July 12 to 20, 2019:
Pictured above: “Together and Free: Rally Against Family Separation” at Boston City Hall, June 30, 2018. (Greg Cook)
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Friday, July 12, 6 p.m.
Doug Aitken’s New Horizon at Long Point Wildlife Refuge on Martha’s Vineyard
The Trustees of Reservations, conservation nonprofit, presents the California artist’s shimmering, mirror-surfaced 100-foot-tall hot air balloon. It is also scheduled to float into the sky in Plymouth, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln (July 20), Ipswich (July 21), Williamstown and Stockbridge through July 28.
Friday, July 12, 7 p.m.
Boston Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Detention Camps at Massachusetts State House, Boston
Inspired by a national call to action, the Boston vigil will “protest the inhumane conditions faced by refugees.”
Friday, July 12, 7 p.m.
Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys, Eddie Japan and No/Hugs at the Sinclair, Cambridge
The Army of Broken Toys, “Boston’s a Dada-esque circus carnival run amuck,” celebrate the release of “Witchcraft,” a sneak peek of their upcoming release of “War Gospel,” which they describe as “a dystopian guerilla opera.”
Saturday, July 13
“Hyman Bloom: Matters of Life and Death” at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Bloom (1913-2009) was inspired by the German Expressionist art of World War I and his own impoverished upbringing as an immigrant to Boston fleeing wars and ethnic violence in his native Latvia to become one of the pioneers of early 20th century Boston Expressionism. This exhibition highlights some 70 of his abject expressionist paintings of corpses. Said to be an early inspiration to Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and other New York School action painters, by 1946, critic Clement Greenberg was arguing in The Nation, “I do not think that Bloom’s expressionism offers great possibilities for the future.” See how wrong Greenberg was. The exhibit continues through Feb. 23, 2020.
Saturday, July 13, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
ArtBeat in Davis Square, Somerville
This year’s edition of the Somerville Arts Council’s annual shindig of music, art, dance, crafts and food highlights the dangers of global warming.
Saturday, July 13, noon to 6 p.m.
JP Porchfest in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood
Dozens and dozens of bands perform at this free music festival on porches and in parks across the neighborhood.
Saturday, July 13, 1 p.m.
Tim Devin’s Mapping Out Utopia countercultural walking tour begins at Practice Space, Cambridge
A walking tour highlighting local countercultural locales of the 1960s and ‘70s, in this case, from the Trout Fishing in America alternative school to the Mass. Feminist Credit Union. $5 per person.
Saturday, July 13, 7 p.m.
“A Chance Encounter” by I Wan Jan at Puppet Showplace Theater, Brookline
I Wan Jan troupe from Taiwan performs a puppt show about what happens when “a mild-mannered scholar leaps to defend a lady.”
Saturday, July 13, 8 p.m.
Julie Rhodes, Town Meeting and Gentle Temper at Brighton Music Hall, Boston
Rhodes’s “songs seem to rise from the ghosts of ’50s blues and ’60s soul greats,” The Boston Herald has written.
Monday, July 15, 6 p.m.
GroundBeat: Kadence Arts at the Hatch Shell, Boston
Music by the percussion ensemble led by Maria Finkelmeier. Free.
Wednesday, July 17, 6:30 p.m.
Celebrating Immigrants in Somerville & Beyond: A Mini-Film Fest at Vox Pop, Somerville
A screening and community discussion of “stories, lives and impact of our immigrant communities.”
Wednesday, July 17, 7:15 p.m.
Camonghne Felix Features at the Boston Poetry Slam, Cantab Lounge, Cambridge
Poetry from the New York City writer and political strategist whose collection “Build Yourself a Boat” is due out from Haymarket Books in 2019.
Wednesday, July 17, 7:30 p.m.
“In Greater Good” at Commonwealth School, Boston
In Kirsten Greenidge’s play “In Greater Good,” the audience is led through halls and classrooms of Back Bay’s Commonwealth School for a story about underpaid teachers, an overwhelmed principal “and we do NOT talk about that thing that happened at the last parent council meeting.” Produced by Company One Theatre in collaboration with American Repertory Theater. Continues through Aug. 17.
Thursday, July 18
“Kay Kenny: Into the Night In the Middle of Nowhere” at Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester
Long-exposure photos of night in southern New Hampshire and the American Southwest. Exhibit continues through Sept. 1.
Thursday, July 18, 7:30 p.m.
Summer Thursdays Live Music: Dutch ReBelle at Museum of Science, Boston
The Boston rap artist lights up the museum’s planetarium.
Friday, July 19
“Wrestling with Angels: Icons from the Prosopon School of Iconology” at Museum of Russian Icons, Clinton
Contemporary icon paintings by artists from New York’s Prosopon School, including its founder Vladislav Andrejev, an iconographer in the Russian-Byzantine tradition who emigrated to the United States from Russia in 1980. Exhibit continues through Oct. 20.
Friday, July 19,
“I Am The Baron” at Double Edge Theatre, Ashfield
This outdoor spectacle inspired by “The Surprising Travels & Adventures of Baron Munchausen” by Rudolf Raspe roams the company’s hills, buildings and pond. Continues through Aug. 18.
Saturday, July 20
“Kay Nielsen’s Enchanted Vision: The Kendra and Allan Daniel Collection” at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Danish artist (1886–1957) is one of the most celebrated illustrators of the first half of the 20th century, noted for his distinctive luminous, ornate and often theatrical takes on classic fairy tales. (He also helped design the “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence for Disney’s 1940 film “Fantasia.”) Exhibit continues through Jan. 20, 2020.
Saturday, July 20, 3 p.m. to 1 a.m.
AS220’s Estival Festival at AS220, Providence
Over twenty performers, an art fair, vendors, food, drink Also “Bring a bathing suit, because we’re busting out the inflatable pools.”
Tuesday, July 30
“List Projects: Farah Al Qasimi” at MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge
The photographs of Farah Al Qasimi, who splits her time between New York and Dubai, explore “ideas of national identity as they relate to consumerism and taste, while simultaneously offering covert critiques of the gender divide in the Gulf States and its colonial and religious origins,” according to exhibition organizers. Continues through Oct. 20.
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If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.