Edgar Degas once said that painting should be akin to committing a crime. And many Americans saw creation of some of the most important works of American art as just that—roguish, cunning and wicked—in short, criminal.
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By Peter Walsh
When a new contemporary art museum gets up on its feet, it typically constructs a slick, fashionable new address for itself and leaves its old, recycled quarters like a student couch at the curb. But is that always a wise decision?
Sometimes it makes sense to put new wine in old bottles. For example, […]

By Milo Miles
November 18th, 2005
World-famous jazz impresario George Wein went to Boston University. I went to Boston University. The Boston University Art Gallery is currently hosting the show “Syncopated Rhythms: 20th-Century African American Art from the George & Joyce Wein Collection.” Boston University is behind this blog. None of that matters: it’s still the […]

By Adrienne LaFrance
February 22nd, 2006
Chances are, when you think of interactive art the first thing that comes to mind is the lineup of cranks to turn, buttons to press, and microscopes to peer into at a children’s science museum. But the exhibition COLLISIONnine BOTbits (at Wellesley College though March 8, 2006) proves that interactive […]

By Adrienne LaFrance
March 13, 2006
It’s not an area of Boston that tends to attract art-goers. And the works are not by those normally considered artists. “Visual Voices of Detained Youth” was on display at the Rhys Gallery in South Boston through March 4, 2006 but the implications of the exhibit live on. The Rhys […]

By Adrienne LaFrance
March 17th, 2006
We know them well; droves of bowler-hatted business men, a steam engine emerging inexplicably from a fireplace, the pipe that isn’t a pipe after all. The eerie images that once belonged to Rene Magritte’s wild imagination are now seared into the collective consciousness of the generations who have been awed and […]

By Danielle Dreilinger
Web artists specializing in alternative comics are finding readers and discovering new ways for the arts to profit online.
Visual Arts, web comics

By Adrienne LaFrance
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BOSTON, Mass.— We’ve seen it before: Hundreds of multi-colored cows descending on cities and towns across the globe. Since 1999, herds have made their way through Chicago, New York, London, Paris, Athens and towns– some of which have plenty of cows already– across Middle America. This summer, a new collection of vibrant […]

By Adrienne LaFrance
BOSTON, Mass.— Feeling too productive? Not procrastinating enough? Austrian artist Erwin Wurm has the answer. Why not stay in your pajamas all day? You could also fantasize about nihilism, be indifferent about everything, or even take a nap on the office toilet.
These are just some of the activities depicted in Wurm’s series of […]

By Adrienne LaFrance
EVERLY, Mass.— Those with messy desks and piles of clutter take note; things aren’t out of place, they’ve simply found their natural congruency. At least, that’ s what artist Kiki Smith, 52, told a group of about 325 people on Wednesday, March 29 at Boston University’s second-annual Tim Hamill Visiting Artist Lecture, “My […]