ArtBeat: What To See

What a weekend for art lovers! Tonight, DownStreet Art takes over North Adams. Tomorrow is Troy Night Out in downtown Troy and this weekend NADA Hudson and The Hudson Independent Artists Trail take over all of downtown Hudson.

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DownStreet Art @ Downtown North Adams. It’s the last Thursday of the month, which means it’s time for DownStreet Art, the North Adams arts walk featuring a host of exhibit openings, performances, happenings and businesses open late with DownStreet Art specials. Consult the map and start wandering, or grab seat on the Art Trolley. Here’s just some of the highlights:

MCLA Gallery 51 is presenting “Meet Me in the Middle of the Air,” a solo exhibition of new work by local artist Sean Riley that feature paintings, drawings, and works constructed from fabric. Riley’s recent work derives from a project he embarked on in response to the 2008 loss of his father in which he created a quilt from his father’s clothes. Riley’s ultimate goal with the project is to eventually use his father’s entire wardrobe to create an extensive body of work. (Through August 26)

The Jarvis Rockwell Gallery will open “The Toy as Art,” an exhibit brings together the work of both local and regional “custom” toy makers. Artists on view: Bob Conge, Bryan Collins, Danielle Christensen, C. Ryder Cooley, Jason Martinez, Sarah Martinez, and Todd Robertson, among others.

studio21south opens “Black and White (more or less)” featuring paintings, drawings, and prints in generally, if not exclusively, a monotone mood, including woodblock prints and engravings by Frank Curran, a series of charcoal streetscape drawings by Bob Lafond and an installation of 150 drawings by Karen Walter. Urban nocturnes and other paintings by Thor Wickstrom will also be on view.

The Hudson Independent Artists Trail takes over downtown Hudson this weekend with a self-guided tour of artist open studios, pop-up galleries and more. At Henry Hudson Studios, there’ll be a communal installation by Hudson-area artists and a large group exhibition of artworks, as well as a performance by Brian Dewan on Saturday at 7pm.

Also on tap: NADA Hudson @ Basilica Hudson. A site-specific showcase of contemporary sculpture, installation and video featuring 48 artist projects in and around the Basilica.

And if that’s not enough, the inaugural exhibition for CR10, a new gallery and performance space in Linlithgo, opens with a reception on Saturday, July 28 from 4-6pm with an exhibition featuring a dozen visual artists as well as readings by novelist Maggie Estep and memoirist Richard Boch and a performance by New York City underground-rock duo Aliens.

Laura Von Roak: Antartica @ Clement Gallery, Troy. An exhibition of new work from a series depicting interpretations of the Antarctic landscape by painter Laura Von Roak, who travelled to Antarctica last fall to assist biologist Dr. Sam Bowser and his research team. Opening reception: Friday, July 27, 6-9pm as part of Troy Night Out. (Through August 29)

Hudson Light and Electric @ J Damiani Gallery, Hudson. Photographer Joan Damiani explores the tonal contrasts of sunlight and twilight on the natural character of the city of Hudson. Opening reception: Saturday, July 28, 5-8pm. (Through August 31)

Fence Select and Playland @ The Arts Center, Troy. The artwork in the Fence Select exhibition has been chosen by juror Jim Richard Wilson from the 511 works exhibited in the recent Fence Salon. Playland is a solo exhibition by collagist Niki Haynes, the recipient of the 2011 Fence Salon President’s Award, in which she explores human nature through themes of consumerism, cultural boundaries, and gender roles. Opening reception: Friday, July 27, 5-9pm as part of Troy Night Out. (Through August 31)

Esoteric Kitsch, Part II @ Limner Gallery, Hudson. Oil paintings by Hawk Alfredson. Opening reception: Saturday, July 28, 5-7pm. (Through August 26)

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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)

Dreamscape @ Saratoga Arts Center, Saratoga Springs. Surreal and fantastic works of the unconscious by Jake Messing, Charles Steckler and Daniel Brody. (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)

Lawyers Guns & Photos @ The Fountry For Art Design + Culture, Cohoes. Author and photographer George Gruel will be on hand for a book signing of Lawyers Guns & Photos and displaying his photographs of his adventures with Warren Zevon. (Through July 29)

Zea Mays Printmaking: An Exhibition Series @ Ferrin Gallery, Pittsfield. The third annual exhibition series featuring prints by member artists of Zea Mays Printmaking. Also on view: Stone Flowers, wood-fired studio pottery by Sam Taylor. (Through July 29)

Nadine Boughton and Fran Forman @ Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson. Two artists working in photo collage: Nadine Boughton’s “True Adventures in Better Homes” juxtoposes images from 1950’s and early 1960’s issues of men’s adventure magazines and Better Homes and Gardens, while Fran Forman’s dreamlike and surreal “The Alchemy of Memory” merges photography with painting. Also on view: portfolios by Suzanne Gonsalez-Smith and Julie Brook Alexander.(Through July 29)

Charcoal and Stone @ Good Purpose Gallery, Lee. Studies in light and shadow with works in charcoal by Kayla Corby and carved stone sculptures by Myrna Lieb Citron. Also on view in the annex are drawings and paintings by Judith Koppel. (Through July 30)

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Commissioned works by Tom Patti @ The Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield. Site-specific artworks in glass by Pittsfield native Tom Patti. Also on view: “Echoes in Space,” featuring ideas, inspirations and maquettes that were part of the creative process for the commissioned works.

SoHo Artists @ The Laffer Gallery, Schuylerville. The gallery’s inaugural exhibit features a group show by Tracy Silva Barbosa, Guillermo Barreto, Erik Laffer and Yuta Ishino. (Through August 7)

Covet @ Sienna Patti Contemporary, Lenox. A group exhibition with contemporary artists inspired by museum collections and conversations about content, context, social history and patronage. Artists include: Suzanne Beautyman, Melanie Bilenker, Helen Britton, Doug Bucci, Lauren Fensterstock, Warwick Freeman, Caroline Gore, Benjamin Lignel, Iris Niewenburg, Emiko Oye, Seth Papac,, Aaron Stephans, Jennifer Trask, Tanel Veenre, Jonathan Wahl, Francis Willemstijn and Bill Wright. (Through August 8)

WAY UP State @ Courthouse Gallery, Lake George. A group exhibition of emerging and established artists working in northern New York, including Dave Beck, Ken Brzozowski, Alexis Grabowski, Clea Hall, Deb Hall, Liz Howe, David Kvam, Martin Myers, Liz Parsons, David Powell, Lara Sorensen, Nicholas Warner, John Whipple and Vincent Woolley. (Through August 10)

State of Flux @ Laphan Gallery, Glens Falls. Installations by David Mazure and paintings by Elizabeth Snipes. (Through August 10)

Works by Louise Fishman @ John Davis Gallery, Hudson. Recent paintings, drawings and prints by Louise Fishman in the main galleries. Also on display in the Sculpture Garden and the Carriage House are works by Leonid Lerman, Linnea Paskow, Priscilla Derven, Brenda Goodman and Lisa Sanders. (Through August 12)

Pop Art: New Drawings and Paintings by Geoffrey Moss @ Lauren Clark Fine Art, Housatonic. A tribute to that all-American icon, The Popsicle, in all flavors and conditions. (Through August 13)

Angela Bacon-Kidwell: Traces of Existence @ Galerie BMG, Woodstock. A solo exhibition of intensely personal, abstract works featuring a complex layering of hand painted photographs, drawings and resin to create each image. (Through August 20)

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)

COVET: Art + Objects @ Ferrin Gallery, Pittsfield.An exhibition of homage: curators Leslie Ferrin and Sienna Patti invited artists to visit museums, talk to curators, and find inspiration, and then to riff on the works that inspired them. (Through September 2)

Five @ Greylock Arts, Adams. A large, eclectic group exhibition to celebrate the center’s fifth anniversary. (Through September 2)

Doubles, Dualities and Doppelgangers @ The Center for Photography at Woodstock. “People Photographing Twins” focuses on photographs of twins featuring works by Roger Ballen, Janette Beckman, Elinor Carucci, Annabel Clark, Jodi Cobb, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Rineke Dijkstra, Mike Disfarmer, Louis Faurer, Charles Harshberger, Mary Ellen Mark, Martin Schoeller and Hiroshi Watanabe. “Twins Photographing Twins” features photographs created by and of twins and features works by Eileen Cowin, Lynn Geesaman, Colleen Kenyon, Kathleen Kenyon, Christa Parravani and Carrie Will. “Twinning: Dualities as Metaphor” presents works in which the concept of “twinning” is used for the purpose of metaphysical and psychological explorations. Featured here are works by Kelli Connell, Cornelia Hediger, Sarah Moon, and Ruud van Empel. (Through September 9)

Also on view: Through Shên-kan: Sterling Clark in China, an exhibition of original equipment and artifacts used during Sterling Clark’s 1908-9 expedition to northern China as well as historical documents, photographs and samples of specimens collected by the naturalists who were a part of the expedition. Also, Then & Now: Photographs of Northern China, a presentation of historical photographs from Sterling Clark’s 1908-9 expedition, complemented by photographs of the same scenes captured by Chinese photographer Li Ju 100 years later. (Through September 16)

The BIG Picture: Berkshire Museum Camera Club 75th Anniversary Exhibition @ The Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield. An exhibition of large-scale photographs, covering a wide range of topics and techniques, by members of the Berkshire Museum Camera Club to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the club. (Through September 16)

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)

Unearthed: Recent Archaeological Discoveries from Northern China @ The Clark, Williamstown. A selection of antiquities recently excavated from three separate ancient tombs in the Shanxi and Gansu Provinces. The centerpiece of this exhibition is a monumental fifth-century stone sarcophagus in the form of a traditional Chinese house measuring nearly 8 ft. x 12 ft. and weighing more than 10 tons. (Through October 21)

A Promising Venture: Shaker Photographs from the WPA @ Hancock Shaker Village, Pittsfield. Nearly 200 black and white photographs taken by Noel Vicentini in 1936 to document Shaker furniture, architecture and craft for a Works Progress Administration project of cataloging important American art. (Through October 26)

Sports! A Rockwell Celebration @ The Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge. Though not necessarily a sportsman himself, Norman Rockwell was frequently called upon to create images celebrating our national love of athletics, from baseball, the Great American Pastime, to football, fishing, basketball, boxing and bicycle-riding.(Through October 28)

Howard Pyle: American Master Rediscovered @ The Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge. Paintings, drawings, prints, and archival materials make up this first comprehensive, critical assessment of the influential artist who is often referred to as the grandfather of American illustration. (Through October 28)

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)

Liz Whitney Quisgard: Kaleidoscope @ The Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield. In this exhibition featuring paintings, sculptures and fiber wall hangings, Liz Whitney Quisgard uses an exuberant palette to produce intricate geometric patterns comprised of marks placed in a mesmerizing array of triangles, spirals, lines and circles. (Through October 21)

Power Runs in Man Channels: Diversity in Nigerian Art @ Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown. An exhibition that highlight the artistry of the Igbo and Yoruba people, the most populous ethnic groups whose artwork is widely collected by American museums, as well as artworks by smaller, less well-known cultures such as the Mumuye and Jukun peoples. (Through October 21)

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)

Terry Adkins: Recital @ The Tang Teaching Museum and Gallery, Saratoga Springs. a selection of work from the past thirty years by artist and musician Terry Adkins, who stages installation-based experiences that activate architecture, sculpture, video and photography with live happenings. Also on view is Dance/Draw, a large group show that examines the blurring of formal distintions between media. (Through December 2)

The Fields Sculpture Park Annual Exhibition Opening @ Art Omi, Ghent. Ten new works by noted artists join the nearly 70 contemporary sculptures on view throughout the sculpture park.

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)

Rethink! American Indian Art @ The Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield. Contemporary works in a range of media and techniques, from video installations, contemporary basketry, and beadwork to ceramics, sculpture, and glass, by accomplished artists Marcus Amerman, Jeremy Frey, Teri Greeves, Diego Romero, Preston Singletary and Bently Spang. The exhibition also will include historic Native American art objects from Berkshire Museum’s permanent collections. (Through January 6, 2012)

Seneca Ray Stoddard: Capturing the Adirondacks @ The New York State Museum, Albany. Works by Adirondack photographer and conservationist Seneca Ray Stoddard, who was instrumental in the establishment of the “forever wild” Adirondack Park, including over 100 of his photographs, an Adirondack guideboat, freight boat, camera, copies of his books and several of his paintings. (Through February 24, 2012)

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)

Oh, Canada @ MASS MoCA, North Adams. The largest survey of contemporary Canadian art ever produced outside Canada, this show features work by more than 60 artists who hail from every province and nearly every territory in the country, spanning multiple generations and working in all media. (Through April 1, 2013)