When we think of Japanese printmakers, the Edo Period’s large woodblock prints of courtesans, actors, samurai, and landscapes with the ever-present Mount Fuji immediately come to mind. The current exhibit at Memorial Art Gallery illustrates the diversity of work being created by contemporary Japanese artists, including wood-block prints, photographs, and some sculptural works that severely […]
Memorial Art Gallery
Posted inNews & Opinion
ARTS: Holcomb announces retirement from Memorial Art Gallery
Early Tuesday morning the Memorial Art Gallery announced that Grant Holcomb, the Mary W. and Donald R. Clark Director of the institution, will retire effective July 1, 2014. Holcomb has been MAG director since 1985, and under his tenure he shepherded the ongoing year-long 100th anniversary celebration and the development of the Centennial Sculpture Park. […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
ART REVIEW: “Memory Theatre”
The Memorial Art Gallery’s new exhibit, “Memory Theatre,” opened on one of the recent bright and brisk autumn evenings, when the daylong sunshine was punctuated by evening temperature drops and the fragrant decay of leaves, dipping us into that wistful ache of another year’s departure. The show is a collection of works that speak of […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
ART: The end is the beginning
Even though autumn heralds the close of the year, and the death, decay, or otherwise slumberfest of nature, to me the crisp, fresh air always feels like a beginning. This probably comes in part from our everlasting association of autumn with going back to school. Now that school is back in session, many of the […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
ART REVIEW: “State of the City: Street-ish”
Four young artists are the stars of “Street-ish,” a show of contemporary work that is informed by street art and culture, though was created within a studio practice. Now in its sixth season, this edition of Rochester Contemporary’s “State of the City” exhibition series was co-curated by RoCo’s Executive Director, Bleu Cease, and Memorial Art […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
“64th Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition”
There is plenty of captivating work to appreciate at the Memorial Art Gallery’s 64th Rochester-Finger Lake Exhibition, currently on view in the Grand Gallery. Guest curator Alex Nyerges, the director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, was tasked with selecting 100 works from the 623 submitted. Eighty-one artists are represented, 31 of whom are […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
ART/LIT: “An Early Work Late in Life: The Art and Life of Danny Allen”
It can be difficult, even impossible, for us to see clearly the vital people in our lives while we are living through turbulent, critical moments. We only gain a true sense of things with enough time, distance, and contemplation. Suicide denies us the opportunity of knowing a loved one after we have resolved our issues, […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
ART REVIEW: “It Came From the Vault”
I was still noticing previously overlooked works and nuances within works on my third visit to the Memorial Art Gallery’s current exhibit, “It Came from the Vault: Rarely Seen Works from MAG’s Collection.” I recently spoke with MAG Director of Exhibitions Marie Via about how more than 200 objects included in the show were selected […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Work continues on MAG Sculpture Park
Work continued Monday on the installation of the Memorial Art Gallery’s Centennial Sculpture Park, specifically the large-scale piece by Tom Otterness that will be situated near the corner of North Goodman and University. A flatbed truck holding several large elements of the piece was parked alongside University Avenue, and a police car was out front […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Ghosts in our cells
The art chosen for the Memorial Art Gallery’s “5th Rochester Biennial” exhibit seems to reflect something like a sampling of the different breeds of ghosts carried by artists. These include the aesthetic influences of other times; the spirit of artistic materials; the specters of once-thriving domiciles; the eternal striving of human will against all manner […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
The extremes of “extreme”
Claire Schneider, curator of the Extreme Abstraction exhibition at the Albright-KnoxArtGallery in Buffalo, recently pointed out that the word “extreme” may be the word of our time. For example, reality TV shows like Fear Factor show “ordinary” people jumping from tall buildings, laying among snakes, and/or eating all sorts of strange things all in the […]
Posted inMusic
Music of the spheres
An 18th-century draft of the No Child Left Behind Act would have pushed students way beyond math and reading. It might have required extensive testing in the Seven Liberal Arts, inherited from the ancient Greeks, which ranked music with geometry and astronomy. It’s hard to exaggerate the importance of music in pre-Enlightenment worldviews. People from […]
