|
| |
|
|
Drawings at the Mills, graters at Montserrat, pillow cases at NESAD, and candy wrappers on Mission Hill
BY RANDI HOPKINS
|
|
|
|
|
Loosely defined as making marks on paper, drawing has come into its own in a big way over the past decade or two, as artists from Richard Serra to William Kentridge to Sarah Sze redefine the scale, the media, and the methods. At the same time, many still view drawing as preliminary, even contingent, so that it continues its vital role as an intimate, sketchy form of expression. And lately, video projections, sewing, and tangled extension cords have all been legitimately put forth as "drawing," to wonderful, challenging effect. On January 16, the Mills Gallery at the Boston Center for the Arts opens the "18th Biannual Drawing Show," its every-other-year opportunity to get a bead on the current state of this genre. The "Drawing Show" has been a Boston institution since 1979, and its jurors have been top flight. This year, the honors go to Raphaela Platow, curator of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, who revealed her fresh taste and adventurous spirit in organizing the recent "Painting4" and "Bad Touch" for the Rose. The show is juried by looking at the actual work, not slides: artists will drop off their submissions and these will be laid out across the vast length of the Boca’s Cyclorama for the intrepid Platow to wade through. This hands-on process contributes to the lively, immediate feel of the exhibition. Contemporary art loves the periphery, peeking behind and beneath expected subjects and media to find new frontiers for expression. "Infinitely Specific," opening at Montserrat College of Art Gallery on January 20, is a tightly focused exhibition of work by five artists who not only share a fascination with seemingly mundane objects, actions, and materials but whose work in the early 1990s helped set the stage for the ensuing, extensive artistic examination of our most incidental daily experiences. Janine Antoni, Nayland Blake, Mona Hatoum, Zoe Leonard, and Gabriel Orozco find meaning in the shapes of cheese graters, artifacts in science museums, and linked hands; their work has been moving and influential. Zeroing in on the underrecognized sewing needle as an artistic tool in a pointed examination of the domestic vernacular, the two-venue exhibition "Stitches," opening January 12 at the New England School of Art & Design and at Newbury College Art Gallery, goes even farther into the realm of the often-unnoticed, with work including embroidered pillow cases stuffed with guns by South African artist Ilona Anderson. Fiber art has come a long way, baby! Homely material and methods are also to be spotted in a storefront installation, "Our Lady of Sweet Propriety," on Mission Hill. Artist Jan Corash presents drawings of women whose skimpy "outfits" have been intricately fashioned out of candy and gum wrappers, glittering with silver foil and a pop palette courtesy of Wrigley’s. Crash elevates the colorful detritus of our day in art that doesn’t lose its flavor. "The 18th Biannual Drawing Show" is at the Mills Gallery at the Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont Street in the South End, January 16 through March 7; call (617) 426-8835. "Infinitely Specific" is at Montserrat College of Art Gallery, 23 Essex Street in Beverly, January 20 through February 20; call (978) 921-4242 extension 1223. "Stitches" is at New England School of Art & Design, 75 Arlington Street in Boston, and Newbury College Art Gallery, 150 Fisher Avenue in Brookline, January 12 through February 7; call (617) 573-8785. "Our Lady of Sweet Propriety" is at the law offices of Galen Gilbert, 854 Huntington Avenue in Mission Hill, January 10 through February 21; call (617) 739-8800.
|
