemplating the Horizontal” at Arden Gallery.
“Overflow,” featuring Resa Blatman, Sara Hairston-Medice, Mary O'Malley, at Laconia Gallery.
“In Pursuit of Beauty” at Montserrat College of Art.
Resa Blatman in “Overflow” at Laconia Gallery.
“Drawn to Detail” at DeCordova Museum.
Samuel Bak “Icon of Loss” at Pucker Gallery.
Antonio Lopez Garcia at MFA.
Anish Kapoor at ICA.
Jacob Berendes and HBML in Worcester.
Ernest Morin at Gloucester City Hall.
Mary O'Malley in “Overflow” at Laconia and “Drawn to Detail” at DeCordova.
Tara Donovan at ICA.
James Hull, favorite local curator.
Shari Weschler Rubeck at Gallery 17 Peck.
“Empire and Its Discontents” at Tufts University
“Andy Warhol: Pop Politics” at Currier Museum of Art.
“Georgie Friedman” in MFA Thesis Exhibition at Tufts.
2008 RISCA Fellowship show at Machines with Magnets.
“Experiencing the War in Iraq” at Machines with Magnets and Arts Exchange (Pawtucket Armory).
“Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective” at Mass MoCA.
“Presumed Innocence” at DeCordova.
“Black Womanhood” at the Hood Museum, Dartmouth, and Davis Museum, Wellesley.
“To the Ends of the Earth” at the Peabody Essex Museum.
“Bright Common Spikes: The Sculpture of John Bisbee” at Portland Museum of Art.
“John Walker: A Survey 1970-2008” at Nielsen Gallery.
“Styrofoam” at RISD Museum.
“Multi-Part Art” at RISD Museum.
Xander Marro in “NetWorks 2008” at AS220, Newport Art Museum, 5 Traverse.
Jungil Hong in “Jackals and Jerks” at Stairwell, etc.
Brian Chippendale “Human Mold” at Stairwell.
Jonathan Bonner in “NetWorks 2008” at AS220, Newport Art Museum, 5 Traverse.
“Alternating Beats” at RISD Museum.
“Silent Film/Music Video” at RISD Museum.
“Subject to Change” at RISD Museum.
Steve Hollinger at Chase Gallery.
Deb Todd Wheeler at Miller Block Gallery and Allston Skirt.
“Inside the Box” at Howard Yezerski Gallery.
“Shifting Perspectives: Estaban Pastorino Díaz” at School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
“ Imperishable Beauty: Art Nouveau Jewelry” at MFA.
“Spencer Finch: What Time is it on the Sun?” at Mass MoCA.
Frank Gohlke at the Addison.
“Harry Callahan: Eleanor” at RISD Museum.
The Institute of Infinity Small Things, performance at ICA, exhibit at DeCordova, etc.
Musee Patamechanique
Ben Sloat and the street performance of “Thriller” as part of his exhibit “I’m Not Like the Other Guys” at OHT Gallery.
"Mystic Masque: Semblance and Reality in Georges Rouault" at BC’s McMullen Museum.
Judith G. Klausner at Arisia ’08 Art Show in Cambridge.
“Views and Re-Views,” Soviet posters at Brown University’s Bell Gallery.
Tom Deininger in "Trash" at 5 Traverse.
“Tape Art Artaquarium” at 5 Traverse.
Entang Wiharso at 5 Traverse.
"Evolution/Revolution” at RISD Museum.
Beth Lipman “After You’re Gone” at RISD Museum.
“The Museum of Small Finds” at Machines with Magnets.
Delia Kovac “The Making” at AS220.
Learning Commuity Charter School's Playground designed by Laurencia Strauss.
“Quietly Sure - Like the Keeper of a Great Secret” book by Jo Dery.
“Craftland” in Providence.
Peter Goldberg at Gail Cahalan Gallery.
"Dead and Gong" installation by Muffy Brandt and Ali Dennig of Providence, Ryan Riehle and Keith Waters of Boston, and Miles Huston of New York at Stairwell Gallery.
Leif Goldberg and Erin Rosenthal, “Sound Beings” at Stairwell Gallery.
Corita Kent ‘We Can Create Life Without War” at Breslin Fine Art.
Iron Guild’s 6th Annual Halloween Pour at the Steel Yard.
“This is Boston, Not LA” at LaMontagne Gallery.
“Keepers of Tradition” at National Heritage Museum.
Chaz Maviyane-Davies in “Reflections in Exile” at Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists.
Andrew Witkin in ICA’s Foster Prize exhibit.
Elaine Bay in “a politic” at Gallery XIV, also www.revolt2die.com, www.goldenjasmineyetidancers.com, and www.myspace.com/centralregioncoastguard.
“Zhang Daquian: Painter, Collector, Forger” at MFA.
“Grand Scale: Monumental Prints in the Age of Durer and Titian” at Wellesley’s Davis Museum.
Ana Maria Pacheco “Dark Night of the Soul” at Danforth Museum.
“New England Survey” at Photographic Resource Center.
“Samuel McIntire: Carving an American Style” at Peabody Essex Museum.
“Wedded Bliss” at Peabody Essex Museum.
Sculptures at Victory Park, Dorchester.
Arun Shanbhag’s photos of Mumbai terrorist attacks at arunshanbhag.com.
“Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British Museum” at the MFA.
“Chantal Akerman: Moving through Time and Space” at MIT’s List Visual Arts Center.
“Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape” at Mass MoCA.
“Erwin Redl “Fade: A Light Installation” at Emerson.
“Many Kinds of Nothing” at Montserrat.
Mary Ellen Strom and Ann Carlson at Rotenberg Gallery.
Jane D. Marsching at Allston Skirt.
“Cornucopia: Documenting the Land of Plenty” at Montserrat.
“Chihuly at RISD” at RISD Museum.
“War Stories” at MassArt.
Ben Jones, “New Painting and Drawing,” book published by PictureBox.
Leif Goldberg “National Waste 7,” self-published book.
Laura McPhee, “River of No Return,” book published by Yale University Press.
Caleb Neelon’s “Book of Awesome,” book published by Ginko Press.

Update:
Some more nominations have come in:

Raul Gonzalez “Chingasos” at the New England Gallery of Latin American Art.
Mike Taylor at Stairwell.
Sally Moore at Krakow Gallery.
Henry Schwartz at Gallery Naga.
Harriet Casdin-Silver at Gallery Naga.
Lisa Greenfield “Walking on Water” temporarily installed in Boston’s Fort Point Channel.

Update on 01.05.09:
Here, I think, are all the rest of the nominations:

Nicole Kita at Rotenberg Gallery.
Dave Cole at Rotenberg Gallery.
“Sex, Drugs and Rock + Roll” at Zevitas Gallery.
Jen Raimondi’s “Bouquets for May and Tracy” in “The Museum of Small Finds” at Machines with Magnets.
Summer print show (?) at 5 Traverse.
Diane Fine of White River Junction, Vermont, and Rachel Gross of Plattburg, New York, at Two Rivers Printmaking Studio, White River Junction.
Jess T. Dugan at Gallery Kayafas.
Rania Matar at ICA Foster Prize, Gallery Kayafas, Tufts University.
Judy Haberl at Gallery Kayafas.
Frank Gohlke at Gallery Kayafas, Addison Gallery.
S.A. Bachman (Boston and LA) and David Attyah (LA) of the collaborative Think Again, “Actions Speak” mural at Worcester Art Museum.
Adel Abdessemed at MIT’s List Visual Arts Center.
“Storied Walls: Murals of the Americas” at Harvard’s Peabody Museum.
Liz Shepherd at Essex Art Center in Lawrence.
Catherine D'Ignazio in the ICA’s Foster Prize exhibit.
“Thoreau Reconsidered” at Concord Art Association.
“Greed, Guilt & Grappling: Six artists respond to climate change” at Boston Center for the Arts.
“Cryptic Providence” at Providence’s North Burial Ground.
“Close Encounters: Central European Video Art,” curated by Viera Levitt, at URI Fine Art Center Galleries.
Jem Southam: Upton Pyne at the Davis Museum.
Jay Critchley “Global Yawning for a small planet - a new day is yawning” on YouTube, in “Greed, Guilt & Grappling: Six artists respond to climate change” at Boston Center for the Arts, etc.
“Yassy Goldie for putting up those $50,000 bills on AbrahamObama in the South End and pissing off all those people.”
Moyra Daveys at Harvard.
Suara Welitoff at Allston Skirt, Barbara Krakow.
"Are We There Yet?" at GASP.
“Ten Artists Ten Walls” at Victoria Munroe Fine Art.
Sean Johnson at Boston Center for the Arts.
Dan Hermes of Dan Hermes Fine Art, moving digital paintings for flat screen televisions, exhibited Fall '08 at the Boston Design Center.
“Tongue of Shadows” at GASP.
Amy Stacey Curtis “Light” at Sanford Mill.
Kirsten Reynolds “Spotlight New England” at the Currier Art Museum.
Paul Chan “Three Easy Pieces” at Harvard’s Carpenter Center.
“Two Chinas: Chen Qiulin and Yun-Fei Ji” at Worcester Art Museum.
Charles Jones’s giant Elephant Gas Mask at Boston Sculptors Gallery.
Dexter Lazenby at Nielsen Gallery.
Paul Chan @ Carpenter Center (Favorite Artist Talk).
Alan Abel @ CAVS (Weirdest Artist Talk/Event).
Great Small Works at the Charlestown Working Theater (Best Theater).
Carson Murdach at Steve Zevitas.
“Boston Does Boston” at Proof.
Katherine Bradford at Samson Projects.
Nick Lawrence at Pierre Menard.
Gil Blank at LaMontagne.
Jacques Louis Vidal at LaMontange.
Bill Arning for Best Local Curator.
Milton Rogovin at Gallery Kayafas.
Chantal Ackerman at MIT List Center.
Juan Angel Chavez “Speaker Project” at Mass Art.
Tory Fair at LaMontagne Gallery.
“Meat After Meat Joy” at Pierre Menard Gallery.
“Two Museums, One Culture,” Museum of Russian Icons, Clinton.
Marc Cote prints at Fountain St. Open Studios, Framingham.
Debra Olin at Somerville Open Studios.
Peter Schumann exhibits at Boston Center for the Arts and in Vermont.
Neal Walsh at 5 Traverse.
Pixnit at Judy Rotenberg.
"Hecho a Mano: New Visions of Latin Contemporary Art" at the Center
for Latino Art, curated by Evan Garza.
Dirk Adams "Mouth of a Story" in the empty bear cages at Franklin Park.
Mark Teiwes, “Faces of the Working Waterfront” photos at Captain Joe & Sons (lobster wholesale warehouse) in Gloucester.
Ruth Laxson book art exhibit at RISD’s Fleet Library.
Jon Laustsen "The Reachers and Dwellers" at AS220.
Richard Goulis "High Definition" video installation at Real Art Ways in Hartford.
"NetWorks 2008" survey exhibition of contemporary RI artists at AS220, Newport Art Museum, and 5 Traverse.
“Anslem Kiefer: Sculptures and Paintings" at MassMoCA.
"Providence Art Windows" as innovative free "public " gallery space.
"100 years of Social Documentary Photography, Lewis Hine & Scott Lapham" at Slater Mill Gallery, Pawtucket.
Jason Travers at Lenore Gray Gallery.
Terry Rose and Yizhak Elyashiv at Lenore Gray.
"New Obstructions "at AS220’s Mercantile Block.
Platform2 “Failure Support Group,” “Parade for the Future.”
Yanick Lapuh at Hynes Convention Center.
Foster Prize Exhibition at ICA.

“In Pursuit of Beauty” at Montserrat

From my review of “In Pursuit of Beauty” at Montserrat College of Art:

The seduction of lush, sexy, decorative pattern is the subject of "In Pursuit of Beauty" at Montserrat College of Art. Curator Leonie Bradbury brings together five international artists whose work is part of a trend that embraces (with feminist undertones) beauty and rejects Modernist hating on decoration. (Other local artists, like Mary O'Malley and Resa Blatman, are coalescing around this style as well.)

Read the rest here.

“In Pursuit of Beauty,” Montserrat College of Art, 23 Essex St., Beverly, Massachusetts, Nov. 7, 2008, to Jan. 24, 2009.

Pictured from top to bottom: Pixnit, “Parlous,” 2008, and Timothy Horn, “Mutton Dressed as Lamb,” 2005.

Chaz Maviyane-Davies: Thought for 2009

A new broadside from Boston graphic artist Chaz Maviyane-Davies.

Public art: Dinosaurs!

When we talk about public art around Boston, too often we leave out two of the region’s most awesome (and popular) public sculptures: the dinosaurs!

This tyrannosaurus rex model pictured above (and at bottom) stands outside Boston’s Museum of Science. It was sculpted in the 1960s, when only five (incomplete) T-rex skeletons had been discovered. More recent archeological discoveries have prompted scientists to rethink what T-rexes were like, leading to a revised model inside the museum which stalks in a nearly horizontal posture and has skin pattered like tiger stripes. But this old lumbering galoot, now put out to pasture, warms my heart.

And note its resemblance to the other great dino sculpture around here: the famous 20-foot-tall Orange Dinosaur (pictured at left) at Route 1 Miniature Golf in Saugus, a regional landmark looming over the highway (and hole number six). First erected on the site around 1960, it was felled by vandals last year, but has since been restored to its glory.

While we’re talking about dinosaur sculptures, don’t forget The Dinosaur Place in Montville, Connecticut, a theme park featuring a 14-foot concrete-and-steel tyrannosaurus rex, a 40-foot tall and 75-foot long brachiosaurus, a ceratosaurus threatening a stegosaurus, and a group of velociraptors stalking a protoceratops. The park is offering the “12 Dinosaurs of Christmas” tour from Nov. 28 to Dec. 31.

“Boston Does Boston II” at Proof

Here are some images from “Boston Does Boston II” at Proof in Boston. The gallery picked five Bostonians, who then chose five other locals to join the show. You can read my review here (about halfway down).

“Boston Does Boston II,” Proof, 516 E. 2nd St, South Boston, Dec. 6, 2008, to Jan. 17, 2009.

Pictured from top to bottom: Andrew Mowbray, "Tempest Prognosticator,” 2007; Darren Foote, "Desk Lamp"; and Joe Wardwell, "Look West,” 2008.

Seeking nominations for 2008 Boston Art Awards

This is a reminder that the deadline for nominations for the 2008 Boston Art Awards is Sunday, Jan. 4.

The aim of the awards, which are organized by The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research, is to promote a more exciting local art scene by honoring the best art made here and exhibits organized here in 2008. And anyone can make nominations, which The Journal will compile into a ballot. Then winners will be chosen by votes of (1) local active art journalists and (2) anyone else who wants to vote – and will be announced in terms of these two categories of voters.

So consider yourself invited to post nominations as comments here – which I hope will promote discussion – and vote by e-mail once a ballot of nominees is posted here in early January. (If you’re shy, please send nominations here. Put “Nominations” in the subject line.) And please invite others to do so too.

More info about the 2008 Boston Art Awards is here.

Best art review of 2008

“The paths through the large number of objects provoked powerful and not altogether pleasant impressions. Features in this landscape included a run-down movie theater, a replica of the ‘spider hole’ where Saddam Hussein was captured, a grim jail, a down-at-the-heels law office, a propaganda van, a tacky mobile church, a voting area, a bank, a looted convenience store, a blown-up police car (the words ‘Pride, Professionalism and Partnership’ still visible on its side), an oil tanker, a beat-up van, an eerie full-size Cape-style house, a watchtower, a torture area, a messy school room with the remnants of an interrupted lesson on the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, a shooting gallery, piles of transparent garbage bags full of empty pill containers, a sniper position, a children’s carousel featuring large black bombs, and much more. A fair amount of climbing and stooping was necessary to move through, over, and among the objects. To the extent that the assembly of objects was an attempt to say anything about democracy, an impression of decay, hypocrisy, and despair, either now or in the near future, was unavoidable. A striking aspect of the work – at least as it could be perceived in its partial state – seemed to be its invitation to step, so to speak, through the picture frame and encounter the artwork as a three-dimensional world.”

– U.S. District Court Judge Michael A. Posnor in his July 11, 2008, ruling (pdf) for “MassMoCA v. Christoph Buchel.” He was describing Buchel’s “Training Ground for Democracy” installation at MassMoCA, which few people saw because the project was abandoned before it was completed and disassembled, because Buchel and the North Adams museum proved unable to work together, even after the institution spent some $300,000 on the project.