Boston Art Review Issue 5. No Boundaries.

Multimedia artist Zsuzsanna Szegedi-Varga uses sculpture, 3D prints, digital projections, and books to explore themes of labor, the body, and our complex relationship with technology as a means to investigate history—personal and collective—and our current condition as human beings in the world. In conversation with Boston-based curator of contemporary art Leonie Bradbury, Szegedi discusses the transformation of her work from a traditional drawing and painting-based practice to one that embraces technology, invites audience participation, and addresses the ambiguity of our present moment.

WBUR, Morning Edition

Friedman explains that, paradoxically, she found it easier to evoke the howling power of a hurricane by manipulating footage of the natural world to make it look less naturalistic. “I actually do have a lot of footage of clouds, but the clouds were kind of too slow and methodical,” she says. “And I really wanted ... the pace and the speed of hurricane wind power.”

Georgie Friedman’s ‘Hurricane Lost’ is getting noticed! Up until April 4, 2021.

Boston Globe Review By Cate McQuaid

Gathering strength with Georgie Friedman’s ‘Hurricane Lost’
“Yes, “Hurricane Lost” is harrowing. But it’s also a cathedral. The darkened gallery, with its illuminated, rhythmic videos, is a place to go to get right with yourself. To assess your own size in the face of such ferocious grandeur — or at least its safe facsimile. And to steel your resolve about what’s to come.”

Boston Art Review Review by Jacquinn Sinclair

In the stark white spaces of the Emerson Contemporary Media Art Gallery—lined on one side with large glass windows—moving projections climb walls, a robot shimmies across a gray polished floor, and a sculpture spins in a surveilled room to the sound of a babbling brook. These works and more make up the “Spacetime (x,y,z + t)” exhibition featuring experimental pieces that explore time and space through technology. Curated by Emerson College’s Foster Chair of Art Theory and Practice and Distinguished Curator-in-Residence, Leonie Bradbury, the collection highlights interactions between the virtual and the real, challenges gallery-goers’ perceptions with durational elements, and urges visitors to engage with 3D-printed objects, VR drawings, video and more.

Tuesday, April 30, 6-8pm at 100 Seaport Blvd.

Design Salons at Echelon
Hosted by MIT DesignX and MIT School of Architecture + Planning

Happy to be asked to serve on the Art Advisory Board for the Punto Urban Art Museum (PUAM) in Salem and the Greenway Public Art Advisory Group in Boston. Two wonderful organizations doing great work in the public realm.

See more here:
http://puntourbanartmuseum.org/
https://www.rosekennedygreenway.org/public-art/

When one sense is stimulated, another sense is involuntarily stimulated at the same instant. This is known as the neurological condition synesthesia. Instruments of Synesthesia, constructed by Katherine Mitchell DiRico, explores how today's networked world affects our sense perception and personal connectivity.

Join Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, Katherine Mitchell DiRico, and Leonie Bradbury for a conversation about her work and how it relates to contemporary art, technology, and innovation. This is an invitation-only event; please be sure to RSVP to share in the exploration of this phenomena

Arts & Innovation
Monday, March 19, Session 3, 3:30pm-5:30pm
Panelists: Jose Ramos, OSRAM
Leonie Bradbury, HUBweek
Gu∂ny Sara Birgisdottir, Rykyavik, Iceland

The discipline of human-centered design has dramatically changed the manner in which innovation is funded and developed. Rather than technical specifications, product design now focuses on behavioral, emotional, and social aspects of users to build better products.

What role do creative arts play in bringing innovation to the world? How can we link the communities of creative artists to the business and engineering practices of startups and large companies.

The Beverly Philosophy Salon present: "We Are The Beast" a Coffee + Conversation series that explores the intersection of art and philosophy inside of John Preus’ installation The Beast.

These three events bring together artists, critics and philosophers to discuss the concept of "herd mentality" from different perspectives. Changing ideas surrounding perceived binary divisions such as the individual and the collective, form and function, and the body and the mind will be examined, diffused and expanded.

Discussions will be moderated by exhibition curator Leonie Bradbury and are situated in the belly of the Beast. Attendees will be invited to engage with the panelists and each other.

Session 1: Humanities Professor Kate Farrington in conversation with Beast artist John Preus (to be confirmed)
Topic: The Space of Art
Date: TBD
Time: 10-11:30am

Session 2: Dr. Jennifer Hall in conversation with Dr. Tedi Asher, PEM (to be confirmed)
Topic: The Experience of Art (Embodied Aesthetics)
Date: TBD
Time: 10-11:30am

Session 3: Dr. Mary Ann Davis in conversation with Jen Mergel, Curator (to be confirmed)
Topic: The Materiality of Art
Date: Saturday, March 3rd
Time: 10-11:30am

Check out the upcoming summer edition of Art Pulse Magazine where I was asked to submit 3 reviews of books that have been influential in terms of my curatorial practice.

Here is what I chose:

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Gautari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987.

Nicolas Bourriaud. Relational Aesthetics. Lyon: Presses du Réel, 1998.

David Abrams. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1997.

Very excited to announce that my essay “Infinite Reflection” on artist Kelsey Brookes was published by Ginko Press (2015). To check a preview of the beautifully printed book Kelsey Brookes: Psychedelic Space click here:
https://issuu.com/quint_contemporary_art/docs/kb_book_4_issuu

Check out my review of Anthoy Palocci's solo show at Lot F Gallery

http://newamericanpaintings.wordpress.com/category/boston/

Check out my latest article "Thing-Paintings" on Boston painter Anthony Palocci published in Spirited Magazine!

to buy a magazine digital or print
http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/510192

for more about the artist:
http://anthonypaloccijr.com/home.html

a little preview....

.....There simultaneously exists a production of works of art that are labeled ‘Dystopic.’ This parallel trajectory is similarly concerned with an imagined and futurist place, but is lacking in social idealism. Instead, the Dystopic is a general vision of discontent with the present situation (like Utopic thought), but instead of an ideal future. Dystopic art and literature imagines a future that is a darker and less pleasant place to live. In this essay, however, I will argue for a different interpretation of the term Dystopic. If Utopia literally means ‘no-place’ can Dystopic mean ‘some-place’? When we define the Utopic as no-place, a site outside of present time, either an imagined past or future, then we can define the Dystopic as place, a site that is not past or not future and not imagined. The Dystopic as a vision of the present and the real.
When we define the Dystopic as the site of a non-utopic present we can begin to see where the most recent series of paintings of vintage appliances and kitchen scenes by Boston painter Anthony Palocci Jr. fit in. So what happens when an artist, and thus by extension also the viewer of his works, is really looking at the objects in front of him? In the case of Palocci, he takes forms that are so familiar to us, that we instantly recognize, and then asks us to reconsider them. In Empty Sink (2012), the artist shows a large-scale empty grey sink with a big black shadow dominating the picture plane. The light is coming from the upper right hand side of the painting just beyond our view. The knobs and faucet are executed in a painterly rather than realistic manner. Each panel of the knob is formed by a rich, luscious daub of paint. The drain looks as if a sketchy snowflake landed on a dark petri-dish with an endearing awkwardness. Between each of the shapes, a bright green color peeks through from the under painting underneath. The bright orange and yellow trim that forms the backsplash adds a somewhat nostalgic mood to the scene.

CAA Museum Committee
Curators in the Spotlight: Dealing with Controversy and the Unexpected in Developing and Presenting Recent Exhibitions
Friday, February 24, 12:30 PM–2:00 PM

Concourse Meeting Room 409AB, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Chairs: Holly Rachel Harrison, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Nancy Mowll Mathews, Williams College Museum of Art

Art, Politics, and Hitler's Early Years in Vienna: Thoughts on a Controversy
Deborah M. Rothschild, Williams College Museum of Art
Croatia Rising: Repackaging Cultural Patrimony
Laurel Reed Pavic, Oregon College of Art and Craft
From Local to Global: How a Small College Art Gallery Landed on the World Stage
Leonie Bradbury, Montserrat College of Art

Inspired by the visual and symbolic richness of the painting practices of the distant past, the artists in A Debt to Pleasure integrate the sensual and the sinister to question ‘meaning making’ in contemporary art. Featuring Julie Heffernan, David Ording, Shelley Reed, Erik Thor Sandberg, and Anne Siems.

Beyond their flawlessly rendered surfaces, the paintings in A Debt to Pleasure integrate the sensual and the sinister, the vulgar and the mysterious. Each artist explicitly references stylistic techniques and aesthetics of the past to create a provocative body of work that explores meaning making in painting. In a decidedly postmodern manifestation, allegorical realism is employed to investigate symbolism in contemporary art, dissemination of cultural history and the continued obsession with 'everything new'.

CAA Conference 2011, New York

Making Museums Matter: Integrating Collection and Exhibition Programs with College Curriculum

University and college associates will provide examples of innovative or interdisciplinary models in which an academic museum or gallery has been able to deepen its integration into the parent institution’s curriculum and mission and has become an active leader in helping to support and define the academic life and culture of campus.

Wednesday, February 09, 9:30 AM–12:00 PM
Trianon Ballroom, 3rd Floor, Hilton New York

Chairs:
Neysa Page-Lieberman, Columbia College Chicago; Leonie Bradbury, Montserrat College of Art Galleries

Speakers:
"Dispatches: On Engaging Art and Engineers" by Ronald R. Bernier, Wentworth Institute of Technology
"McKissick Museum at the Core of the University of South Carolina’s Curriculum" by Lana A. Burgess, McKissick Museum, University of South Carolina
"Reframing the “Art” in Liberal Arts: Curricular Integration at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College" by Colette Crossman, Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin
"Points of Departure: Strategies for Faculty Engagement in Campus Museums and Galleries" by Carin Jacobs, Graduate Theological Union

College & University Museums PAG

Getting Your Show on the Road
Thursday, June 24, 2010, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford, MA
Registration Deadline: June 10, 2010

Registration Fee (including lunch): $50 NEMA members / $60 non-members
Registration Fee (bring your own lunch): $40 NEMA members / $50 non-members
All staff from Institutional and Corporate members are eligible for the member rate.
Not sure if your organization is a member? Just call NEMA, 781-641-0013, to find out.


All of us have wanted for an amazing exhibition to live on beyond its days. But how do you turn a successful temporary exhibition into a profitable traveling one? Especially when you have limited resources and staff? Three experts of the trade will provide concrete advice on the do’s and don’ts of creating a traveling exhibition. Topics to be addressed in the morning presentations include: best operating practice, crating, insurance, shipping costs, checklists, marketing, facilities reports, security, loan agreements, and contracts. The afternoon program will consist of a workshop on the safe handling and shipping of artworks and artifacts.

9:30 am Registration and Coffee

10:00 am Welcome and Introductions
PAG Chair Leonie Bradbury, Director & Curator, Montserrat College of Art Galleries, MA

10:30 am California Dreamin: Let’s Get The Show on the Road
Judith Hoos Fox, Independent Curator, CuratorSquared, MA
Ms. Fox has worked with several academic institutions to both create and host her traveling exhibitions. Topics: When does it make sense for an exhibition to tour? How to make it happen and smoothly? Pros and cons, for curator, artist, organizer.

11:30 am American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell
Russel Horton, Exhibitions Manager, Norman Rockwell Museum, MA
The Norman Rockwell Museum put Rockwell on the road again last Fall. American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell, the museum’s national traveling exhibition, was recently packed for transit and accompanied by curatorial staff to warmer environs for its recent opening at the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale. Multiple venues nationally traveling. All aspects of the traveling exhibition process will be covered. Handouts will be provided.

12:00 pm Lunch in the Sculpture Court

1:30 pm Not just a box or a crate... there is a lot in between
The afternoon workshop will be held at the Artex facility in Somerville. The workshop is interactive, hands-on and geared towards museum and other professionals concerned with the safe handling of artworks and artifacts. Areas of focus included: The basics of handling practices in regard to installations, packing and storage; handling requirements of objects on loan with emphasis on technical and material requirements of each topical area.

Registration is limited

Directions to the Tufts University Art Gallery will be emailed with your registration confirmation two weeks prior to the workshop. The Artex facility is located conveniently close to the Tufts Gallery. Attendees will be given detailed directions at the workshop.

Questions? Call NEMA, 781-641-0013 or Leonie Bradbury, 978-921-4242 ext. 1223 or lbradbury@montserrat.edu.



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Last Updated: March 17, 2010

March 17, 2010