ArtBeat: What To See

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Donise English and Carmelo Midili @ Courthouse Gallery, Lake George. Encaustc paintings by Donise English and mixed media sculptures by Carmelo Midili. Opening reception: Saturday, May 12, 4-6pm. (Through June 15)

Rosemarie Schiller, Margi Weir and Ekaterina Smirnova @ Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts, Blue Mountain Lake. Sculpture by Rosemarie Schiller, watercolor paintings by Ekaterina Smirnova and installation by Margi Weir. Opens Friday, May 11. Closing reception: June 9th, 6:00 – 7:00pm (Through June 9)

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David Henderson: A Brief History of Aviation @ The Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield. A large-scale installation inspired by the complex fan vaulting of the sixteenth-century cathedral called Bath Abbey in England. (Through May 13)

African Photography For Whose Eyes? Constructing and Deconstructing Identities @ Mandeville Gallery, Schenectady. This exhibition hopes to raise questions about cultural and historical assumptions of Africa by looking closely at the work of 15 internationally-renowned contemporary African photographers, including Philip Kwame Apagya (Ghana), Yto Barrada (Morocco), Nabil Boutros (Egypt), Samuel Fosso (Camaroon), David Goldblatt (South Africa), Seydou Keïta (Mali), Boubacar Touré Mandémory (Senegal), Zwelethu Mthethwa (South Africa), Grace Ndiritu (Kenya), Obie Oberholzer (South Africa), Berni Searle (South Africa), Malick Sidibé (Mali), Djibril Sy (Senegal), Guy Tillim (South Africa) and Iké Udé, (Nigeria). Reception and performance by Senegalese drummers and dancers: Thursday, April 12, 6-7:30pm. Lecture with Iké Udé: Thursday, April 26, 5pm. (Through May 13)

Richard Edelman & Keiko Hiromi: Portraits @ Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson. Keiko Hiromi documents Jacques Cabaret, one of the oldest drag queen venues in Boston in 2007. Richard Edelman’s photographs reveal transitional moments that combine the actions of a live model with the impressions formed against high resolution pinscreens. (Through May 13)

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Emerging Artists 2012 @ Limner Gallery, Hudson. Works by 25 contemporary artists selected from an international call for entries.(Through May 19)

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. (Through May 20)

Autistic’s Card @ John Davis Gallery, Hudson. Recent paintings by Ben La Rocco. (Through May 20)

Susanna Briselli: Still-Life Photo-Paintings @ Galerie BMG, Woodstock. Silver gelatin (black and white) photographic prints on fiber paper with additional materials of artist’s oils, stains, and graphite painted or drawn over them. (Through May 21)

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)

Harry Orlyk: Late Light Leaving @ Clement Art Gallery, Troy. For almost four decades, noted painter Harry Orlyk has documented the landscape, particularly American farmland, though constant observation. (Through May 23)

*Dial-Up/Making New Connection* @ Salem Art Works, Salem. A solo exhibition of works by Patrick Mohundro that incorporate tightly rendered drawings and paintings coupled with soundscapes which invite the viewer to meditate on the overarching effects of the internet on our daily lives, from commerce to popular culture. (Through May 25)

Cryptoecology + Transcendence @ SCAC Arts Center, Saratoga Springs. Sculptor Ruth Standford’s Cryptoecology presents imagined ecological scenarios, while Kimberly Witham’s images in Transcendence are inspired by Victorian post mortem photographs. Artist dicussion: Saturday, April 14, 5pm. Opening reception: Saturday, April 14, 6-8pm. (Through May 26)

Photography: New Work @ Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson. Works by David Halliday, Birgit Blyth, Kim McLean, Anna Collette, Kahn & Selesnick, Lisa Frank, David Seiler, Lependorf & Shire, David Lebe, Melinda McDaniel and Jeri Eisenberg. (Through May 27)

Connections + Language + Magic @ Kingston Museum of Contemporary Arts, Kingston. An exhibition of works by three artists – Dennis Connors, Michael Lalicki, and Sarah Greer Mecklem – who share a penchant for found objects, recycled materials, and turning things that most people would discard into works of art.(Through May 27)

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

Brooklyn Accents @ North Adams Artists’ Co-op Gallery, North Adams. Two Brooklyn-born artists who have made this area their home: photographer Robert Colantuono is presenting a collection of landscapes, both literal and abstracted. Ceramist Marie DeVito’s geometric platters aim to capture the mood portrayed by Colantuono’s photographic images. (Through May 28)

Everett Raymond Kinstler: Illustrations and Portraits @ The Norman Rockwell Museum. Original illustrations and portraits of celebrities including John Wayne, Katherine Hepburn, Tony Bennett, Tom Wolfe, James Montgomery Flagg, Alexander Calder, and Will Barnet. (Through May 28)

New World – Individuals @ Albany Beahive, Albany. George Guarino presents a one-day exhibition of recent artwork from his “New World – Individuals” series along with a specially produced Art-Hypnosis piece to be exhibited in the backroom. Based upon a model of the mind that depicts the subconscious in the center as re-constructed maps of familiar territory, the viewer is confronted with a mission to travel a new route from the familar to the possibilities that exist in new creation. (Through May 30)

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)

Wall Street to Main Street @ Main Street, Catskill. Occupying two blocks of Main Street in Catskill, vacant storefronts come alive with over 50 visual art and design exhibits, performances, workshops and panel discussions scheduled through May 31. A few highlights include Canadian graffiti artist Joel Richardson’s outdoor stenciling workshop using his own collection of copyright free images and symbols; Salt Lake City artist Jorge Rojas’ Low Lives Occupy!, a recorded series of choreography, music and artists’ performances projected at night; and an augmented reality app for smart phones and tablets, developed by Mark Skwarek’s NYU students, enabling one to view an opening day guided tour of Main Street. (Through May 31)

In Line @ The Foundry For Art Design + Culture, Cohoes. An exhibition of work by three New England artists working in fiber, drawing, painting and installation. Sarah Baldwin, Kendra Skalski and Brian DeRosia abstractly explore the connection between body and environment, personal histories and the act of making through the use of line, pattern, texture and scale. (Through June 1)

Transmittal: The Airwaves as a Creative Medium @ GCCA Catskill Gallery, Catskill. An exhibition celebrating the interdisciplinary nature of transmission arts in video, sound, installation, performance and works-on-paper. Artists include Brett Ian Balough, Max Goldfarb, Maria Papadomanolaki, Sam Sebren and Phillip Stearns, with listening stations from Radio Arts Space and Radio Boredcast. (Through June 2)

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. (Through June 3)

Stanley Whitney: Six Paintings @ Art OMI, Ghent. Geometric forms, both formal and playful on exhibit at The Charles B. Benenson Visitors Center and Gallery. (Through June 3)

Mohawk Hudson Regional Invitational @ Albany Center Gallery, Albany. An exhibition showcasing the work of three participants of past Mohawk-Hudson Regional exhibits. Renee Iacone’s heavily textured ceramic sculptures are evocative of figures and ancient weapons. Nancy Van Deren’s abstract paintings are inspired by landscapes and the Color Field movement and offer unique and playful takes on color, form, and composition. Lynn Schwarzer’s large mural-like, monochromatic drawings bring to mind biology and evolution and are inspired by such issues as the politics of display and communication technology. (Through June 9)

Facing Change: Documenting America @ The Sanctuary for Independent Media, Troy. Facing Change a non-profit collective of writers and photojournalists that aims to pay tribute to and continue the work started by the Depression-era photojournalists, has enlisted artists – including two Pulitzer Prize-winning photographers – to record America’s current struggles. Photographers include David Burnett, Alan Chin, Debbie Fleming Caffery, Danny Wilcox Frazier, Stanley Greene, Brenda Ann Kenneally, Andrew Lichtenstein, Carlos Javier Ortiz, Lucian Perkins and Anthony Suau. (Through June 16)

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)

Micromorphic @ Kleinert/James Center for the Arts, Woodstock. An exhibition focusing on biomorphic forms, including works by Jen Bradford, Jodi Colella, Laura Gurton, Constance Jacobson, Karen Kamenetzky and Susan Spencer Crowe. (Through June 17)

Mark Adams and Beth Van Hoesen: Life Observed Up-Close @ Arkell Museum, Canajoharie. Mark Adams’ large prints present single objects — a glass jar, cigar box or martini glass — at a size much bigger than real life. Beth Van Hoesen’s attention is more often focused on nature rather than manufactured or handmade objects. (Through June 24)

Surface Tension @ Center for Photography at Woodstock. Photo-based works by 10 artists who establish new languages within photography wherein our notions of the “photographic” are challenged and expanded. Artists include: Marisa Baumgartner, Matthew Brandt, Christopher Colville, Megan Flaherty, Joseph Heidecker, Mark Lyon, Aspen Mays, Klea McKenna, Alison Rossiter, Paul Mpagi Sepuya and Brea Souders. (Through June 24)

M . . M . . M . . . . OIL! @ Time + Space, Hudson. An installation by Linda Mussmann, inspired by Melville’s “Moby Dick” and the world’s obsession with oil, and dedicated to Ken Saro-Wiwa, a prominent Nigerian journalist and activist. The TSL gallery has been painted an inky-sea blue and acts as a chalkboard for Mussmann’s drawings and text, with the muted lighting gives a feeling of underwater shadows and mystery. The images of an albino sperm whale, a 19th century woman, an Shell oil logo; and Ken Saro-Wiwa, to name a few, weave a story about our search for oil and some of its consequences. (Through June 30)

A Shakespeare Accelerator: Experiments in Kinetic Language @ EMPAC, Troy. In this work-in-development for a permanent installation that will open at the Public Theater in New York later this year, New York City-based media artist Ben Rubin transforms EMPAC’s public interior into a laboratory of words and motion, projecting glowing white text from Shakespeare’s complete dramatic works onto walls, walkways, and other surfaces. (Through July 28)

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. (Through July 29)

Great, Strange, and Rarely Seen @ Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany. As the title suggests, this exhibition showcases rarely displayed and wildly disparate items as Chinese lacquer, Japanese netsuke, eighteenth-century English porcelain statuettes, patent models, human hair jewelry, unusual clocks, a chronology of mirrors, women’s dresses, British and American pianos and folding fans. (Through August 26)

Jennifer + Kevin McCoy: Index @ EMPAC, Troy. An EMPAC-commissioned public art installation by Rensselaer Arts alumni Jennifer and Kevin McCoy consisting of multiple sculptures filmed via small, live cameras. Inspired by a J.G. Ballard short story called The Index, the resulting video projection, as well as the models, will appear throughout EMPAC’s public spaces during an extended residency with the artists. (Through September 29)

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.) Open seasonally May through October.

All Utopias Fell @ MASS MoCA, North Adams. Michael Oatman’s ambitious vision re-purposes an Airstream trailer into a crashed satellite, complete with parachutes and solar panels.(Through October)

All Those Vanished Engines @ MASS MoCA, North Adams. A layered sound installation by sound artist Stephen Vitiello created especially for the MASS MoCA boiler house, a relic from the industrial past of the site that was once used to heat the factory buildings that now make up the museum. (Through November 4)

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)

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. (Through January 1, 2013)

Making Room: The Space Between Two & Three Dimension @ MASS MoCA, North Adams. Works by an international group of artists who combine two- and three-dimensional media in a single work using a marriage of new technology with more hand-crafted or out-of-date processes. By using traditional or analog media, these artists reflect a shared yearning for deceleration in the digital age and nostalgia for simpler technologies. Artists include Daniel Arsham and Jonah Bokaer, Dawn Clements, Inci Eviner, Claire Harvey, Laleh Khorramian, Kakyoung Lee, Chloë Østmo, Laura Riboli, and Luke Stettner.(Through January 2, 2013)

Invisible Cities @ MASS MoCA, North Adams. Titled after Italo Calvino’s beloved book – which imagines Marco Polo’s vivid descriptions of numerous cities of a fading empire to Kublai Khan – the exhibition features the work of ten diverse artists who re-imagine urban landscapes both familiar and fantastical, exploring how our perceptions of place are shaped by personal influences as diverse as memory, desire, and loss, as well as by cultural forces such as history and the media. The show includes work by Lee Bul, Carlos Garaicoa, and Sopheap Pich, as well as major new commissions by Diana Al Hadid, Francesco Simeti, Miha Strukelj, and local artists Kim Faler and Mary Lum. (Through March 1, 2013)