New England Journal of Aesthetic Research news headlines

Ferret searches for stolen Gardner paintings?

admin — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:47:50 +0000

“They have brought with them a ground-penetrating radar device, as well as two beagles and a ferret, to look for what they say are weapons. But we all know what they are actually looking for — and they are looking for the paintings,” said the attorney of the alleged mobster Robert Gentile’s home in Manchester, Connecticut. Law enforcement authorities have claimed that Gentile may know something about what happened to the paintings stolen from Boston’s Gardner museum in 1990.

Maine school drops “Redskins” name

admin — Thu, 10 May 2012 18:51:11 +0000

Sanford school committee in Maine votes to drop “Redskins” team name–making it the final high school in the state to use the name.

CT teen finds mistake at NYC’s Met Museum

admin — Fri, 04 May 2012 14:17:55 +0000

Benjamin Lerman Coady, a 13-year-old from West Hartford, Connecticut, spotted what seemed to be a mistake on a map of the Byzantine empire at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. “The front desk didn’t believe me,” he told the Hartford Courant, explaining that he never expected to hear back from the museum. “I’m only a kid.” But months later he got an e-mail from the museum’s Byzantine art curator: “You are, of course, correct about the boundaries of the Byzantine Empire under Justinian…”

How Skowhegan encouraged MoMA curator to give up painting

admin — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:14:29 +0000

MoMA curator Kathy Halbreich spent the summer of 1965 at Skowhegan, Gallerist NY reports from a New York dinner for the Maine artist residency, “and described herself as ‘the first and last 16 year old to attend.’ She also mentioned that it was ‘the first time I got stinking drunk, which prepared me for a life in the arts’ … Alex Katz, who was teaching at the school the summer Ms. Halbreich attended, had something to do with her ditching her career as an artist to become a curator and historian. His critique of one of her paintings was ‘take it away.’” Also, Kara Walker “didn’t want to talk about the time in the early 90′s when Skowhegan rejected her application.”

Paintings recovered 31 years after Mass theft to be auctioned

admin — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:03:10 +0000

Two paintings by Childe Hassam and Gustave Courbet that resurfaced in 2007 after being stolen during a violent home invasion in Shcrewsbury, Massachusetts, on July 2, 1976, are scheduled to be auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York City on May 4.

NEA makes big cuts to PBS grants

admin — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:47:58 +0000

National Endowment for the Arts makes big cuts in grants to PBS.

Boston school picked for national arts program

admin — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:20:25 +0000

Boston’s Orchard Gardens K-8 pilot school is one of eight schools nationwide selected to participate in the federal Turnaround Arts program, a public-private partnership aiming to “test the hypothesis that high-quality and integrated arts education boosts academic achievement, motivates student learning, and improves school culture in the context of overall school reform,” the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities announced.

Thomas Kinkade has died

admin — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 14:50:48 +0000

Thomas “Painter of Light” Kinkade died April 6 at age 54.

Caring for Hilton Kramer

admin — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:41:57 +0000

Art critic Hilton Kramer, who died March 27, spent his last months in the Vicarage by the Sea in Harpswell, Maine, a residential home with a nontraditional approach to caring for those with advanced dementia. “Before Kramer moved into the Vicarage last June from their home in Damariscotta, his widow said, his disease had advanced to the point where he rarely spoke. The man who founded the intellectual magazine New Criterion, and who had served as the chief art critic of The New York Times, had lost all interest in his field,” Matt Hongoltz-Hetling reports in a striking piece in The Forecaster. (H/t to Edgar Beem.) Previous care kept Kramer heavily medicated, isolated, limited his mobility, and had him putting on 30 pounds. At the Vicarage, Hongoltz-Hetling writes, they reduced Kramer’s medication and embrace patients’ behaviors. “‘If someone wants to go for a walk, we let them go for a walk,’ [founder Johanna] Wigg said. ‘We go with them.’ And if someone develops a desire to kiss the hands of all those he encounters, as Kramer did, the Vicarage doesn’t try to quash that desire with medication. … ‘His affect all came back,’ Wigg said.”

Attempted break in at Rose Museum?

admin — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:03:25 +0000

Brandeis police notes: “March 27—A party reported that he saw two people attempting to gain access to the roof of the Rose Art Museum and the Faculty Club. University Police found the people and determined that there was no malicious intent. No further action was taken,” according to The Justice.

Does Connecticut mobster have info on Gardner heist?

admin — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:07:50 +0000

A federal prosecutor alleges that reputed 75-year-old Connecticut mobster Robert Gentile has information about the 1990 theft of 13 masterworks from Boston’s Gardner Museum. “The government has reason to believe that Mr. Gentile had some involvement with stolen property out of the District of Massachusetts,” The Hartford Courant reports that Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham said during a bail hearing for Gentile on unrelated drug charges.

RISD students clean up abandoned synagogue

admin — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:03:17 +0000

RISD students help clean up abandoned synagogue on Broad Street in Providence.

New England pow wow regalia

admin — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 18:05:14 +0000

“Anyone, from kids on up, understand when they look at my regalia and watch me dance that I come from a land of fresh water ponds and rivers as well as land alongside the ocean,” Annawon Weedon, a Pequot, Narraganset and Mashpee Wampanoag man residing in Massachusetts, tells Indian Country Today about his pow wow regalia. “Rather than ribbons and fabric I prefer to use the old materials such as porcupine quill, shell, natural dyes, and hand woven fabrics. I watched my dad break the pattern of emulating western styles, a pow wow style that spoke of Native pride but didn’t show who we are as individual tribes.”

MFA offers African American art tour

admin — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 02:47:55 +0000

Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts offers African American art tour. Color Magazine reports: “The objects are not exhibited together, but rather spread out in the various galleries of the wing, which makes it a bit of a scavenger hunt, so the tips [audio host and director of the National Center of Afro-American Artists Barry] Gaither gives you are extremely helpful. Pay attention. Although, there’s no right or wrong way to take the tour, the multimedia guide takes some getting used to.”

Stolen painting of tiger recovered!

admin — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 02:22:05 +0000

Stolen painting of tiger recovered in Fall River! Previously.

Hirsch named performance curator at Broad

admin — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:23:56 +0000

Dan Hirsch, formerly of Boston’s MFA and Emerson College, is named curator of performances and public programs at Michigan State’s Broad Art Museum, which is lead by Michael Rush, former director of Brandeis’s Rose Art Museum.

“Japanese Masterpiece from MFA” on view in Tokyo

admin — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 22:43:14 +0000

“Japanese Masterpieces from The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston” on view at the Tokyo National Museum in Japan through June.

Monumental Roman statue comes to MFA

admin — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:30:52 +0000

“You would have to travel to Rome to see such a monumental and impressive marble sculpture,” said curator Christine Kondoleon tells the MetroWest Daily News’ Chris Bergeron as a 13-foot tall ancient Roman statue arrived at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts on March 20. “As in ancient Rome, MFA visitors will be awestruck by the physical presence of the gods and the power of the empire.” The statue is expected to go on public display April 9. More here.

Reward offered for stolen mural of tiger

admin — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:00:44 +0000

$200 reward offered for return of Anthony Ferrao’s mural of a snarling tiger, which went missing in Fall River, Massachusetts.

“Cubist Opens Expanded Research and Development Facility”

admin — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 01:37:42 +0000

“Cubist Opens Expanded Research and Development Facility” in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Dove sculptures to inspire peace?

admin — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 01:35:48 +0000

Jean Ceas leaves white dove sculptures around Providence “hoping to inspire peace with anyone who happens to find them.”

MFA gets Roman goddess

admin — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 01:24:17 +0000

Boston Museum of Fine Arts acquires 2,000-year-old, 13-foot-tall Roman marble of Juno, which has been outdoors on the Brandegee Foundation property in Brookline for years. “The museum calls Juno the largest classical sculpture in the U.S. and pursued the acquisition for five years before buying it last spring for a seven-figure sum largely funded by an anonymous donor,” The Wall Street Journal reports.

Jonathan Gruber publishes health care comic

admin — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 23:06:25 +0000

MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber, whom Paul Krugman once called “one of the three or four top health care economists in the nation,” is apparently looking to publish one of the top three or four most boring comic books in the nation: “Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It’s Necessary, How It Works.” Try to top that, doodlers!

Matolcsy Arts Center needs repairs

admin — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 22:14:52 +0000

Matolcsy Arts Center in Norway, Maine, seeking $300,000 grant to fund repairs. “Town Manager David Holt said the art center’s architect has advised him that unless something is done with the building soon, it may be lost,” the Sun Journal reported.

TurningArt is like a Netflix for art

admin — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 22:12:46 +0000

Boston firm TurningArt is like a Netflix for art, you know, like when Netflix was cool.

RISD extends Maeda’s contract

admin — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 13:45:50 +0000

RISD have extended school president John Maeda’s contract through June 30, 2015, despite faculty voting no confidence in him a year ago.

Eleanor Callahan has died

admin — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:27:45 +0000

“He just liked to take the pictures of me,” Eleanor Callahan told us during a visit to a show of her late husband Harry’s photos of her at RISD in 2008. She died of cancer in Atlanta today at 95. And the New York Times obituary quotes from our interview with her. “In every pose. Rain or shine. And whatever I was doing. If I was doing the dishes or if I was half asleep. And he knew that I never, never said no. I was always there for him. Because I knew that Harry would only do the right thing. I never had any fear. Harry could do whatever he wanted with me and my body.”

Writer punched over pro-gay marriage essay?

admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:40:25 +0000

Police at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts “are looking for a woman who allegedly punched a student journalist in the face for her pro-gay marriage editorial.”

MIT president to step down

admin — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 06:40:08 +0000

Susan Hockfield, who has been president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 2004, announced that she plans to step down. She is the Cambridge school’s first woman president.

Boston train service or Tom Cruise’s salary?

admin — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:58:57 +0000

How to stave off public transit cuts threatened for Boston region? Blue Mass Group: “Stop wasting tax dollars on corporate welfare to Hollywood.” UniversalHub explains: “The amount of a tax break Tom Cruise gets when he makes a movie here almost equals the cost of keeping [Boston] commuter rail service running on weekends and after 10 p.m.”

Tom Friedman in New York

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:07:06 +0000

“Tom’s a very good artist, and I look forward to seeing him come back into view. But it will take a body of work that will snap people’s heads around again,” Robert Storr says of Massachusetts artist Tom Friedman on the occasion of his show at Luhring Augustine in New York.

Video game pacifism?

admin — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:20:31 +0000

Wall Street Journal: “Videogames have long been assailed for their violent themes and gruesome imagery. But a small slice of players has embraced a new strategy: not killing. They are imparting real-world morals on their virtual-world characters and completing entire games on a ‘pacifist run’—the term for beating a blood-and-guts adventure without drawing any blood.” Also from On the Media.

Schilling aces video game debut?

admin — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:12:58 +0000

Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s video game “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning” is “one of the finest action role-playing games yet made,” according to The New York Times. Does this mean that government help of business pays off?

Exhibit of kids book photographer Walter Wick

admin — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 21:24:29 +0000

“This is the way I played as a child, with my blocks and toys,” Hartford photographer Walter Wick, creator of the “Can You See What I See?” kids books, and co-creator with Jean Marzollo of the “I SPY” series, said of his exhibit at the Bruce Museum in Connecticut. “When I ran out of blocks, I used a kitchen stool, deli tubs.”

Rachel Perry Welty in NYTimes

admin — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:25:08 +0000

Major review of Boston’s Rachel Perry Welty in New York Times: “To those who don’t know much about recent art, her work may seem clever, inventive and poignant. If you’re familiar with contemporary currents, however, it feels more like a competent synthesis of recent trends and often conjures bolder works by other artists.” The show originated at DeCordova and is now in New Jersey.

Mike Kelley has died

admin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:57:04 +0000

LA’s Mike Kelley died Jan. 31 after “apparent suicide.”

Dr. Seuss’s Mulberry Street

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:24:37 +0000

For the 75th anniversary of the publication of Dr. Seuss’s “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” reporter travels to the real Mulberry Street in Springfield, Massachusetts, that inspired it. Now it’s “a shabby place with boarded-up houses, an addiction treatment center and drug dealers.”

Autumn Ahn

admin — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:41:33 +0000

“Meet One Of Boston’s Fearlessly Fierce Artists: Autumn Ahn.”

UMass grad leads Creative Time

admin — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:37:02 +0000

Anne Pasternak studied art history at UMass Amherst before going on to be president and creative director of New York public art producer Creative Time.

Nudie scavenger hunt for MFA

admin — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 05:24:51 +0000

“It was like something out of a Chaucer tale,” said the founder of a New York scavenger hunt company that plans to offer a nudie tour of Boston’s MFA. “I made a joke about it to myself, and I said, ‘When people think of nudity in art, it appears in more ways than a statue of Venus with no arms.’ ”

Judge orders prayer banner removed from RI school

admin — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:53:19 +0000

A federal judge has ordered a prayer banner removed from Cranston High School West auditorium after five decades after a lawsuit brought by a 16-year-old student and the Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. “The Government must not appear to take sides on issues of religious beliefs” U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Lagueux wrote in his Jan. 11 ruling. “The purpose of the prayer banner was clearly religious in nature” and “No amount of debate can make the school Prayer anything other than a prayer, and a Christian one at that.” The case has sparked numerous threats of violence against the student, and for now the school district has covered the banner but not removed it.

Ladybird’s Gallery opens in Lancaster

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:11:46 +0000

“My mother was an artist, and I guess it was just always in me. [I] started drawing as a child, then I started painting,” says Tom Stanford, who opened Ladybird’s Gallery in Lancaster, Massachusetts, in December. It’s named after his aging dog and features his own paintings and sculptures in a style he’s dubbed “Subtractionalism.”

Curtains Without Borders documents stage curtains

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:56:07 +0000

Curtains Without Borders documents historic painted stage curtains across New England.

Photos donated to New Hampshire Institute of Art

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:53:10 +0000

Thomas Adams donates nearly 300 photos to the New Hampshire Institute of Art in Manchester.

Paintings stolen from Maine gallery?

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:44:26 +0000

Three paintings reported stolen from Salty Dog Gallery on Mount Desert Island, Maine.

Maine gov increased arts funding?

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:33:31 +0000

“While I think [Maine Governor Paul] LePage’s seizing the [Maine Labor History] mural was ethically and legally despicable, I have to point out that he actually increased funding for the Maine Arts Commission. Bizarre as it sounds, that is actually the feather in his job-creation hat,” writes The Portland Press Herald’s Daniel Kany.

Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum wins $10K grant

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:20:57 +0000

Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum in Exeter, Rhode Island, wins $10,000 grant to support a collaborative project with Narragansett artist Allen Hazard.

“It’s unfortunate that Malcolm doesn’t want to be part of the city and wants to have his own empire”

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:13:22 +0000

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino on MFA director Malcolm Roger’s push back against the city’s demand that tax-exempt nonprofits voluntarily pay more to the city in lieu of taxes: “Eighty-eight percent of the [institutions] are participating in the program. It’s unfortunate that Malcolm doesn’t want to be part of the city and wants to have his own empire.”

Huntsman is most arts-friendly Republican candidate?

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:06:48 +0000

Artinfo endorses Jon Huntsman as the most arts-friendly 2012 Republican presidential candidate. As opposed to Mitt Romney, who aims to cut funding for the NEA and NEH by half.

From MassArt to monkey care

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:01:12 +0000

Looking for a more lucrative career than art, MassAt alum Brook Aldrich ends up caring for capuchins at Brit monkey sanctuary.