Reviews of Recent Museum and Gallery Shows
Peabody Essex Museum September 14, 2024–February 2, 2025 by Angelina Diamante A sincere recognition of the ephemera spanning nearly a century that defines Conjuring the Spirit World: Art, Magic, and Mediums—a five-month-long survey of Spiritualism at the Peabody Essex Museum of Salem, Massachusetts—requires a deliberate surrender to nonnormative faculty: in essence, a sixth sense. Composed […]
Corning Museum of Glass September 7, 2024–February 23, 2025 by R.J. Maupin Museum visitors can spend countless hours looking at artwork on display, but other sensory experiences, such as smelling or touching, are largely forbidden. Despite these necessary protocols that protect material culture for future generations, curators can implement creative strategies to facilitate immersive, multisensory […]
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston July 6–December 1, 2024 by Kendall Murphy The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1952-54) by Salvador Dalí welcomes visitors into Dalí: Disruption and Devotion at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). This painting is an apt work to begin the exhibition, as it prepares the viewer to engage […]
Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University in the City of New York October 6, 2023–January 14, 2024 by Miray Eroglu Upon entering Partisans of the Nude: An Arab Art Genre in an Era of Contest, 1920–1960, curated by Kirsten Scheid, visitors are greeted with Omar Onsi’s painting À L’Exposition (fig. 1). The painting depicts a […]
Fabric Workshop and Museum October 6, 2023–June 2, 2024 by Corey Loftus Upon entering Jessica Campbell’s installation in the first-floor gallery at the Fabric Workshop & Museum (FWM), visitors are invited to take a seat. An assortment of antique chairs with blue floral cushions, arranged around three long tables, draw the viewer inward (fig. 1). […]
Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston Aug 24, 2023 – Jan 28, 2024 by Michelle Kelley Established in 1999, the James and Audrey Foster Prize is biennially awarded to working artists based in the Boston area. The recognized artists for the 2023 James and Audrey Foster Prize exhibition at the ICA/Boston—Venetia Dale, Cicely Carew, and Yu-Wen Wu—are […]
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston May 1–September 11, 2022 by Ateret Sultan-Reisler Philip Guston (1913–1980) responded to events witnessed in person and print through painting. Guston’s The Tormentors (1947–1948), an enigmatic rectangle of cadmium red and ink black overlaid with thin organic forms, requires further interpretation. The title hints at the artist’s explained reaction to […]
Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston January 31, 2023–January 7, 2024 by Theodora Bocanegra Lang What the deaf see is what seers hear. A place of emptiness makes sense to those of us who stand in the door. – Fanny Howe, At Seaport: 2023 (2023) The title of Invisible Ground of Sympathy, now open at […]
Amant, Brooklyn, NY September 15, 2022–March 5, 2023 by Farren Fei Yuan The exhibition SIREN (some poetics) that was unveiled this fall at Amant in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn offers an evocative experience that dissolves the boundaries in sensory perception and artistic media. As such, it posits an alternative to the proliferation of Instagram-ready exhibitions that […]
Museum of Modern Art, New York October 30, 2022–March 4, 2023 by Katherine Gregory Upon hearing the name Meret Oppenheim (1913–1985, Germany), any person who has taken an introductory art history course will picture her fur-covered cup Le Déjuner en Fourrure (1936) (fig. 1). This sculpture has come to stand for Oppenheim’s entire oeuvre and, […]