BTW Berkshires Get behind the scenes, get muddy, get up close to paper and paint and clay. ArtWeek is coming to the Berkshires through May 6 with dozens of events, most of them free … check out the full calendar here.
Museums
Pitch runs deep at Mass MoCA
The sounds come from North Florida. A choir is singing a spiritual, a woman is speaking, crickets are droning in a cedar swamp. They are indicators of things that are changing, says New York artist Allison Janae Hamilton — insects, the migratory patterns of birds, people living with the land. She grew up in Florida…
Seeds of Divinity at WCMA
A serpent leans its head through an opening in the stone. In its open mouth, a man’s head is floating with closed eyes, as though he is asleep. A maize god looks down from above, wearing a headdress of corn husks. At the center of a gallery at the Williams college Museum of Art, sculptures…
Artists at home at Mass MoCA
Carlos Rodriguez had gotten off a plane from Puerto Rico the day before. When he came from his Brooklyn studio into this quiet room in North Adams, he felt exhausted. He wanted a warm place. So he made one. Across two walls he has hung cloth with a warm golden hue. He has sewn the…
A winter morning at Mass MoCA
This morning, I came to hear the Mass MoCA winter season announced — art and events across the next few months, leading up to William Kentridge’s residency in May. He will come with a troupe of more than 50 performers for a two-week residency and performance of his in-progress work, The Head and The Load, and fill the…
BTW Flashback: The Magi in Persian perspective
The scene gleams out of the Renaissance — the three wise men kneel before the barefoot, tired new parents and the infant. The color, perspective and detail come out of Persian miniatures and Mughal paintings from northern India. And the artist is a British painter in the middle of World War I. On a winter…
James Van Der Zee photos comes home
He was born in a house on Hubbard Street when Hubbard Street was still a dirt road. He remembered early years in a large, warm family. Around him, people were always sketching and drawing, singing and playing instruments. He played the piano and the violin, but the instrument that made his name known around the world…