ArtBeat: What To See

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An Armory Show @ The Opalka Gallery, Albany. The 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art in New York City, now simply referred to as “The Armory Show,” introduced America to Modernism. 100 years later, this exhibition by Michael Oatman and Kenneth Ragsdale investigates the dynamic changes that occurred in the art world in general as a result of its occurrence, and the history of its effect on the artistic life of the Capital Region. A salon, an exhibition within the installation, will include the work of over 40 artists from the region. Opening reception: Friday, September 6, 5-9pm. Artist tour: Friday, October 4, 5-9pm. (Through December 15)

Resurfacing @ the Lichtenstein Center for the Arts, Pittsfield. Local art legends Group W, an artist collaborative best known for their weekend long warehouse art parties that drew thousands of visitors to an industrial space in Pittsfield, are returning to the public eye with this group art show featuring new work by founding members Jay Tobin, Bill Tobin, Mark Hanford, F.X. Tobin, Mike Melle and Jesse Tobin. Artists’ reception: Friday, September 6 (Pittsfield First Friday Artswalk), 5-8pm. (Through September 28)

Pittsfield First Friday Artswalk @ The Upstreet Cultural District, Pittsfield. Contemporary and traditional art, art openings & receptions, and shopping and dining specials. A highlight of this month’s Artwalk is Homegrown a group show at the Whitney Center for the Arts, the newest addition to Artswalk, featuring local artists Susan Miller, Carl Bowlby, Janet Crawford, Katherine Mahoney, Ken Bastard, Rodrigo Santamarina and Scott Taylor. Printed guides can be picked up at participating locations throughout downtown Pittsfield or online at discoverpittsfield.com/firstfridaysartswalk. Friday, September 6, 6-8pm

Charlee Brodsky: Monster and Other Tales and Ellen Feldman: The Dancer as the Invisible Girl @ Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson. Digital photography by Charlee Brodsky and a photo/comic book and a series of 20×30-inch prints by Ellen Feldman. Also on display are portfolio showcases of Stefan Petranek and Tony Bowen. Artists’ reception: Saturday, September 7, 6-8pm. (Through October 6)

Strange Figurations @ Limner Gallery, Hudson. Works by 29 artists that focus attention on unusual and inexplicable figurative art forms with the intent of provoking thought through direct symbolism, storytelling and by touching our innate, primal curiosity. Reception: Saturday, September 7, 5-7pm. (Through October 5)

John MacDonald @ Harrison Gallery, Williamstown. A solo exhibition of paintings. Opening reception Saturday, September 7, 5-7pm. (Through September 30)

Also Noted:

Stockade Villagers Art Show @ Front Street, Schenectady Saturday, September 7, 10am-4pm. Over 100 artsts show and sell original fine arts including drawings, paintings, sculpture, graphics, textile wall hangings and photography.

Shaker Craft Fair @ Shaker Historic Site, Albany. September 7-8, 10am-4pm. 75 different crafters exhibit jewelry, jams, quilt, apparel, pottery, soaps and decorative items. A Family Activity Station will feature activities for all ages throughout the weekend. Site tours are scheduled on both days at 11:30 and 1:30. This event is a fundraiser for the Shaker Heritage Society to support education and preservation efforts. Cost: $4 | Members and 18 and under free

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That Way: Mailable Sculpture by Abraham Ferraro @ Athens Cultural Center. Over the past 2 1/2 years, Abraham Ferraro has been creating structurally engineered sculptures out of reclaimed cardboard and mailing them via the USPS to their destinations. (Through September 7)

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)

Jenny Snider: New Work @ John Davis Gallery, Hudson. Paintings and collages by Jenny Snider in the main gallery. Also on display: Bruce Gagnier: Made for Bronze in the Sculpture Garden. On display in the Carriage House: sculpture by Barry Bartlett and Shari Mendelson, woodblock prints by Boris Sternberg and paper casts by Laetitia Hussain. (Through September 8)

Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History @ Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown. A showcase of some sixty oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and etchings, as well as approximately 120 rarely seen wood engravings by Winslow Homer. Drawing upon the resources of the Clark’s own holdings of nearly 250 of his works (dating from 1857 to 1904), the exhibition provides a variety of distinctive perspectives on this important American artist. (Through September 8)

George Inness: Gifts from Frank and Katherine Martucci @ Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown. Eight landscapes by George Inness that represent a survey of the artist’s late work. The paintings range in date from 1880 to 1894, the year of the artist’s death. During this period, Inness moved from the open-air painting and naturalism of his early career toward a more conceptual approach to capturing mood and the play of light and shadow. (Through September 8)

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+ One @ Collar Works, Troy. An exhibition that brings together works from artists, non-artists and non-traditional creatives to ask the question, “What makes a compelling piece of art?” (Through September 13)

William Lamson: A Certain Slant of Light and Michelle Segre: Antecedents of the Astral Hamster @ The University Art Museum, Albany. William Lamson’s video, photography and sculpture address issues of masculinity, amateurism, science, play and the illusive quest for personal heroism that accompanies these subjects. Michelle Segre’s idiosyncratic drawings and new sculptures, which use reworked armatures and recycled materials in combination with elements such as rocks, milk crates, papier-mâché, colored yarn and plaster, reflect her intuitive, highly personal approach to materials.(Through September 14)

Face Off (Museum Studies) @ BCB Art, Hudson. New paintings and drawing by Barbara Friedman, focusing on her current passion: the reinterpretation and reinvention of signature paintings from New York’s finest museums. According to Ms. Friedman, “I ‘perform’ as an artist while symbolically wearing the smock of the faithful museum copyist – an old trope often associated with ‘lady’ painters. I attempt both to honor and subvert this stereotype by parking in front of images, responding to them intuitively, and letting them become generative springboards… [A]t some museums, like the Met, I have to get my painting stamped ‘this is a copy’. This official stamp marks my painting as non-art, meaning that it’s not from the museum’s collection. I think of this as the counterpart to ‘Ceçi n’est pas une pipe,’ [This is not a pipe – a famous annotation to the pipe painting by Belgian surrealist René Magritte] an addendum that both denies the artwork’s function and lets it take on a new function.”

Ms. Friedman adds, “On the days that my copyist’s permit doesn’t allow me to paint, I do charcoal drawings instead. On one occasion I used a sketchpad that had glassine interleaves, and when I opened my pad at home, I found that parts of the image had transferred to the glassine. What had rubbed off struck me as being far more interesting than my original drawing. Now when I complete a drawing in a museum, I close the pad, stick it in my backpack, open it at home, and accept whatever has transferred to the glassine as my finished piece.” (Through September 15)

The Man Show @ Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson. A group exhibit exploring aspects of masculinity through the work of David Konigsberg, Allan Skriloff, Joseph Heidecker, Mark Beard, David Austin, Robert Flynt, Jacob Fossum, David Paulson and Darshan Russell. (Through September 15)

Modern Nature: Georgia O’Keeffe and Lake George @ The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls. From 1918 until 1934, Georgia O’Keeffe lived for part of each year at Alfred Stieglitz’s family estate on Lake George on a 36-acre property was situated just north of Lake George Village along the western shoreline. This survey of fifty-eight paintings explores the full range of work she produced during that time, magnified botanical compositions of the flowers and vegetables that she grew in her garden, to a group of remarkable still lifes of the apples and pears that she picked on the property. Also on display: A Family Album: Alfred Stieglitz and Lake George, a companion exhibition of approximately thirty photographs by the influential photographer, critic, and art dealer that takes an intimate look at the people who resided on the property while O’Keeffe was in residence there. (Through September 15)

Jamie Rodriguez: Die Landschaft @ Clement Art Gallery, Troy. “Die Landschaft: Ich bin ein Berliner” translates to “The Landscape: I am a Berliner.” This traveling exhibition is a collection of contemporary impressionist styled paintings of the surrounding cultural and political landscapes such as Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg, Grunevald and Tiergarten that dwell among the hustle and bustle of a modern-day Berlin, Germany. (Through September 18)

Masters on Main Street: Eastern Standard: Indirect Lines to the Hudson River School @ Main Street, Catskill. Curated by Kate Menconeri, this seventh edition of the storefront exhibition series includes paintings, photographs and siteworks by contemporary artists who draw on the landscapes and artworks of the 19th century Hudson River School painters. Featured artists: Carolyn Marks Blackwood, Tim Davis, Sandy Gellis, Joel Griffith, Ruth Hardinger, Kysa Johnson, David La Spina, Alex McKay, Nadja Verena Marcin, Alan Michelson, Jason Middlebrook, Ben Ruggiero, Lisa Sanditz, Anne Katrin Spiess, Lauren Sansaricq, Susan Wides and Linda Weintraub. On view 24/7 in the 300 and 400 blocks of Catskill’s Main Street. (Through September 20)

Story Untold @ Lapham Gallery, Glens Falls. Featured artists: Valerie Patterson (painting); Suzanne Reed (assemblage); Nicole M. Santiago (painting). (Through September 20)

Threads: Fiber Art @ CCCA, Hudson. Exhibiting artists: Julie Chase, John Cooley, Fran Heaney, Denise Giardullo, Jessica Gibbons, Nancy Hawkins, Kathryn Kosto, Karen Madden, Ellen Mahnken, Cynthia Mulvaney, Clarke Olsen,Valerie Richmond, Pamela Strousse, Carol Swierzowski, Richard Talcott, Alta Turner, Karl Volk and Lauren Wolff. (Through September 21)

The Politics of ____ @ PRESS, North Adams. An exhibition that examines how art can ignite conversation between artist and viewer, viewer and viewer and viewer and self. The works exhibited move beyond what is assumed when thinking about political art. (Through September 22)

A Marriage: 1 (Suburbia) @ MCLA Gallery 51, North Adams. A mixed-media installation and performance series by artists, partners-in-life and collaborators Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin that reveals the artists’ experiences within their same-sex marriage, and expresses their deep ambivalence towards their new status as a “normal” American couple. Blending performance art, video, sculpture, and drawing with props and performative residue, the rigorous and elaborate work of Vaughan and Margolin echoes the heterotopic iconography of suburban America today. Check the website for the performance schedule. (Through September 22)

Historyland @ Gallery 53, North Adams. Curated and collected by award winning photo researcher Rich Remsberg, this show is comprised of a variety of items collected by the artists through a variety of places and means and features found photographs, video, and sound recordings will be mixed in with postcards, matchbook covers, scrapbooks, dolls, candles, bottles, toilet tank balls, locks, and radios along thematic lines ranging from the solar system and religion to flying saucers and Watergate for an unusual look at the American cultural landscape. (Through September 22)

Design@Work: The Karene Faul Alumni Exhibition @ The Esther Massry Gallery, Albany. Printed media, packaging, web and video works by 25 alumni of the College’s graphic design program. Gallery reception:Friday, September 6, 5-7pm. (Through September 22)

Equine Concepts: Robert Cartmell and Paul Kant @ The Laffer Gallery, Schuylerville. Paintings by two of the area’s preeminent equine artists. (Through September 22)

Necessity and Chance @ Thompson Giroux Gallery, Chatham. Photographs by Rebecca Loyche, Mona Mark, Elliot Schneider, Joel Seaman and Brian Wood. (Through September 22)

Lauren Fensterstock @ Sienna Gallery, Lenox. Lauren Fensterstock’s site-specific installation work and wall pieces depict nature by incorporating meticulously cut and curled paper, charcoal, and Plexiglass to create floral and garden scenes, referencing French and English garden design of the 1500s to 1700s, the 18th century practice of “quilling” (sculpting paper by wrapping around a quill) along with a nod to, and reflection upon, 20th century American earth art and the work of Robert Smithson. (Through September 23)

Saratoga 150: Then, Now and Beyond! @ Saratoga Arts, Saratoga Springs. In celebration of 150th anniversary of The Saratoga Race Course, this exhibition showcases works by regional artists that reflect on our region’s rich past, represent or comment on today, or envisions the future for the region. (Through September 28)

The First 15: Photography from the Meredith S. Moody Residency at Yaddo @ The Tang Teaching Museum and Gallery, Saratoga Springs. The Meredith S. Moody Residency, which supports one female photographer each year, was established in 1997 by the Moody family in honor of the late photographer Meredith S. Moody. This exhibition presents several of her photographs as well as one work by each of the Residency’s artists: Dru Arstark, Linda Cummings, Barbara Ess, Sharon Harper, Sarah Jones, Jennifer Karady, Jin Lee, Annu P. Matthew, Sara Cedar Miller, Yola Monakhov, Arezoo Moseni, Carol Shadford, Rosalind Solomon, Jean Vong and Letha Wilson. (Through September 29)

W O V E N @ Kleinert/James Center for the Arts, Woodstock. Using materials ranging from common weaving materials like cotton and wool to the more exploratory – bullet-riddled steel, wire, tennis balls – the artists in this exhibition engage in an energetic dialogue between contemporary visual culture and the traditions of the textile industry, freed from functional constraint. Artists include: Susan Brandeis, Yale Epstein, Marsha Farley, John Garrett, Rob Goldfarb, Sheila Hicks, Nancy Koenigsberg, Alex Kveton, Jorge Lizarazo for Hechizoo Textiles, Lael Marshall, David Poppie, Kate Rapin, Joanne Russo, Zoe Siegel, Mamie Spiegel, Altoon Sultan, Harriet Tannin, Suzanne Tick, Grace Wapner, James Brendan Williams and Bhakti Ziek. (Through September 29)

Overgrown @ The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy. Works by Geoffrey Detrain, Alexis Grabowski and Claire Sherwood. Also on view in in the President’s Gallery is (un)Settled with works by Tasha Depp, Aldo Lira, Kelly Jones and Matthew Shropshire. Closing reception: Friday, September 27, 5-9pm. (Through September 29)

Kaaterskill Clove: Where Nature Met Art @ Zadock Pratt Museum, Prattsville. Works by contemporary painters Athena Billias, Patti Ferrara and Carol Slutzky-Tenerowicz alongside one of the late Thomas Locker’s renderings of Kaaterskill Falls. The exhibit is intended to raise awareness about the importance of the Clove and the need for its preservation in the face of the environmental strain it has been under for the past several years. (Through October 14)

Caffe Lena: Inside America’s Legendary Folk Music Coffeehouse @ The Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs. Featured in this exhibition is a selection of photographs made at Caffè Lena during its first decade of existence by Joe Alper (1925-1968). A self-taught freelance photographer, Alper’s work includes historic jazz, folk, and blues performance photography. His candid black-and-white photographs of the musicians, audience, and staff at Caffè Lena capture the Caffè’s intimate, creative environment. (Through October 20)

An American in Venice: James McNeill Whistler and His Legacy @ Arkell Museum, Canajoharie. This exhibit presents eleven prints by Whistler from his time in Venice, placing them alongside the work of followers who were practicing in Italy in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The juxtaposition of these works allows the viewer to appreciate both Whistler’s innovations and the different ways in which his work affected the artists who followed him. (Through October 20)

PaperWorks: The Art and Science of an Extraordinary Material @ The Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield. An exhibition that explores paper as a source of creative inspiration and innovation featuring contemporary works of art by more than 30 artists, all made from paper, as well as an array of objects and artifacts that show the uses of paper in industry, science, fashion, and technology. (Through October 26)

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. (Through October 27)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The Creation of a Classic @ The Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge. Guided by the vision of a master storyteller, 32 animators, 1032 assistants, 107 inbetweeners, 10 layout artists, 25 background artists, 65 special effects animators and 158 inkers and painters and countless production staff came together to create an enduring masterpiece of the moving image. This exhibition explores the making of the film through more than 200 original works of art – from conceptual drawings and early character studies to detailed story sketches and animation drawings. (Through October 27)

2013 Annual Summer Exhibition @ Art Omi, Ghent. The Fields Sculpture Park opens its 2013 season with an installation of new and recent works by Nathan Carter, Tom Doyle, Paula Hayes, Allan McCollum and Erwin Wurm. (Through October 31)

Marko Remec: Totally Totem @ MASS MoCA, North Adams. In conjunction with this summer’s Solid Sound Festival at MASS MoCA, New York-based conceptual sculptor Marko Remec has created five outdoor installations for the grounds of MASS MoCA. Referencing the social functions of indigenous totem poles of the Pacific Northwest, Remec adheres readymade objects such as mops, brooms, safety mirrors and rearview mirrors to utility poles, transforming them into contemporary totems. As recorders of the present, the works speak to facets of the urban and suburban condition – surveillance and paranoia, narcissism and indifference, and the complex relationship between the built and natural worlds. (Throught October 31)

A Splash of Color: Paintings by Willie Marlowe @ Carmen’s Café, Troy. Willie Marlowe’s vibrant abstract paintings, curated by Jim Lewis. Artist’s reception: September 19, 5-8pm. (Through November 25)

Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980 @ Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown. An exhibition that examines a pioneering group of black artists whose work and connections with other artists of varied ethnic backgrounds helped shape the creative output of Southern California, featuring approximately 140 works by thirty-three artists including Melvin Edwards, Fred Eversley, David Hammons, Maren Hassinger, Senga Nengudi, John Outterbridge, Alonzo Davis, Dale Brockman Davis, Noah Purifoy, Betye Saar and Charles White.(Through December 1)

72 Degrees: L.A. Art from the Collection @ Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown. Work by artists in Los Angeles during the 1960s and 1970s. Forging various West Coast aesthetics that included assemblage, Finish Fetish, and Conceptualism, these artists departed from traditional modes of representation by exploring materials in new ways. Artists featured in the show include Edward Kienholz, George Herms, Wallace Berman, Robert Heinecken, Ed Moses, Helen Pashgian, Ken Price, Peter Voulkos, Maren Hassinger, Richard Diebenkorn, Vija Celmins, and Ed Ruscha. (Through December 1)

Haim Steinbach: Once Again The World Is Flat @ CSC Bard Hessel Museum, Annandale-on-Hudson. An exhibition of a number of the artist’s grid-based paintings from the early 1970s, as well as a series of reconfigured historical installations and major new works created in relation to a selection of works drawn from the Marieluise Hessel Collection. The artworks in the exhibition span Steinbach’s forty-year career. (Through December 20)

Helen Marten: No borders in a wok that can’t be crossed @ CSC Bard Hessel Museum, Annandale-on-Hudson. Helen Marten has created a group of works in diverse media – from sculptures to wall pieces and videos – in a comprehensive installation including many new works created specifically for the CCS Bard exhibition. (Through December 20)

Opener 25: Hildur Asgeirsdottir Jonsson @ The Tang Teaching Museum and Gallery, Saratoga Springs. Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson explores the overlap between painting and textile with shimmering paintings on woven silk thread. Often monumental in scale, her work takes its imagery from a range of sources, including brain scans, celestial objects, and most frequently, her native Icelandic landscape. (Through December 29)

Curator’s Summer 2013 Choice @ Chace Randall Gallery, Andes. Works by Keith Cardwell, Christie Scheele, Inverna Lockpez, Grant Collier, Judith Lamb, Rimer Cardillo and Michael Rich. (Through December 29)

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. (Through December 31)

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)

Love to Love You @ MASS MoCA, North Adams. An exhibition that brings together artists who explore fandom as a unique opportunity for shared social experience and extreme personal obsession, presenting fans not as passive spectators but active participants in culture. Whether making memorabilia, writing fan fiction, or singing karaoke, fans become creators as much as consumers of culture; by looking at the social culture of fandom, this exhibition poses questions about authorship, collectivity, and our place in the hierarchy of cultural production. Participating artists include Mark Bennett, Eric Doeringer, Elissa Goldstone, Jason Lazarus, Eva LeWitt, Patrick McDonough and Jeremy Shaw. (Through January 5, 2014)

Jason Middlebrook @ MASS MoCA, North Adams. For the past decade, Jason Middlebrook has been exploring the complex relationship between man and nature in his sculptures, installations, paintings and large-scale drawings. Responding to the unusual scale of MASS MoCA’s gallery, the artist will be working with planks that in some instances reach tree-like heights, while others will retain a human scale. Middlebrook will also debut a new monumental mobile that will function like a fountain within the gallery. Titled Falling Water after Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic Kaufman residence, the work continues the artist’s exploration of manufactured nature while adding a twist to Wright’s notions of living in harmony with the environment. (Through April 7, 2014)

Joseph Montgomery: Five Sets Five Reps @ Mass Moca, North Adams. New York-based painter Joseph Montgomery creates compact abstract assemblages (many measuring only 12 x 10 inches) by layering a range of materials — a base vocabulary of sorts — including wood, clay, cardboard, fiberglass, paper, and wire. These elements take on the appearance of painterly gesture, each functioning like a brushstroke. The earliest of these works developed from the artist’s attempts to veil or destroy paintings which he found too earnest or too personal. These rejected works become a support for his subsequent collages and are at times cannibalized as material fragments in newer works. (Through April 7, 2014)

Guillaume Leblon @ MASS MoCA, North Adams. This first solo exhibition of Paris-based sculptor Guillaume Leblon’s work in a U.S. museum will feature a selection of works made over the last decade, in addition to two major new projects created for MASS MoCA. While his works refuse a single reading, they often conjure images of the ruin and the passage of time, bringing the present and the past into contact. Leblon can transform everyday components into sculptures that attain a relic-like quality or the aura of a classical statue.. (Through April 7, 2014)