Rhode Island College

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Shows worth seeing in the new year

Eyes wide open
From centuries-old Taoist visions to the ways technology can channel emotions, local exhibits this winter prompt comparisons between then and now.
By GREG COOK | December 28, 2011

Fusionworks unveils its new moves

Viva la difference!
Once again abiding by their motto — "Different is good " — Fusionworks Dance Company has engaged two guest choreographers, in addition to artistic director/choreographer Deb Meunier, for their Fall Concert Series at Rhode Island College on November 18 and 19.
By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | November 15, 2011

A box, a picture, and a life revealed

Portraits
Several years ago, photographer Scott Indermaur came up with a novel way to connect with his subjects: give them each a wooden box — six inches square and four inches deep — and ask them to fill it with objects that represent their beliefs.
By AMY LITTLEFIELD | November 09, 2011

You don’t need an education to spell ‘hate’

More misplaced outrage; Monstrous behavior; viva literacy!
OK, Phillipe and Jorge are going to need a little help on this one.
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | September 28, 2011

A British invasion and the local hall of fame

Autumn offerings
The art season follows the school year.
By GREG COOK | September 14, 2011

Review: Corinna Schnitt's ''Once Upon A Time'' at the RISD Museum

Surreal storybooks
Corinna Schnitt's video Once Upon a Time opens on a comfortable living room.
By GREG COOK | April 19, 2011

Rhode Island's ticking time bomb

A fun, easy-to-understand guide to the pension crisis that could destroy everything you care about (or not)
This is a story about the pension crisis that's tearing apart Providence and Central Falls and just might lay waste to the whole goddamn state.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | March 23, 2011

Review: Wlodzimierz Ksiazek's abstract expressions at RIC

Energetic textures and surfaces
Wlodzimierz Ksiazek's exhibit of chunky, muscular abstract paintings at Rhode Island College's Bannister Gallery (600 Mount Pleasant Avenue, Providence, through March 30) is a dose of the old-time religion.
By GREG COOK | March 15, 2011

Gina Gionfriddo on the art of playwriting

Character studies
Although playwright Gina Gionfriddo was raised in Washington, D.C., Rhode Island has also made its contributions, since she polished her writing skills at Brown University, where in the late 1990s she sought out eventual Pulitzer winner Paula Vogel and her MFA playwriting program, attracted by the kind of dark comedy Vogel was coming up with.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | January 18, 2011

Winter theatre preview: From the Bard to Becky Shaw

Gionfriddo, Synge, Ibsen, and more
From the latest Pulitzer winner for drama to a musical adaptation of a popular board game, and from the Bard to Becky Shaw, Rhode Island theaters are certainly starting 2011 with varied offerings.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 29, 2010

Who wins? Who loses?

What special interests will be served -- or ignored -- under the new regime?
Quick question: who won the Rhode Island elections in November?
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | December 29, 2010

Uneasy artifacts at the Chazan Gallery

'Something is amiss'
It seems life should feel easy with all our faster foods and whiter teeth and smarter bombs, but despite — or perhaps because of — all our modern conveniences, we feel as awkward and hapless as ever. That is one unspoken theme that viewers might draw from the five local artists exhibiting at the Chazan Gallery.
By GREG COOK | December 01, 2010

Review: Umberto Crenca's introspective retrospective at AS220

Trying to make sense of it all
If you've been around the Providence art scene very long, you've surely heard the story. In the early 1980s, Umberto Crenca exhibited at the Antonio Dattorro Studio Gallery and the Providence Journal panned his art as shallow and simplistic.
By GREG COOK | November 16, 2010

Review: Fusionworks gets really physical

Mesmerizing movements
The rock/jazz fusion band Bixit will be amping up the energy for collaborative dance concerts with Fusionworks, at Rhode Island College's Sapinsley Hall on November 19 and 20 at 8 pm.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 16, 2010

A Lynda Benglis retrospective at the RISD Museum

Manufactured surprises
When you talk about the art of Lynda Benglis, there's just no avoiding the giant dildo photo.
By GREG COOK | October 27, 2010

'Beverages, bitches, and bikinis' reconsidered

Radio Waves
"Beverages, Bitches and Bikinis" doesn't sound like an event you'd expect a state campus to support. Yet that is the title originally proposed for an event sponsored by WXIN, the student radio station at state-supported Rhode Island College.
By MARY ANN SORENTINO | October 13, 2010

Golden memories of the diamond

Big baseball anniversaries; not-so-E-Z pass; remebering Jimbo
We know the vast majority of Cool, Cool World readers do not have a personal memory of life on the planet earth, circa 1960, as they were not yet born.
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | September 29, 2010

Fall Art Preview: Old meets new this season

O pioneers
Art in Rhode Island this fall is a parade of founding mothers and fathers. AS220 co-founder Umberto Crenca fills his institution with his latest "ugly" work.
By GREG COOK | September 14, 2010

Fall Dance Preview: Things are moving around town

Kick up your heels!
This fall’s dance events include reprises at local companies.
By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | September 14, 2010

In 'The Tradition'

Bannister’s ‘Five From Providence’ honors its namesake
In 1978, Rhode Island College presented “Four from Providence.” The exhibit was a call to revitalize the reputations of four Providence artists of color who had often been overlooked since their peaks in the late 19th and early 20th century.
By GREG COOK | June 10, 2010

Minimalism and mementos

Jamey Morrill's sculptures and 'souvenirs' at Craftland
After 5 Traverse gallery closed in February, crackerjack curator Maya Allison, who was co-director there, lined up a handful of small independent projects and seemed like she might be on her way to starting her own operation before she landed a gig as curator at Brown University's Bell Gallery, which she began this week.
By GREG COOK | June 02, 2010

Open to interpretation

‘Abstraction in Providence’ at RIC’s Bannister Gallery
For decades, abstraction dominated avant-garde discourse, as painters worked to break art down to its basic elements, stripping away more and more of what seemed necessary to a painting, and then stripping away even more.
By GREG COOK | March 31, 2010

Dynamic duo

Doug Bosch and Stephen Fisher in RIC’s ‘Sabbatical Exhibition’
Faculty exhibitions tend to be hodgepodges, no matter how prestigious the school. But "Sabbatical Exhibition" is a delightful exception.
By GREG COOK | March 10, 2010

The next Scott Brown?

John J. Loughlin’s suddenly high-profile campaign to oust Patrick Kennedy
Republican Scott Brown's victory last month in the race for the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat has every two-bit GOP hopeful in the Northeast claiming the mantle of the pick-up truck populist.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | February 10, 2010

Heart keeps beating

Novelist (and RIC professor) Thomas Cobb recalls the origins of Bad Blake
Storytelling is largely about character, and writer Thomas Cobb came up with a doozy when he conceived Bad Blake.
By JIM MACNIE | January 27, 2010

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Photos: “Andy Warhol: A Recent Acquisition Exhibition” at Bannister

Warhol's tossed-off, diaristic, fabulous Polaroids
At Rhode Island College’s Bannister Gallery, through January 8
By ANDY WARHOL | December 16, 2009

Two sides of life

Photographs by Andy Warhol and Stewart Martin
"I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist," the Pop artist Andy Warhol wrote in 1975. "Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art."
By GREG COOK | December 17, 2009

Airing it out

Works by Aschheim, Buck, Gottlieb, and Prine
New York painter Eve Aschheim has said that she uses geometry in her abstractions "to 'think about' the intersection of nature and cityscape. My works might suggest the chaotic geometry of the city, the expectant stillness of air, the tenuous balance of a wire line against a building."
By GREG COOK | November 24, 2009

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