Montserrat College of Art

Latest Articles

2009: The year in art

Saints, sinners, paint
The year started off with a kick in the teeth when, in January, Brandeis University announced plans to shutter its Rose Art Museum and sell off its masterpieces.
By GREG COOK | December 30, 2009

Breakthroughs

Summer round-ups at Tufts and Montserrat
Tufts University Art Gallery's "Sixth Annual Juried Summer Exhibition" is one of those summer sampler shows that's got about a million people in it.
By GREG COOK | July 08, 2009

Grand seductions

Marriage at the Gardner, decoration at Montserrat, Milton Rogovin at Kayafas
If you've been desirous of an eminently tasteful exhibit that undermines the sanctity of marriage, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's "The Triumph of Marriage: Painted Cassoni of the Renaissance" may be for you.
By GREG COOK | December 16, 2008

When the red, red robin . . .

‘Language Of Color’ at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, ‘Speaker Project’ at MassArt, Cathy McLaurin at Montserrat
This exhibit explores the basic nature of color and its relationship to survival and pleasure in the world.
By RANDI HOPKINS | September 17, 2008

Dollhouses and dream states

Memory, sound, time, and toothpicks define the season
Autumn highlights in the museums and the galleries.
By RANDI HOPKINS | September 11, 2008

One world, several dreams

“Business as Usual: New Video From China” at MassArt, “Text in Video” at Axiom, and “Many Kinds of Nothing” at Montserrat
It’s no secret that recent years have seen a new “cultural revolution” in the visual arts in China.
By RANDI HOPKINS | August 12, 2008

Cape light

‘Light And Artifice’ at The Schoolhouse Gallery; ‘What Is Big?’ at Brickbottom; ‘Birds Do It’ at Montserrat
Pinpricks and irregular streaks of light illuminate a circular orb that might be the moon, or a partly peeled orange in each of Judith Larsen’s series of photographic works called “Phasing and Solon."
By RANDI HOPKINS | July 02, 2008

Waxing poetic

Joanne Mattera and encaustic painting plus sculpture At Montserrat; Ceci Méndez at the Center For Latino Arts
New York–based artist Joanne Mattera wrote the book (literally) on encaustic, an ancient method of painting with pigmented wax.
By RANDI HOPKINS | June 03, 2008

Live at five

Fifth Annual Juried Summer Show at Tufts, Norman Laliberté at Montserrat, Julie Vinette at Atlantic Works, and Annual Juried Members’ Show at the Danforth
The Tufts University Art Gallery has taken the off-season opportunity to celebrate its year-round neighbors.
By RANDI HOPKINS | May 28, 2008

Greenheads

Global warming inspires eco art at Montserrat and the BCA
When Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize last October, it was a triumph for anti-global-warming forces as well as a triumph for art.
By GREG COOK | March 03, 2008

Bought and sold

Rampant consumerism and Iván Navarro at Tufts, ‘Some Sort of Uncertainty’ at Axiom
So I’d like to declare that art about consumerism is one of the æsthetic trends of our young millennium.
By GREG COOK | January 22, 2008

Waste management

‘Cornucopia’ at Montserrat, ‘Ad/Agency’ at the PRC, and Jim Lambie at the MFA
One of the essential lessons I’ve gleaned from the magazine Martha Stewart Living is that if you put together a collection of junk that’s all the same color, it’s almost always interesting to look at.
By GREG COOK | January 07, 2008

We’ll fry anything

Corn Dogs + Blue Ribbons at Montserrat, Boston Does Boston at Proof, and Some Sort of Uncertainty at Axiom
The dead of winter is a great time to conjure the seedy pleasures and heady aromas of a good country fair, steeped in sheep and fried dough.
By RANDI HOPKINS | January 02, 2008

Tempo tantrum

Artists mess with time, re-enact art history, and hop up on stage in ’08
In 2008, the fourth dimension, time, steps to the fore in the art world.
By RANDI HOPKINS | December 26, 2007

Jury’s got the verdict

‘Trans’ at Atlantic Works, ‘Red’ at Cambridge Art Association, Caroline Jones and David Joselit at MIT, Ralph Gibson at BU
Two well-judged shows light up the holiday horizon.
By RANDI HOPKINS | December 09, 2007

Buying in

Consumer Culture at Montserrat, Mini Golf at Mass Art, and ‘Seek Alternate Routes’ at 119 Gallery
In late September 2001, President George W. Bush urged Americans to go shopping in support of the slumping US economy, equating purchasing with patriotism in the aftermath of 9/11.
By RANDI HOPKINS | November 20, 2007

People get ready

‘Trainscape’ at the DeCordova, ‘Merging Influence’ at Montserrat, and more
Fourteen New England artists/artist teams hook up to produce a variety of interconnecting installations.
By RANDI HOPKINS | August 22, 2007

Premier coup

Edwin Dickinson in Provincetown, ‘The Exposure Project’ in Brookline, and architectural drawings at Montserrat
American modernist painter Edwin Dickinson has never fit easily into art history’s categories.
By RANDI HOPKINS | July 17, 2007

The soft shock of the new

‘New Art Collective’ at Montserrat College, ‘New Art ’07’ at Kingston Gallery
One of the great dreams of any art aficionado is the dream of stumbling on a new, unheralded talent.
By GREG COOK | July 17, 2007

Know when to fold ’em

‘Origami Now!’ at the Peabody Essex
Origami has been practiced in Japan for at least the past 400 years, and we’ve all seen the usual paper cranes, boats, hats, boxes.
By RANDI HOPKINS | June 05, 2007

Staged?

Philip-Lorca diCorcia at the ICA, ‘Self-Entanglements’ at GASP, Jim Falck at Montserrat, and ‘Jamaica Plain Spoken’ in JP
In a photograph taken in 1978, you see a kid staring blankly into an open refrigerator.
By RANDI HOPKINS | May 22, 2007

Culture war games

Karen Finley moves on, ‘It’s Alive’ goes after bio-tech, ‘Personal Computer’ gets Webby
Karen Finley sat at the edge of the stage of Emerson College’s Cutler Majestic Theatre last week and spoke about a woman who got off on war.
By GREG COOK | March 27, 2007

Oh, snap!

‘Shoot the Family’ at Mass Art, Camilo Ramirez at Montserrat, and Art for PDAs at Axiom
Whether pasted tidily in albums, framed and displayed in the den, tossed in a shoebox in the closet, or abandoned to the thrift shop, family photos — our own, or those belonging to total strangers — are mesmerizing.
By RANDI HOPKINS | January 02, 2007

Bodies and souls

A year in art
Preserved flayed corpses at the Museum of Science, Americans in Paris at the Museum of Fine Arts, underground art at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, beavers at Mass College of Art — it was that kind of year, capped off by the arrival of the new Institute of Contemporary Art.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | December 19, 2006

War paint

Steve Mumford’s ‘Baghdad and Beyond,’ plus ‘Pure Thought’ in Brighton and ‘Urban Art’ from Los Angeles
There’s no shortage of photographic images of the war in Iraq — live footage on TV, front-page news photos, streaming video on-line.
By RANDI HOPKINS | October 24, 2006

Wild things

‘Going Ape’ at the DeCordova, George McNeil at Montserrat, and ‘Offspring’ at BU
One hundred corrugated cardboard monkeys hanging from trapezes greet visitors to “Going Ape: Confronting Animals in Contemporary Art,” which opens at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park on September 2.
By RANDI HOPKINS | August 23, 2006

Les fleurs du shopping mall

‘Made in America’ at Judi Rotenberg, Jetta Indeck at Montserrat
Are we what we buy?
By RANDI HOPKINS | July 25, 2006

A galaxy far, far away

Is the Empire defining the current avant-garde?
Recently I found myself aboard the Air Chair, a padded seat atop what looks like a riding lawnmower, at the Museum of Science’s “Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination” exhibit.
By GREG COOK | March 27, 2006

Sophomore effort

Local Nothing give it the old college try
As our popular society gets more complicated and faster paced, Local Nothing, among the best of a slew of young bands to come out of the Saco/Thorton Academy area, seem almost quaint for their blitzkrieg guitars and shouted vocals.
By SAM PFEIFLE | March 01, 2006

Super graphics

“SPOTHUNTERS,” Ryan McGinness, and Christian Marclay
There must be a better word than “graffiti” to describe the site-specific, often text-embracing, street-smart art of the intrepid artists who use their environment as their canvas, plastering buildings, street signs, decaying walls, and skinny lamp posts with imagery by way of posters, stickers, markers, and spray paint.
By RANDI HOPKINS | February 22, 2006