ArtBeat: What To See

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I Am (Richard Nixon) @ The Center for Photography at Woodstock. In this site specific installation incorporating five videos produced over the past 6 years, Adie Russell inhabits iconic male figures from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s including Richard Alpert, Ingmar Bergman, Jack Kerouac, Richard Nixon and, in her most recent video, Marlon Brando. Lip-synching to recordings that have been extracted from radio and television interviews before ethereal backgrounds, Russell’s uncanny performances cumulatively address the topics of creative process, perception and reality. Opening reception and artist talk: Saturday, January 12, 4-6pm with an artist’s talk at 5pm. (Through March 31)

The Web Is A Lonely Place, Come Play @ The Center for Photography at Woodstock. Five artists who produce work within or through the radically democratized “free space” of the web. Through video, performance, photo-based imagery, interactive installation and animations, each artist explores the internet as both seductive virtual playground and subversive artistic studio. Artists: Christopher Baker, Petra Cortright, Jon Rafman, Rafaël Rozendaal, and Kate Steciw. Opening reception: Saturday, January 12, 4-6pm. (Through March 31)

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Upstate Artists 2012 Group Show @ The Laffer Gallery, Schulyerville. Works by over 20 local artists, curated by Elizabeth Dubben, former owner of the Amrose Sable Gallery in Albany and current Director of Exhibitions at Saratoga Arts in Saratoga. Featured artists include Ann Francey, Charles Bremer, Cheryl Horning, Chris DeMarco, David Aimone, Deborah Zlotsky, Donna Whiting Orlyk, Jenny Hutchinson, Jim Flosdorf, John Hampshire, Jon Gernon, Jon Segan, Laura Provo-Parker, Mary Ellen Riell, Matt Horner, Nick Patten, Peter Leue, Randi Kish, Robert Gullie, Russell Serrianne, Sandra Miller and Terry Conrad. (Through January 20)

1937: A New Deal For Artists @ The New York State Museum, Albany. During the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised a “new deal for the American people,” initiating government programs to foster economic recovery. Roosevelt’s pledge to help “the forgotten man” also embraced America’s artists. The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) enlisted artists to capture “the American Scene” in works of art that would embellish public buildings across the country. They painted regional, recognizable subjects – ranging from portraits, to cityscapes and images of city life, to landscapes and depictions of rural life – that reminded the public of quintessential American values such as hard work, community and optimism. (Through January 20)

Sculpture @ Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson. A rare show focusing on the three-dimensional, with works by Stephen Walling, Linda Cross, Roger Phillips, Birgit Blyth, Joseph Maresca, and Amy Podmore. (Through January 20)

Abraham Ferraro: Which Way @ Collar Works, Troy. An exhibit that features Directions, an ongoing, ever growing series of mailable sculptures complete with mailing address, postage, shipping labels and installation directions on them. Every time the Directions piece is shown, new pieces are added and mailed individually to the new venue while the older Directions are delivered by the artist. The process is evident and traceable by the viewer to the extent that they may figure out exactly when and where the piece traveled. The work is not only about how Art gets from A to B, but also about the conceptual process that takes place in Art as ideas or bodies of work change over time. (Through January 25)

Sarah Peters: Utopians @ John Davis Gallery, Hudson. Portraits of American idealists, zealots and visionaries, from early colonists to followers of spiritual movements and separatist sects in twentieth century America. The portraits depict extremists who created new utopias that were distant relations to an imagined pure past. (Through January 27)

Elasticity and Metonymy @ Martinez Gallery, Troy. A one-person exhibition of recent work by sculptor and printmaker Gay Malin. (Through February 1)

From Giverny to the Brooklyn Bridge: American Impressionist Paintings from the Arkell Collections @ The Arkell Museum, Canajoharie. Sun-dappled views of France and America by Childe Hassam, John Twachtman, Theodore Robinson, J. Alden Weir, and Edward Redfield are among the notable paintings in this exhibition. (Through February 2, 2013)

PhotoEncaustics @ Galerie BMG, Woodstock. Works of fine art photography combined with the encaustic process featuring Leah Macdonald’s sensuous narratives of women, Rita Bernstein’s dream-like explorations of the complex mysteries of the human psyche, botanical compositions by Christa Kreeger Bowden, portraits by Hope Kahn and photomontage landscapes by Kara Taylor. (Through February 11)

Mary Pat Wager @ Sand Lake Center For the Arts, Averill Park. Assemblages of of metal, wood, clay and found objects. (Through February 15)

New York’s Goodwill Moon Rock @ The New York State Museum, Albany. Fragments of moon rock brought back to Earth by Apollo 17. In 1973, President Richard Nixon had fragments of the moon rock sent to all 50 U.S. states and provinces, as well as 135 foreign heads of state; these became known as the Goodwill moon rocks. Some of them are now missing, but New York’s go on display on Wednesday, December 19. (Through February 17)

Heroes & Villains: The Comic Book Art of Alex Ross @ The Norman Rockwell Museum, Pittsfield. The first museum exhibition celebrating the artwork of Alex Ross features over 130 paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures from Ross’s personal collection. The pieces range from a crayon drawing of Spider-Man that he created at the age of four to paintings from his early career on projects like Marvels and Kingdom Come through to his more recent work on Flash Gordon and Green Hornet. This exhibition outlines Ross’s career of redefining comic books and graphic novels for a new generation of followers of Superman, Batman, Spider-Man and other classic comic book superheroes. (Through February 24)

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)

Four Seasons @ Studio 21South, North Adams. Landscapes by gallery artists, with the artwork rotating throughout the winter. (Through February 28)

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)

Art or Evidence: The Power of Photojournalism @ Mandeville Gallery, Schenectady. Works by Jocelyn Bain Hogg, Stefano De Luigi, Jessica Dimmock, Adam Ferguson, Ashley Gilbertson, Ron Haviv, Ed Kashi, Davide Monteleone, Christopher Morris, Seamus Murphy, Franco Pagetti, Gilles Peress, Anastasia Taylor-Lind and Tomas van Houtryve. Reception: Thursday, February 7, 5-7pm. (Through March 10)

Wink: Pairings From Berkshire Museum’s Collection @ Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield. Guest artist Maggie Mailer has organized an exhibition that features pairs of paintings, photography, and prints from the Berkshire Museum’s permanent collection. (Through March 31)

Lions and Tigers and Museums, Oh My! @ Kidspace @ The Clark. Inspired by Peter Paul Rubens’s enormous painting Tiger, Lion, and Leopard Hunt, visitors will explore many questions: Who will be victorious? Could this animal hunt really have happened – and did it? What events or personalities caused Rubens to paint this picture? What problems did Rubens encounter when painting such a big picture so very long ago? This exhibition will include a number of hands-on activities. (Through March 31)

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)

We The People @ The Tang Teaching Gallery, Saratoga Springs. An exhibition and event series that explores constitutions and how they act to create order, configure communities, and form a collective identity featuring Allison Smith, Francis Cape, and Nari Ward. (Through April 7)

Xu Bing: Phoenix @ MASS MoCA, North Adams. Drawing inspiration from the contemporary realities of his fast-changing country, Chinese artist Xu Bing spent two years creating his newest work, featuring two monumental birds fabricated entirely from materials harvested from construction sites in urban China, including demolition debris, steel beams, tools, and remnants of the daily lives of migrant laborers. At once fierce and strangely beautiful, the mythic Phoenixes bear witness to the complex interconnection between labor, history, commercial development, and the rapid accumulation of wealth in today’s China.

Backstories @ The Clark, Williamstown. Works of art can lead a double life; often, one side is revealed to the public while the other – the back – remains forever hidden from view. In this exhibition, more than thirty masterworks from the Clark’s permanent collection (including two-dimensional works, such as paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs) will be displayed on pedestals so that viewers can walk around them. Seen this way, the works of art tell their little-known “backstories” and reveal the ways they were made, the way they have been cared for by collectors, and the many changes they have survived. Using “the back” as an artistic theme, the exhibition will also present pictures in which artists portray the human back. (Through April 21)

Skyline Adrift: Cuban Art and Architecture @ Omi International Arts Center, Ghent.
Large-scale architectonic installations by Cuban architects Yilena Lourdes Feitó Echarri and Yoandy Rizo Fiallo and internationally renowned Cuban visual artists Alexandre Arrechea and Armando Mariño Calzado. (Through May)

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)