ArtBeat: What To See

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TreeHouse @ Courthouse Gallery, Lake George. New paintings by Melanie Kozol, a Brooklyn-based painter whose work focuses on color, light and the landscape with the Northeastern terrain – forests, rivers and oceans – as primary sites of her investigation. Opening reception: Saturday, May 4, 4-6pm. (Through June 7)

IndianInk: Iroquois & The Art of Tattoo @ The Iroquois Indian Museum, Howes Cave. A showcase of contemporary tattoo art, both the work of young Haudenosaunee designers such as Lyle Logan and Ike Hopper and skin art selected and commissioned by others. Once widespread among Indigenous peoples of the northeast, the patterns and practices of this extraordinary tradition of body modification had declined by the mid 1800s as a consequence of Christianity, assimilation, and relocation. Today, this ancient art is undergoing a spectacular resurgence in Native and non-Native communities. Opening reception: Saturday, May 4, 3-5pm, with a presentation at 3pm by Dr. Lars Krutak, an American anthropologist, photographer and writer known for his research about tattoo and its cultural background. (Through May 24)

Seeing Green: Environmentally Conscious Art @ The Albany Barn, Albany. Works in a variety of media from local artists Nicolette Callaway, Cheryl Gowie, Nicole Levy, Ruxana Saifi and Grace Tatara. The exhibit will also feature artwork from six local students, winners of the 2nd annual city-wide “Building Communities” Youth Art Contest. Opening reception: Friday, May 3, 5-9pm. (Through May 31)

Russel Wright: The Nature of Design @ New York State Museum, Albany. An exhibition featuring the work and philosophy of renowned industrial designer Russel Wright, exploring his career from the 1920s through the 1970s and including approximately 40 objects along with photographs and design sketches. Opens Sunday, May 5. (Through December 31)

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Synesthesia @ Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy. A collection of paintings and prints by Willie Marlowe accompanied by an evening of individual dances performed by The Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company to music by Cornelius Dufallo, Brian Melick, Monica Wilson-Roach and Maria Zemantauski on Saturday, May 4th at The Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. A reception will follow at ACCR for all who attended the performance. (Through May 5)

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)

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)

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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)

Jake Berthot: Works on Paper – The Enamel Drawings @ John Davis Gallery, Hudson. Recent drawings by Jake Berthot. (Through May 19)

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. (Through May 26)

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)

A.R.T. – American Road Trip, Italy & Rock n’ Roll @ Clement Art Gallery, Troy. For over forty years, photographer Martin Benjamin has captured images, stopping time and creating a moment. He has photographed political and sporting events as a photojournalist, created photo essays of other cultures as in his trips to Vietnam and had an award-winning series of photos in Life Magazine. Martin is probably most known for his hundreds of rock photos he has taken through the years, capturing iconic musicians both on and off stage, from Dylan to Springsteen and the Clash to the Kinks. This exhibition will feature three different aspects of Martin Benjamin’s character and personality behind the camera: images from his American Road Trip series, a series of prints from a visit to Italy in 2010 and his iconic rock n’ roll photography. (Through May 29)

Portraits: Looking into a Glass Darkly @ Martinez Gallery, Troy. A group show featuring G. Masline, J. Santos Solomon, S. Kantarowitz, R. Melendez, T. Lincer, J. Rodriguez, G. Tatara, M. Chernoff, V. Rodriguez, D. Goodabout, J.R. Wilson and A. Duque. (Through May 31)

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)

Pure Photography: Pictorial and Modern Photographs from the Syracuse University Art Collection @ Arkell Gallery, Canajohaire. The 30 photographers included in this exhibition have extensive histories that span thematic periods and artistic styles. Taking their cues from master photographers like Edward Steichen, artists such as Berenice Abbott and Manuel Alvarez Bravo built on that foundation in order to explore the very art of photography. (Through July 20)

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. (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)