Powered by Google
Home
Listings
Editors' Picks
News
Music
Movies
Food
Life
Arts + Books
Rec Room
Moonsigns
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Personals
Adult Personals
Classifieds
Adult Classifieds
- - - - - - - - - - - -
stuff@night
FNX Radio
Band Guide
MassWeb Printing
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About Us
Contact Us
Advertise With Us
Work For Us
Newsletter
RSS Feeds
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Webmaster
Archives



sponsored links
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
PassionShop.com
Sex Toys - Adult  DVDs - Sexy  Lingerie


   
  E-Mail This Article to a Friend

It’s a post-mod mod, mod, mod world
Art on the walls at the Gardner; art on dolls at Green Street
BY RANDI HOPKINS

Since early last month, the Special Exhibition Gallery tucked away behind the courtyard at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has been transformed from a hidden haven for the Gardner’s exquisite little changing exhibitions into a wild laboratory of sorts for Italian painter and installation artist Maurizio Cannavacciuolo, who spent all of February creating an array of elaborate drawings inspired by his residency at the Gardner last fall and executed in pencil directly on the gallery walls. His "TV Dinner" opens at the Gardner this Wednesday; if you hurry, you can still catch him at work alongside a dedicated group of assistants, all absorbed in tracing details from projected images onto the white walls of the gallery with finely pointed pencils, surrounded by ladders, scaffolding, bright spotlights, and quiet jazz. For the first time in the Gardner’s history, a window has been cut into the temporary door to the gallery, allowing visitors to watch Cannavacciuolo and his crew as they create a sprawling masterpiece of interlocking drawings. The sources for these drawings range from Mrs. Gardner’s travel journals — which record her visits to locales including Cuba, Mexico, Japan, and St. Augustine, Florida — to slides of Cannavacciuolo’s own paintings, snapshots from his travels, and images appropriated from books and magazines.

Taking a break from his hand-numbing task, the charming Cannavacciuolo explained how he arrived at his title. "With a TV dinner, you feed your stomach and your brain simultaneously with non-nourishing stuff. Superficial images pass by the eyes while you take in food with no nutrients. I am going exactly the opposite direction, so this is kind of a parody and criticism of pop culture. Not that I have anything against pop culture, I am just saying that to get something out of this exhibition, you have to put real intention into it."

The artist underscores his interest in having you make the active choice to engage in his faint, intricate drawings by painting two of the gallery walls in bright, solid colors. Your gaze is drawn at once to the red, yellow, and green of the far walls; it takes a moment to realize that the other two walls are not "blank," and another to decide whether you’re ready to delve into the complex world of their surfaces. I’d suggest you take the plunge. The interweaving of these images isn’t just visual, it’s poetic, historical, political, and emotional as well.

Suspecting a bit of criticism of the proto-jet-setting Mrs. Gardner in some of the juxtapositions, I asked Cannavacciuolo what he would want to ask Isabella if she were to walk into the installation today. He laughed. "I would want to hide in the corner and peer at her, to enjoy her reaction. I think she would totally understand and appreciate this, because it is like the way she has installed her museum. Everything appears to be simply up, to look at, but you have to make your own selections. Many things in the museum are provocatively on display, hidden unless you are deeply interested."

Over in Jamaica Plain, the Gallery @ Green Street opens "The Russian Doll Show" next Friday. This exhibition was curated by talented artist Eddie Martinez, who invited a slew of cool colleagues to paint their own sets of Russian nesting dolls. Creative folks ranging from graffiti artists to skateboard designers to commercial illustrators to fine artists present their work in this imaginative show.

"TV Dinner: Maurizio Cannavacciuolo" is at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 280 the Fenway in Boston, March 10 through August 15. The artist and Gardner Museum contemporary curator Pieranna Cavalchini will give a free lecture, "Talk Show," on March 13 at 1:30 p.m.; call (617) 566-1401. "The Russian Doll Show" is at the Gallery @ Green Street, 141 Green Street in Jamaica Plain, March 12 through 31; call (617) 522-0000.


Issue Date: March 5 - 11, 2004
Back to the Editor's Picks table of contents
  E-Mail This Article to a Friend
 









about the phoenix |  advertising info |  Webmaster |  work for us
Copyright © 2005 Phoenix Media/Communications Group