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ART FUCKIN RULES
As the weather heats up, so does the visual stimulation scene
By CHRISTIAN HOLLAND
del.ico.us
reddit!
The beach. Baseball games. Barbeque and beer. This is summer. Yet in this town of 10,000 schools and more open studios than ants, art abounds. The breadth of work from Waltham to South Boston and back can be a bit weighty, so we'll do what we do and separate the ... er ... "wheat" from the whatchamacallit ... "chaff" with these suggestions for seven stellar sojourns.
Begin with Fredo Conde at the Artists Foundation in Southie. Conde's work has evolved from an earlier critique of consumerism, with sculptures of counterfeit luxury goods, into abstractions of economics itself. He uses handmade molded-plastic and cardboard shipping boxes to literally and figuratively frame works that draw upon colonial systems and imagery. There's also the nearby Proof or LaMontange Gallery, and of course, perfect pints are everywhere in Southie.
[Fredo Conde. 5.31-7.12. Artists Foundation, Main Gallery. 516 East Second St., Boston. artistsfoundation.org]
The New England Gallery of Latin American Art starts off its summer with Raul Gonzales'' solo show, Chingasos, slang for "to go to blows." Gonzales illustrated the life of the Mexican boxing legend, El Chango Verde, whose story is an archetype of many immigrants. Gonzales, a native of El Paso, Tex., spent many of his younger days in Juarez, Mexico., where his grandmother would send him off to sell Chiclets to touristas. Seriously.
[Raul Gonzales. 5.5-6.5. New England Gallery of Latin American Art. 184 Cottage St., East Boston. neglaa.com]
CineMental, a monthly screening of experimental queer cinema at the Brattle Theatre, presents Caravaggio, a biopic directed by filmmaker and gay rights activist Derek Jarman on May 21. The 1986 film comes replete with immaculate scene re-creations of Caravaggio paintings that took as long to light as the artist took to paint the originals ... a smattering of male nudity.
[CineMental presents: Caravaggio. 5.21. Brattle Theatre. 40 Brattle St., Cambridge. 9:30pm/$10. brattlefilm.org]
Also on the experimental film tip, MIT's List Visual Art Center features Chantal Ackerman: Moving through Time and Space. Though Ackerman is known for her works in which nothing happens, expect a bit of movement and the passage of time; the center allows you to come and go as you please, which might be necessary. While there, check out some Photogravure prints by Björk's beau, Matthew Barney, in the List's Dean Gallery.
[Chantal Ackerman. 5.2-7.6. MIT's List Visual Art Center. 20 Ames St., Building E15, Atrium Level, Cambridge. mit.edu]
[Matthew Barney. 3.10-7.11. The List Dean's Gallery. 50 Memorial Drive, Building E52 Fourth Floor Room 466, Cambridge. mit.edu]
For the Boston University Photographic Resource Center's 13th Annual Juried Exhibition, EXPOSURE, juror Lesley A. Martin chose several photographers who concentrate their work on the eccentric. Photographs of the abnormal will always make us feel more normal. Be prepared for some idiosyncratic approaches to current issues, however, as several of the photographers attempt to re-represent the Iraq war and its discontents. Yay war.
[Lesley A. Martin. 5.23-7.2. Photographic Resource Center, Boston University. 832 Comm. Ave., Boston. bu.edu/prc]
