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Museum And Gallery

The ‘2012 RISCA Fellowship Exhibition’

Bright spots
Last weekend The New York Times proclaimed Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning , the debut video game of former Red Sox pitcher and outspoken Republican millionaire Curt Schilling's 38 Studios, "one of the finest action role-playing games yet made."

By: GREG COOK | February 15, 2012

‘Valentined’ showcases geek love at Craftland

Heart-felt
These missives don't have the swooning, steamy, bodice-ripping passion of romance novel covers.

By: GREG COOK | February 08, 2012

‘Taoist Gods’ and ‘Immortals’ at Brown and RISD

The language of aesthetics
As China marked the beginning of the Year of the Dragon with lion and dragon dances and fireworks last week, Brown University's Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology was debuting "Taoist Gods from China: Ceremonial Paintings from the Mien".

By: GREG COOK | January 31, 2012

Myoda and Pender in ‘Illuminations’ at Chazan Gallery

Tricks of the light
Paul Myoda's kinetic sculptures are beautiful and unsettling.

By: GREG COOK | January 24, 2012

Ben Blanc’s intriguing ‘The Exchange’ at AS220

Selling an idea
Two hundred black wood sculptures, resembling abstracted chunks of coal from some old video game, are lined up on a shelf running around the room in Ben Blanc's installation "The Exchange" at AS220's Project Space (93 Mathewson Street, Providence, through January 28).

By: GREG COOK | January 17, 2012

‘Chicken Little’ and ‘Manchester Tracks’ at the RISD Museum

Discomfort and joy
The star of New York painter Nancy Chunn's epic installation "Chicken Little and the Culture of Fear" at the RISD Museum (224 Benefit Street, Providence, through April 15) is the fabled fowl — you know, the one who mistakenly thought the sky was falling.

By: GREG COOK | January 10, 2012

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

Exhibits worth buzzing about

Vivid visions
After a couple of shaky years, 2011 saw the local gallery scene blossom again.

By: GREG COOK | December 20, 2011

Museum of Natural History’s new ‘Curiouser’ collection

Into the wild
A fact underlying the exhibit "Curiouser," in the lobby of the Providence Museum of Natural History (Roger Williams Park, 1000 Elmwood Avenue, Providence, through September 2012), is that less than two percent of the institution's collection of 250,000 preserved birds, insects, mammals, rocks, fossils, and Native American baskets is on view at any time.

By: GREG COOK | December 13, 2011

‘NetWorks 2011’ is good — but it could be better

Incomplete picture
In 2008, local art collector Joseph Chazan partnered with the Newport Art Museum and AS220 to present the first "NetWorks" project.

By: GREG COOK | December 07, 2011

Brian Chippendale and Jungil Hong’s dazzling new work

A sense of wonder
Brian Chippendale and Jungil Hong were at the center of the gang of artists who pioneered the rascally psychedelic art that boiled out of Providence's screenprinting/postering/comic book/puppet show/wrestlemania/noise rock underground in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

By: GREG COOK | November 29, 2011

“Nostalgia Machines” at Brown’s Bell Gallery

Reconsidering the future
Jonathan Schipper's Measuring Angst (2009) might be a complicated machine built to help you ponder whether your life would be better if you could take back the stupid thing you did last night.

By: GREG COOK | November 21, 2011

Rebecca Macri, Dan Talbot, and Betsey MacDonald at AS220

Contrasts and comparisons
Some time back, Rebecca Macri embroidered a pillow with the rainbow bars of the old terrorism alert chart ("severe" to "low").

By: GREG COOK | November 15, 2011

Buonaccorsi + Agniel opens its doors with “Yes!”

An artistic revival
Providence is one of the most fertile art-making communities anywhere, but commercial galleries showcasing groundbreaking art made here — the art that defines the future — struggle to stay in existence.

By: GREG COOK | November 02, 2011

Cai Guo-Qiang, “Sustainable Beauty,” and “Independents”

Quick impressions
Cai Guo-Qiang has mounted his two big crocodiles at head height, where you can peer into their snapped open jaws lined with fangs.

By: GREG COOK | October 25, 2011

Ellen Driscoll’s ‘Distant Mirrors’; plus, ‘Palimpsestic’

Floating ideas
A few weeks back, three artificial islands made of recycled plastic and dotted with little model buildings — houses, a watch tower, an oil refinery, the Tower of Babel — were floated down the Providence River and anchored just south of the Crawford Street Bridge at South Water Street.

By: GREG COOK | October 19, 2011

Works by Andrew Moon Bain, Elisa D’Arrigo, Serena Perrone

Shape shifting and dreamy visions
In "Talking Leaves," Andrew Moon Bain's show at AS220's Project Space (93 Mathewson Street, Providence, through October 29), his painting and collage Triple Black depicts a red mermaid and black seahorses floating atop a tumultuous sea amidst old sailing ships.

By: GREG COOK | October 11, 2011

Big, bold, and compelling, murals are having their moment in Providence

The city as canvas
Some weeks back, painter Agustin Patino drove me down Broad Street in South Providence in his wife's Jeep.

By: GREG COOK | October 05, 2011

Britannia rules at RISD’s “Made In the UK”

Top of the pops
"Made In the UK: Contemporary Art from the Richard Brown Baker Collection," a survey of post-World War II British art at the RISD Museum (224 Benefit Street, Providence, through January 8), arrives as British artists are the top of the pops.

By: GREG COOK | October 04, 2011

FirstWorks’ eighth annual “Pixilerations”

Balancing act: tech and art
Rebecca Mushtare's StoryQuilt invites you to sit at a faux sewing machine and tell it a story, which the Mount Kisco, New York, artist's software converts into a virtual quilt that is projected on the wall above.

By: GREG COOK | September 27, 2011