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Category Archive: Reviews

The Empaths

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Hilary Irons finds a major theme of empathy and connection in the work of seven graduates from Maine College of Art’s MFA program, highlighting how artists are responding to the precarity and isolation of the world and setting out to change it.

Hilary Irons May 15, 2020 Reviews, Vol. 5, No. 2: Spring 2020

Daniela Rivera’s Labored Landscapes

In the large gallery of Daniela Rivera's exhibition "Labored Landscapes (where hand meets ground)" we see three dark walls and a wood floor. Each wall has a single painting of a giant pair of hands; each pair of hands is gesticulating as in mid-conversation. The body to which the hand belong fades into the black canvas and the dark wall color.
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Julie Poitras Santos reflects on monument, labor, and silence in Daniela Rivera’s recent exhibition at the Fitchburg Art Museum.

Julie Poitras Santos February 25, 2020 Reviews, Vol. 5, No. 1: Winter 2019/2020

The Affidamento of Bianca Beck and Sascha Braunig

Installation shot of Extra Spectral, with a collaborative sculpture in the foreground: Bianca Beck & Sascha Braunig, Untitled, 58 x 54 x 29 in wood, wire, papier-mâché, acrylic, oil, and epoxy, 2019
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Bianca Beck and Sascha Braunig’s two-person show at SPACE explores the political and feminist power of difference.

Jenna Crowder January 7, 2020 Reviews, Vol. 5, No. 1: Winter 2019/2020

Attending to Attention: Michael Figueroa’s “This is why we can’t have nice things” at SPACE

The five commissioned dancers for This is why we can't have nice things are young white women who are bathed in red light. Two are in all black street clothing, kneeling, and three are standing behind them, two in all-black clothing, and one, on the right, in all white gym clothes.
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Grant Wahlquist reflects on Michael Figueroa’s commissioned dance work for SPACE and Portland Dance Month and asks, when is too much too much?

Grant Wahlquist December 21, 2019 Reviews, Vol. 5, No. 1: Winter 2019/2020

To Name a Stone You Hold in Your Hand: the films of Ciccarello & Cartelli

Philip Cartelli and Mariangela Ciccarello, Lampedusa (still), produced by Sensory Ethnography Lab/Nusquam Productions, HD video and Super 8mm film, 14 minutes, 2015.
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Megan Grumbling previews two short films by Mariangela Ciccarello and Philip Cartelli that trace geologic and migratory histories in the Mediterranean.

Megan Grumbling September 21, 2019 Reviews, Vol. 4, No. 4: Summer 2019

Building Blocks: Toward a Translation of Artists’ Books at the Center for Book Arts

Zeina Barakeh, Homeland Insecurity (still), animation, 9:47 min., 2016. Courtesy the artist.
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Writer and curator Ikram Lakhdhar looks at a selection of artworks in “Poetry is Not a Luxury,” an exhibition at the Center for Book Arts, to find her own histories emerge from the works on view.

Ikram Lakhdhar September 20, 2019 Reviews, Vol. 4, No. 4: Summer 2019

Resonant Frequencies in Tad Beck’s “Technique/Support”

Tad Beck: Technique/Support, installation view at Grant Wahlquist Gallery
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Katie Vida suggests a multidisciplinary way of understanding photographer Tad Beck’s three series of work in Technique/Support at Grant Wahlquist Gallery.

Katie Vida September 1, 2019 Reviews, Vol. 4, No. 4: Summer 2019

Hail the Dark Lioness: Zanele Muholi at Colby College Museum of Art

Zanele Muholi, Julile I, Parktown, Johannesburg, 2016 © Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of Stevenson, Cape Town / Johannesburg and Yancey Richardson, New York
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In Somnyama Ngonyama, Zanele Muholi uses the performativity of photography to rewrite a Black queer and trans visual history of South Africa.

Dylan Hausthor June 8, 2019 Reviews, Vol. 4, No. 3: Spring 2019

Food, Mundanity, Devotion: Flavor Profile at Border Patrol

Ruby Jackson, Untitled. Ceramic, bubble gum, foam. 14x20x17in. Photo by Joel Tsui.
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Flavor Profile eschews the romanticization and elitism of foodie culture to explore more tender, humanist relationships of food.

Olivia Canny February 25, 2019 Reviews, Vol. 4, No. 2: Winter 2019

“These Works Will Haunt You”: a conversation on the 2018 Portland Museum of Art Biennial

Angela Dufresne (United States, born 1969), Dean Moss, 2017, oil on canvas, 59 1/2 x 78 inches. Courtesy of the artist. © Angela Dufresne. Photo by Luc Demers.
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Mimicking the collaborative nature of the Biennial’s curation, five cultural producers in Maine gather in conversation to model the critical potential in slow looking, multiple reads, and shared dialogue.

Myron Beasley, Meghan Brady, Edwige Charlot, Justin Levesque, Veronica A. Perez May 14, 2018 Interviews, Reviews, Vol. 3, No. 2: Spring 2018

Looking at Ourselves Through the Eyes of Others: Second Sight + privilege at Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Shaun Leonardo, Champ (Sonny Liston 2), 2015, charcoal. Bowdoin College Museum of Art. © Shaun Leonardo.
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Vivian Ewing reviews Second Sight: The Paradox of Vision in Contemporary Art, an exhibition that addresses what it’s like to possess qualities that so much of the world is not built to serve: blindness and blackness.

Vivian Ewing May 2, 2018 Reviews, Vol. 3, No. 2: Spring 2018

Questioning Oracle: Yoshua Okón at Colby College Museum of Art

Yoshua Okón, video still from Oracle, 2015. Courtesy of the artist.
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Yoshua Okón’s multi-channel video blurs the lines between documentary, reality, and fiction, asking participants and viewers to engage in sociological experiments that reveal discomforting questions.

Julie Poitras Santos April 27, 2018 Reviews, Vol. 3, No. 2: Spring 2018

Being Present in the Space of Video

Ernst Caramelle, Video Ping-Pong, 1974 Two-channel, video installation, two monitors, two media players, metal shelves, Ping Pong table, paddles, and balls, sound, 30:00 min. - Dimensions variable Courtesy the artist and Generali Foundation, Vienna - Photo: Peter Harris Studio Exhibition installation view of Before Projection: Video Sculpture 1974–1995 at MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA (February 8–April 15, 2018)
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Before Projection: Video Sculpture 1974–1995 at MIT’s List Center defines video sculpture, asking viewers to grapple with the spatial and social realities of video.

Joshua Reiman April 17, 2018 Reviews, Vol. 3, No. 2: Spring 2018

Unearthing Optimism: the visual and sociopolitical weight of Dave Eassa’s Roses

installation view of Dave Eassa's Stop and Smell the Roses Sometimes, 2018. Photo by Joel Tsui.
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A rose is a rose is a precious symbol of optimism in these often dark times. by Julien Langevin.

Julien Langevin March 1, 2018 Reviews, Vol. 3, No. 1: Fall 2017/Winter 2018

Emilie Stark-Menneg & the Sweet Cool of Material Nostalgia

Emilie Stark-Menneg, Summer in Maine, 2016, 70” x 70”, acrylic, oil and spray paint on canvas. Image courtesy Elizabeth Moss Galleries.
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In American Popsicle, Emilie Stark-Menneg evinces a tenderness for the digital: its connection to both the physicality of paint and illusory intangibility. by Julien Langevin

Julien Langevin August 11, 2017 Reviews, Vol. 2, No. 4: Summer 2017

Keijaun Thomas: a Black Femme Goddess Punk, Nude and In Charge

The Poetics of Trespassing: Part 1. Absent Whiteness, Part 2. Looking While Seeing Through,Part 3. Sweet like Honey, Black like Syrup, Spill Festival of Performance , Photo by Guido Mencari, 2014
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Performance artist Keijaun Thomas discusses notions of blackness, femininity, and materiality in her in-progress piece My Last American Dollar. by Julien Langevin

Julien Langevin August 2, 2017 Reviews, Vol. 2, No. 4: Summer 2017

BLOODLINES: assembling the power of the collective to challenge the heteropatriarchy

àjé collective, Cosmic Meditation, performance, 2017. Images courtesy Transformer and Martina Dodd.
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Bloodlines counters heteropatriarchic narratives of fluid and the body with work meditating on the reproductive body, emotional labor, and power. by Andy Johnson

Andy Johnson July 14, 2017 Reviews, Vol. 2, No. 4: Summer 2017

Book Review: Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble

Donna Haraway's Staying with the Trouble
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Donna Haraway shows us we need new ideas and new ways of thinking, new kinds of stories to think with, because the old ones are failing us. by Julie Poitras Santos

Julie Poitras Santos June 21, 2017 Reviews, Vol. 2, No. 4: Summer 2017

Where Critical Tides Meet: The Inaugural Show at Grant Wahlquist Gallery

Tad Beck. Blind Spot 37, 2016. Framed archival pigment print. 34.75 x 31.85 inches. Edition 1/1. Courtesy of the artist and Grant Wahlquist Gallery.
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Nothing is left to the imagination until everything is: when information is obsolete, or when there is strategic overflow. by Julien Langevin

Julien Langevin June 20, 2017 Reviews, Vol. 2, No. 3: Spring 2017

Temp to Perm proves a need for a shared language of public art

John Sundling, Ghost Fence, 2017. Installed in the median of Franklin Arterial in Portland, ME, as the first of three temporary art projects facilitated by TEMPOart this summer.
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Creating public art — and public art conferences — requires deep, internal work as much as it does communication, planning, passion, and dedication. by Jenna Crowder

Jenna Crowder June 15, 2017 Initiatives, Reviews, Vol. 2, No. 3: Spring 2017

Greetings from the Jungle: Elizabeth Kleene invites you to Tadow Island

Elizabeth Kleene, “LAYER BOSS”, acrylic, oil, and duralar on aluminum mounted on panel, 13" x 12", 2013. Image courtesy of Gallery 49.
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Lustfully saturated with lucid color and lively tricks of the eye, Elizabeth Kleene’s Tadow Island at Gallery 49 allows viewers to experience an external oasis. by Julien Langevin

Julien Langevin June 2, 2017 Reviews, Vol. 2, No. 3: Spring 2017

“Waves need to move to be”: Terry Winters & Mark Melnicove collaborate at Able Baker

Terry Winters and Mark Melnicove, "07 Upward, downward, in space time", screenprint on paper, 2017, courtesy Two Palms New York. Image courtesy Able Baker Contemporary.
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Terry Winters and Mark Melnicove collaborate on a suite of prints exploring the relationships between image and word in the physics of space and time. by Megan Grumbling

Megan Grumbling May 30, 2017 Reviews, Vol. 2, No. 3: Spring 2017

Tender, Stoic, & Funny: Men’s Work at the CMCA

David Driskell, from left to right: The Cook I, AP 17/21, linocut/serigraph, 7.25 x 6”, 2016. The Cook II, AP 1/1, woodcut/serigraph, 7.25 x 6”, 2016. The Cook III, AP 24/33, woodcut/serigraph, 7.25 x 6”, 2016. Photos courtesy of CMCA.
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Chris Stiegler explores process, objecthood, and relationships in three exhibitions at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art.

Christopher Stiegler March 29, 2017 Reviews, Vol. 2, No. 3: Spring 2017

Mourning as a Public Act

Rosemary Laing, a dozen useless actions for grieving blondes #12 & #5, C-type photograph, 30 ½ in. x 59 9/16 in., edition 2 of 8, 2009.
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The intangibility of memory, the diversity of grief, and the anguish of remembrance are laid bare for the public in “Anguish: The Misgivings of Remembrance” at the ICA at MECA. by Veronica A. Perez

Veronica Perez January 12, 2017 Reviews, Vol. 2, No. 2: Winter 2017

A Long Wait for Justice: dance at the end of the world

Performance still from S P E C T A C U L A R B L A C K D E A T H, 2016. Photo by Erin Colleen Johnson.
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Lia Wilson reviews the site-specificity and flattening of time of S P E C T A C U L A R B L A C K D E A T H as part of the series A Long Wait.

Lia Wilson July 28, 2016 Initiatives, Reviews, Vol. 1, No. 8: June/July 2016

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