ArtBeat: What To See

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Ryan + Trevor Oakes: The Periphery of Perception @ EMPAC, Troy. A ten year retrospective of the work of identical twins Ryan and Trevor Oakes, who have been in residence at EMPAC this winter. The exhibit, which includes a commissioned drawing of EMPAC’s Concert Hall, examines the nature of visual perception, aiming to discover methods that constitute key advancements in the representation of visual reality. Opens Tuesday, February 21. Panel discussion with Ryan and Trevor Oakes, writer Damien James and photographer Michael Benson: Wednesday, April 18, 6pm. (Through May 31)

Extensions of the Eye: Three Women Photographers @ The Tang, Saratoga Springs. Photography by Barbara Morgan, Naomi Savage and Kunié Sugiura from the Tang Collection. Using the body as a point of departure, these three artists explore issues of identity, process, and space. Opening reception: February 18, 2012, 6-7:30pm. Gallery talk with curator Laura Mintz: Thursday, April 5, 7pm. (Through April 15)

Nancy Grossman: Tough Life Diary @ The Tang, Saratoga Springs. For over five decades, Nancy Grossman has created a powerful body of work that combines exquisite craftsmanship with a long-standing exploration of the nature of violence and power. The exhibition will feature a range of work from the artist’s immense oeuvre, including drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, assemblage, and sculpture. Opening reception: February 18, 2012, 6-7:30pm. (Through May 20)

Donald Moffett: The Extravagant Vein @ The Tang, Saratoga Springs. An original member of ACT UP and the 1980s AIDS activist collective Gran Fury, Moffett has been a persistent and influential presence on the New York art scene; this first comprehensive survey of his work selects from nine important bodies of work that reveal his sustained political engagement and explore how he interrogates and blurs the definition of painting, incorporating nontraditional materials such as video and photography. Opening reception: February 18, 2012, 6-7:30pm. (Through June 3)

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Laetitia Hussain @ Basilica Hudson, Hudson. An installation of 1000 sculptures and ten paintings. (Through Feb. 21)

Art Inspires Art @ Mandeville Gallery, Schenectady. Union College visual arts faculty exhibition, with works by Martin Benjamin,Chris Duncan, Walter Hatke, Fernando Orellana, Charles Steckler and Sandra Wimer. (Through February 22)

The Great Rock N’ Roll Picture Show @ Clement Art Gallery, Troy. A music photography exhibit featuring work of Nippertown photographers – Martin Benjamin, Joe Putrock and John Whipple. (Through February 22)

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Tranquil Power: The Art of Perle Fine @ Opalka Gallery, Albany. Active in the modern art scene from the 1930’s until the year of her passing in 1988, abstract expressionist painter Perle Fine explored and reworked several abstract styles and ideas. (Through February 26)

Lucy and Robert Reitzfeld: Paintings @ John Davis Gallery, Hudson. Robert Reitzfeld combines parts of art historical images with images from popular culture, including cartoon, advertising, art deco and art nouveau passages, while Lucy Reitzfeld’s paintings are obsessed with light. (Through February 26)

Are You Ready for That Great Atomic Power? @ Gallery 111, RPI, Troy. An exhibition by Troy artist Nathan Meltz chronicling nuclear holocaust through printmaking, animation, and collage.(Through February 29)

Wren Panzella: Below The Bassline @ Sorelle Gallery, Albany. Wren Panzella’s glass transfer paintings are inspired by the movement and connectedness of performing jazz musicians. (Through February 29)

Ginger Ertz @ Courthouse Gallery, Lake George. Abstract organic sculptures created from chennille stems. (Through March 2)

Tell Me a Story: Narrative Works @ Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson. A pictorial history of being black in America by Anima Katz; Tona Wilson’s social injustice series about laborers, prisoners and politics; and the covertly sinister paintings of David Austin. (Through March 4)

Norman Rockwell and the Ghost of Dickens @ The Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge. This celebration of the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth will feature original Rockwell artworks inspired by the literary giant’s contributions, which were among the artist’s favorite books. (Through March 4)

Ghostly Berms: Fotos by Gerard Malanga @ Architecture for Art, Hillsdale. Gerard Malanga, poet, photographer and filmmaker, worked closely with Andy Warhol during the artist’s most creative period in the mid-Sixties. His several books of poetry, ranging from chic death (1971) to Mythologies of the Heart (1996), have earned him worldwide recognition. (Through March 4)

Morgan Bulkeley: Bird Story @ The Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield. Flocks of meticulously rendered owls, hawks, spoonbills, and birds of all descriptions swoop and soar across the fifteen large paintings that comprise this exhibition by Berkshire native Morgan Bulkeley.(Through March 4)

New Directions 2012 @ Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie. Juried by MASS MoCA Susan Cross, the 27th Annual National Juried Contemporary Art Exhibition featues works by 35 American artists including John Asaro, Howard Barlow, Courtland Blade, Jeff Briggs, Yvonne Buchanan, Sasha Bush, Aric Calfee, Jeannie Choe, Frank D’Astolfo, Tracy Deer, Andrew Edwards, Don Haggerty, Mark Hedengren, Liz Innvar, Gjon Izano, Shreepad Joglekar, Karen Krieger, Joan Lesikin, Harriet Livathinos, Susan Lyman, Basha Maryanska, Claudine Metrick, John Harlan Norris, Jim Pearson, Steve Rude, Manju Shandler-Estrin, William Stoehr, Brad Story, Doug Tausik, Nathan Taves, Kimberly Thurston, Tony Toscani, David Welch, Aran Winterbottom and Deborah Zlotsky. (Through March 9)

The Workers @ MASS MoCA, North Adams. An exhibition examining the state of labor today with nearly 40 works by 25 emerging and established international artists including Claire Beckett, Osman Bozkurt, Camel Collective, Mircea Cantor, Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar, Susan Collis, Vicky Funari and Sergio De La Torre, Jason Dodge, Sam Durant, Harun Farocki, Yevgeniy Fiks, Anthony Hernandez, Oded Hirsch, Hugo Hopping, Emily Jacir, Laboratorio 060 with York Chang, Mary Lum, Yoshua Okon, Adrian Paci, Jaume Pitarch, Oliver Ressler, Stephanie Rothenberg, Tyler Rowland, Allan Sekula and Santiago Sierra. (Through March 15, 2012)

Time.Space.Place @ Saratoga Arts, Saratoga Springs. A material examination of our physical, social and natural environment by installation artists Sterz, Jessica Houston, Micaela de Vivero and Claire Sherwood. (Through March 31)

Sculpture in the Streets @ various locations, downtown Albany. They’re large, they’re stainless steel and they move in the wind: five kinetic sculptures by George Rickey are gracing the streets of downtown Albany. Here’s the map. You can read Get Visual’s review here. (Through March, 2012)

Copycat: Reproducing Works of Art @ The Clark, Williamstown. Exploring the line between innovation and imitation, the exhibition features 50 prints and photographs that are both original works of art and repetitions of drawings, prints, paintings, sculptures and architecture created by other artists. The exhibition highlights the complex process of copying by studying replications of many rarely seen works from the Clark’s permanent collection, including those by Albrecht Dürer, Paul Cézanne, Eugène Delacroix, Rembrandt van Rijn, Roger Fenton and Édouard Manet, among others. (Through April 1)

Material Occupation @ UAlbany University Art Museum, Albany. An examination of the concept of Modernist abstraction as eight artists transform everyday materials such as house paint, thread, old and newly woven fabric, industrial tape and other media into poetic abstract forms. Artists include Caetano de Almeida, Sarah Crowner, Josh Faught, Elana Herzog, Marietta Hoferer, Sam Moyer, Anja Schwörer and Melissa Thorne. (Through April 7)

Pop Up! The Magical World of Moveable Books @ The Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge. From the collection of Barbara and Bernard Shapiro, this exhibition of the history and wonder of pop-up books features diverse genres, from whimsy and fantasy to the worlds of art, history and science. Published books by the Munich-based illustrator Lothar Meggandorfer (1847-1925), multi-media artist Red Grooms, and pop-up masters Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart will be on view with selected original illustrations. (Through April 22)

African Americans and the American Scene, 1929-1945 @ Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown. An exhibition exploring the role of African Americans in the visual and performing arts during the Great Depression featuring Thomas Hart Benton, Walker Evans, Robert Gwathmey, Dorothea Lange, Aaron Siskind, and Marion Post Wolcott. Artwork by African American artists Samuel Brown, Jacob Lawrence, and William H. Johnson will highlight the ways that black artists engaged with the American Scene movement. The visual art from the 30s and 40s will be paired with Barbara Morgan’s photographs of African American modern dancer Pearl Primus and artistic storyboards from the film Emperor Jones, starring Paul Robeson. (Through April 22)

Rising From the Sea: The Art of Jay Hall Connaway @ The Arkell Museum, Canajoharie. Works inspired by both the coastline of Monhegan Island and the landscape of Vermont by Impressionist painter Jay Connaway . (Through May 22, 2012)

Bryan Nash Gill: Beyond The Landscape @ Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield. Abstract sculptures, works on paper, and installations inspired by the natural world. (Through May 28)

Taking Flight: Audubon and the World of Birds @ The Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield. An exhibition that centers on John James Audubon and his passion for birds, which drove him to create The Birds of America, a revolutionary work of science and art that launched his reputation as the world’s most renowned wildlife artist (Through June 17)

Asco: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972-1987 @ Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown. The first retrospective to present the wide-ranging work of the Chicano performance and conceptual art group Asco. Walk-through of the exhibition with curators: Friday, March 2, 4:30pm. Artists reception: Friday, March 2, 5:30-7pm. Symposium: Saturday, March 3. (Through July 29)

All Those Vanished Engines @ MASS Moca, North Adams. Inspired by a text commissioned from science fiction author and local North Adams resident Paul Park, Stephen Vitiello’s sound installation in MASS MoCA’s former Boiler Plant (a cavernous early 20th-century brick and steel building that stands separate from the main galleries) reimagines the space as cover for a secret, experimental project exploring the industrial production of sound. The installation includes 20 sources of sound from multiple locations throughout the building using sound recordings from both off and on-site.

Anna Betbeze: New Work @ MASS MoCA, North Adams. Using Greek Flokati carpets as a ground for a mix of pigments that range from brilliant to muddy, Anna Betbeze creates unexpectedly textural paintings that verge on the sculptural.

Clark Remix @ The Clark, Williamstown. A salon-style installation of works from The Clark’s permanent collection, including some 80 paintings, 20 sculptures and 300 examples of decorative arts. Visitors will be able to create their own “curatorial remix” of the collection through an interactive project called uCurate, available in the gallery and on the Clark’s website and can then submit them to a gallery that will be featured at clarkart.edu. The Clark’s curatorial team will regularly review the submissions, and will select the best of these for exhibitions that will be presented at the Clark. (Through Jan. 1, 2014)

Jane Philbrick: The Expanded Field @ MASS MoCA, North Adams. An immersive 1.5-acre landscape consisting of a progressive sequence of site-specific elements, including The Asphalt Meadow, which transforms the back access road and disintegrating asphalt lots into a welcoming green space; The Rounds, made of rammed earth and dry stack stone; and The Body Pockets, planted with elfin thyme and cut into the diagonal slope of the three-tiered stonewall (formerly the foundation and retaining walls for a building razed in 2004.)