ArtBeat: What To See

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TSL: The First 40 Years @ Time + Space, Hudson. A celebration of 40 years of boundary-pushing at the landmark gallery/theatre/performance space, this benefit is an important fundraising event as all ticket purchases ($40 each), contributions and sponsorships help TSL continue to provide the exceptional and innovative programming for which it is known. [Note: sponsorships are available for those, especially with families, who normally could not afford to attend this event; see details on their website.] Saturday, April 20, 6:30-9pm. Tickets: $40

Color Theory and Urban @ Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson. “Color Theory” is a series of color study paintings by Paul Schuchman, a self-taught artist living in Hudson. Several years ago he retired as a cataloguer at the Frick Art Reference Library in New York and now devotes his time to painting and the study of the aesthetics of color and design. His color panels are carefully rendered bands of color outlined in contrasting narrower bands of color based on Josef Albers’ color theory.

“Urban” is a group photography exhibit featuring work by Kim McLean, Art Murphy, Elliott Kaufman, Laura Resen, Martin Rich, Peter Liepke and Harry Wilks. These seven photographers offer distinctly different urban views—romantic, abstracted, reflected, repetitive, even “re-imagined” cities. Artist reception: Saturday, April 20, 6-8pm. (Through May 26)

The Sketchbook Project @ Upstate Artists Guild, Albany. The Sketchbook Project is an interactive art exhibition on wheels, and its 36 foot van/art extravaganza trailer will be parked in the lot next to UAG for the afternoon and evening of April 19. Beginning at 4pm, participants of all ages are welcome to sign up and receive a blank sketchbook, which they can fill out in any way they choose, loosely based on assigned themes. The books then come back to the Sketchbook Project and are cataloged in The Brooklyn Art Library, the Project’s reading room and retail space in the heart of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. (One day only: Saturday, April 19, 4-10pm.)

Swissted @ Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy. Swissted is an ongoing project by graphic designer (and Troy native) Mike Joyce, owner of Stereotype Design in New York City. Drawing from his love of punk rock and Swiss modernism, two movements that have almost nothing to do with one another, Mike has redesigned vintage punk, hardcore, new wave, goth, grunge, and indie rock show flyers into International Typographic Style posters. Reception and book signing: Thursday, April 18, 6:30-8:30pm (Through April 21)

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Making Tracks @ BCB Art, Hudson. Abstract paintings, prints, and drawings by Dan Welden, inspired by tracks in the landscape etched by nature, animals or man. Welden is also the author of Printmaking in the Sun, a book that describes Solarplate, an innovative, eco-friendly, acid-free etching technique he invented. Also on view are works by gallery artists Jef Bourgeau, Jim Goss, Lucio Pozzi, Fred Scruton and others. (Through April 21)

Spring Awakening @ North Country Arts Center, Chestertown. A group show of paintings, drawings, sculpture, fiber art, photography, woodworking, cards and jewelry by emerging artists and artisans in the southeastern Adirondack region. (Through April 27)

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)

Stories and Journeys: The Art of Faith Ringgold and Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson @ The Opalka Gallery, Albany. Integrating the materials and visual language from their African-American heritage with those from the Western tradition, each of these extraordinary artists tell stories which inspire, educate, commemorate and preserve memories both individual and collective. Opens January 22. Reception: Friday, February 1, 5-9pm with a story tour at 7pm. (Through April 21)

Electric Paris @ The Clark, Williamstown. An exhibition that explores the ways in which artists depicted older oil and gas lamps and the newer electric lighting that emerged around the turn of the twentieth century. Paintings and prints in both high art and popular culture demonstrate that the systems of lighting, rather than the abstract idea of light itself, played a key role in defining Paris as a modern city. (Through April 21)

OTHER HUDSON Chapter One @ MCLA Gallery 51, North Adams. An exhibit that focuses on psycho-geographic themes in the New York Hudson Valley through the artwork of four distinctive regional artists: Jen P. Harris (prints), John Cooley (assemblages), Claudia McNulty (paintings) and Jack Millard (paintings). Closing reception: Sunday April 21, 5-6pm (Through April 21)

Erin Walrath: In Formation @ John Davis Gallery, Hudson. Assemblages of found objects by Erin Walrath. (Through April 21)

AntARTica: Exploring Art & Science at the Bottom of the World @ Tanner Pond Community Center, North Creek. An exhibit that examines how artists and scientists can inspire each other and collaborate on projects that enhance their ideas and practices, featuring Laura Von Rosk’s landscape paintings and Sam Bowser’s watercolor paintings of Foraminifera as well as video work from two other team members: documentary filmmaker Hilary Hudson and musician Henry Kaiser. (Through April 24)

Beautifully Strange @ Clement Art Gallery, Troy. Twelve artists whose work embodies the unusual, surreal and peculiar: Carrie Ann Baade, Lori Field, Jon Christopher Gernon, Robert Gullie. Steven Hazard, Steven Kenny, Caitlin Hackett, Sara Petruziello, Richard Kirk, Cheryl Anne Lorance, Robert Jon Robison and Benjamin Vierling. (Through April 24)

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Louisiana Sampler @ Collar Works Gallery, Troy. Works by four Louisianna artists currently living and working in New Orleans amidst the post-Katrina resurgence: Kyle Bravo, Rachel Avena Brown, Brooke Pickett and Jonathan Traviesa. (Through April 26)

Diametric Visions @ Limner Gallery, Hudson. A large group show of emerging artists. (Through April 28)

The HIGHLOW Project: An Exhibition About Redemption @ The Chapel + Cultural Center, Troy. Photographer Ned Castle partnered with at-risk youth from across Vermont to dramatically recreate the high and low moments that have shaped their lives. The large-scale photographs are accompanied by audio narrations by each story’s subject to provide context and perspective. (Through April 30)

Slow Down Make Space @ Thompson Giroux Gallery, Chatham. An exhibiton centered on the theme of connecting to the world around us, featuring six artists (Frank Curran, Monica Miller, Joanne Orce, Gabrielle Senza, Christie Scheele and Joseph Yetto) whose connectedness to place reveals a simple awareness and deep understanding of their own environments. (Through May 5)

Nuclear Cafe @ Foundry for Art Design + Culture, Cohoes. Works from Nuclear Café, an arts collective comprised of Denis Routheir, Hirokazu Fukawa and Kimberly Counes. (Through May 5)

Mike Willig @ Second Floor Gallery, Glens Falls. Portrait paintings and sculptures in bronze and plaster by Mike Willig. (Through April 30)

Istvan Banyai: Stranger in a Strange Land @ Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge.
Part of the museum’s Distinguished Illustrator Series, an exhibit of works by the Hungarian-born artist whose illustrations have appeared on the covers and pages of The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, The New York Times and many others. (Through May 5)

Bits and Pieces @ LARAC, Glens Falls. Featured Artists: Carey Conaway (mixed media); Diane Golden (assemblage); Gammy Miller (mixed media); Rebecca Mushtare (mixed media / installation). (Through May 10)

Bats: Creatures of the Night @ The Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield. A rich array of video, photography, life-like models and interactive stations, all relating the story of the only mammal that flies. (Through May 12)

Eugene Ludins: An American Fantasist @ The New York State Museum, Albany. An exhibition exploring the life and work of the noted Woodstock painter of realist and fantastical landscapes, provocative political allegories and insightful portraits. (Through May 12)

Harry Orlyk @ The Laffer Gallery, Schuylerville. New works from the noted local landscape artist. (Through May 12)

Stephen DiRado and Bob Avakian @ Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson. For the past year, Bob Avakian of Martha’s Vineyard has been photographing the natural landscape at night and at the break of dawn. At night he use long exposures, which make it possible to turn a night scene into a day scene. In the early daylight hours, by underexposing, it is possible to turn day to night. Stephen DiRado’s Celestial series is comprised of photographs of the heavens with exposures of 30 seconds or less to maintain the sense of the visual eye where stars hang still in the vault of the sky but other objects – satellites and planes – reveal movement. Also on display are portfolio showcases of Susan Bowen and Miska Draskoczy. (Through May 12)

Gordon Parks: 100 Moments @ The New York State Museum, Albany. Photographs documenting African Americans in Harlem and Washington, D.C., during a pivotal time in U.S. history when both cities were going through significant changes arising from post-WW II urban migration, the expansion of the black press, concern for children’s education, and entrenched segregation and economic discrimination. (Through May 19)

Opener 24: Carrie Moyer @ The Tang Teaching Museum and Gallery. Abstract works by Carrie Moyer. (Through May 19)

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)

The Mythic Figure @ Schick Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs. An exhibition of works by sculptors William Tucker and Ed Smith and painter Pamela Avril. Inspired by classical mythology and using the human figure as a source and a subject, each often makes works that are life-sized or larger-than-life, reflect the struggle toward self-knowledge embodied in many archetypal myths, and attest to the relevance of mythology to contemporary culture. (Through May 19)

Configurations: Robert Carsten and Susan Stuart @ Saratoga Arts, Saratoga Springs. Paintings and pastels that examine to the importance of materials in our society and to the process of creating. (Through May 25)

The Grand Design: Joseph Ramée’s Drawings for the Union College Campus @ Mandeville Gallery, Schenectady. The design of the Union College campus has evolved over the years, but its original design was conceived by Joseph Ramée in 1813, making this year the 200th anniversary of that design. The stamp of the Ramée design is still evident in building placement and landscape cultivation. This exhibition of facsimiles of 45 drawings is from a portfolio found by accident in the attic of Old Chapel by Professor Codman Hislop in 1932, “its cover green with age.” (Through May 26)

The Art of Autism – Shifting Perspectives @ The Good Purpose Gallery, Lee. A group show of ten artists brought to the Good Purpose Gallery through the auspices of The Art of Autism, an international collaborative project that brings awareness of the creative abilities of people with autism to the general public. (Through May 27)

Ansel Adams: Masterworks @ Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield. This exhibition of 47 photographs by Ansel Adams (1902-1984), selected by Adams himself to represent the best of his life’s work, includes iconic landscapes and architectural studies. (Through June 2)

Nature Magnified: Photographs by Andreas Feininger @ Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield. Photographer Andreas Feininger, most well-known for his depictions of the city of New York, also excelled at capturing the intricate details of nature. A series of shell images are paired with actual shells from the Museum’s expansive natural science collection. (Through June 2)

Painting Between The Lines @ Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown. Fourteen contemporary painters created newly commissioned paintings based on descriptions of paintings in historical and contemporary novels by authors such as Marcel Proust, Samuel Beckett, Sylvia Plath and Milan Kundera. By examining the ways contemporary artists look at storytelling, literature and writing as expressions of individual thought, the show aims to looks at the state of contemporary painting today, presenting some of its most innovative practitioners such as Laylah Ali, Marcel Dzama, and Fred Tomaselli. (Through June 9)

The Legacy of Currier & Ives: Shaping the American Spirit @ Albany Institute of History & Art. An exhibition featuring sixty-four hand-colored lithographs that pays tribute to the popular nineteenth-century printmakers and their role in establishing a form of mass media that was inexpensive and eagerly sought by ordinary people. (Through June 15)

Jeff Jacobson: The Last Roll @ Center for Photography at Woodstock. Works by Jeff Jacobson in the wake of his diagnosis with Lymphoma a few days before Christmas of 2004 and the subsequent announcement of the elimination of his beloved film Kodachrome – the tool which shaped his artistic vision over the course of his career in photography – by its manufacturer, Kodak. Artist presentation and book signing: Saturday, May 4, 3-5pm. (Through June 16)

Photography Now 2013 @ Center for Photography at Woodstock. This years’ installment of the annual Photography Now exhibition presents eight artists who employ photography to put forth varied discourses within the documentary genre. Noah Addis, Alinka Echeverria, Ilona Szwarc and Samantha VanDoren look outwards into society, exploring timely or pertinent subjects ranging from forays into surreal subcultures to records of international movements and events. Beth Chucker, Ayala Gazit, Gary Grenell and Robin Schwartz each turn inwards with their work, training their eyes on conflicts and pleasures close to home. (Through June 16)

Labeltalk 2013: India @ Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown. The ninth exhibition in the Labeltalk series, exhibitions that aim to explore works of art from a broad range of perspective, this show focuses on Indian art, inviting Williams professors from a broad range of disciplines to write short responses to the works. Also on view: Teaching with Art: The Persian Image, an array of Persian paintings dating from the 15th to the 20th century. (Through June 30)

Someday is Now: The Art of Corita Kent @ The Tang Teaching Museum and Gallery, Saratoga Springs. A major retrospective of graphic artist, activist and educator Corita Kent including iconic images from the turbulent 1960s and 70s. (Through July 28)

Points of Connection: Generations of Mingei @ The Harrison Gallery, Williamstown. In 1918, the British potter Bernard Leach visited Japan where he met a young, then unknown now legendary, potter Shoji Hamada in the small village of Mashiko. This friendship sparked the resurgence of the mingei aesthetic, from which sprung the life force of modern Japanese ceramics. Mingei, the “art of the people,” aspires to celebrate beauty in the functional.

Shoji Hamada, one of Japan’s National Living Treasures, mentored Tatsuzo Shimaoka, also a National Living Treasure, who in turn mentored Ken Matsuzaki. Shinsaku Hamada, son of Shoji, continued the tradition, passing it along to his son, Tomoo Hamada, who, along with Yoshinori Hagiwara, represent the contemporary work in this lineage. Inspired by Bernard Leach, Phil Rogers carries on the legacy in Great Britian. (Through July)

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.

Objectify: A Look Into the Permanent Collection @ Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield. A major new exhibition of some of the most significant and fascinating objects from the Museum’s holdings of more than 50,000 artworks, specimens, and artifacts. Opening reception: Friday, April 5, 5:30-7:30pm. (Through September 1)

Some Assembly Required @ Albany International Airport Gallery. An exhibition focusing on collage, expressed through traditional cut paper techniques as well as hybrids of photography, film, painting and sculpture. Artists: Todd Bartel, Allen Bryan, Laura Christensen, Susan Spencer Crowe, Paul Forte, Kirsten Hassenfeld, Niki Haynes, Andrea Hersh, Elana Herzog, Thomas Huber, Mary Lum, China Marks, Michael Oatman, Rob O’Neil, Rich Remsberg, Anne Roecklein. (Through September 8)

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)