Art and Museums
Pretty Girl: Girl with a Pearl Earring makes a stop at The Frick in New York, the last leg of its American tour
Val Castronovo writes: Girl's head, shoulder, garments and accessories stand out against a dark, solid background, which is blackened now but once was translucent green. The effect is rather like the effect of looking at this painting in an otherwise empty room — just as everything is stripped away in the Oval Room so that our attention is laser-focused on Girl, so everything is stripped away in the background of the painting itself so that we zero in on the figure’s physiognomy and accoutrements, which signal mercantile wealth and prosperity. more »
Another Reason to Visit New York City: Wedding Bed Covers, Tapestries, Quilts and Period Clothing
Jill Norgren writes: Interwoven Globe is a large exhibition begging hours of a visitor's attention. Walk through it first without reading the explanatory signs. Once familiar visually with all that the exhibition has to offer, begin again, studying the signs and considering the objects as expressions of the global artistic exchanges made possible by the golden age of European maritime navigation. more »
The Empty Frames: Last Seen Exhibit by French artist Sophie Calle at the Gardner Museum
While standing in front of the empty spaces on the Museum walls where works were once hung, Calle asked curators, guards, conservators, and other Museum staff members what they remembered of the missing pieces. Calle used text from the interviews and the photographic images to create a visual meditation on absence and memory, as well as reflection on the emotional power works of art hold on their viewers. more »
An Exhibit That Begins and Ends With Lovers; Chagall: Love, War, and Exile
Val Castronovo writes: The paintings from the war years are suffused with human suffering, violence and tumult, plus indescribable feelings of sadness, longing and loss. This exhibit clearly wants to persuade visitors that love has the power to heal and the power to triumph over trauma and evil — even evil of the worst sort. more »