ArtBeat: What To See

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Anselm Kiefer @ MASS MoCA, North Adams. MASS MoCA opens a 10,000 square-foot building devoted to the art of Anselm Kiefer. The exhibition will include Étroits sont les Vaisseaux (Narrow are the Vessels), an 82-foot long, undulating wave-like sculpture made of cast concrete, exposed rebar, and lead; The Women of the Revolution (Les Femmes de la Revolution) , comprised of more than twenty lead beds with photographs and wall text; Velimir Chlebnikov , a steel pavilion containing 30 paintings dealing with nautical warfare and inspired by the quixotic theories of the Russian mathematical experimentalist Velimir Chlebnikov; and a new, large-format commission created by the artist specifically for the installation at MASS MoCA. Opens Friday, September 27.

DownStreet Art Thursday @ Downtown North Adams. Festivities will include five new exhibits, as well as an extended run of Rich Remsberg’s “Historyland” at Gallery 53. Interdisciplinary artist Eliza Barrios will be at Gallery 51. At PRESS you’ll find the “Markings” exhibition. In addition to that we will have performances from musician James McBride, puppet company Mortal Beasts & Deities, as well as an interactive projection by Erin Ko and Alex Chouls. Thursday, September 26, 5-8pm

Museum Day Live! In the spirit of Smithsonian Museums, who offer free admission everyday, Museum Day Live! is an annual event hosted by Smithsonian magazine in which participating museums across the country open their doors to anyone presenting a Museum Day Ticket… for free. Registration is required. There is a limit of one pair of tickets per household. Saturday, September 28 (only day only)

Tribute to Nature @ The Laffer Gallery, Schuylerville. Landscapes of the Northeast, in a wide variety of styles, by George Van Hook, Clarence King, Valerie Craig, Kate Edwards, Laura Von Rosk, Mark Tougais, Robert Moylan, Teri Malo and Tom Schottman. Opening reception: Saturday, September 28, 5-8pm. (Through October 17)

Jane Dickson: Out of Here, Paintings 1999-2013 @ Art Omi, Ghent. Five large-scale oil paintings on Astroturf by New York based artist Jane Dickson that document nearly a decade and a half of her travels in the Hudson Valley as a regular weekend visitor to upstate New York. Opens Saturday, September 28. Artist’s reception: Saturday, October 5, 4-6pm. (Through November 30)

Writing Series: (manga) sulat sa pader (writing on the wall) @ MCLA Gallery 51, North Adams. A solo exhibition by Filipina-American artist Eliza Barrios that includes text-based drawings, single channel video projections and photographs from Barrios’ collaborative project, Mail Order Brides/M.O.B. This mixed-media installation will draw material from both English and Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines. Largely an exploration of the written word, this exhibit was inspired by the obsolescence of an individual’s written mark, and the overall fragility of communication. Through a text-based environment of video, ink on paper and graphite on vellum, Barrios illuminates the shift of expression that is occurring around us and the importance of maintaining and using the written word. Opening Reception: Thursday, September 26, 5-8pm. (Through October 27)

Markings @ PRESS Gallery, North Adams. Opening reception: Thursday, September 26, 6-8pm. Letterpress prints and artist books by former PRESS interns and volunteers Adriana Alexatos, Hayley Parker, Antoine Scalbert and Leeya Jackson, as well as PRESS founder Melanie Mowinski. On view will be reduction cuts, works that combine text and image, poetry broadsides, artist books and more. (Through October 20)

Reality of Placement @ Union College Atrium, Schenectady. An exhibition of contemorary Latin America art that addresses the conditions and circumstances that are relevant to the experiences of migration globally and the people, ideas and objects that pass from one culture to another. Exhibiting artists include: Alain Gutierrez, Carlos Barberena, Carlos Solis, Dio-Genes Abreu, Ismael Checo, karen Macher, Jamie Rodriguez, Lssette Solorzano, Alexis Mendoza, Anthony Montes, Patricia Henriquez, Jesus Rivera, Miguel Lescano, Luis Stephenberg, Ramon Peralta, Roxanna Melendez, Xavier Figueroa. Artists’ reception: Thursday, October 3, 5pm. Panel discussion: Thursday, October 3, 6pm. (Through November 22)

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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)

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. (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)

John MacDonald @ Harrison Gallery, Williamstown. A solo exhibition of paintings.(Through September 30)

Balancing Act: New Works by David Miller & Regis Brodie @ Sorelle Gallery, Albany. (Through October 3)

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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. (Through October 5)

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. (Through October 6)

La Wilson: Five Decades @ John Davis Gallery, Hudson. La Wilson continues her long association with the John Davis Gallery in this retrospective of assemblages chosen from the past five decades. In her words: “I try to steer clear of objects that are too loaded with meaning; but then, when I think about it, everything I use is loaded – snakes, pencils, firecrackers, matches, hair pins. What I try to do is free myself from the conscious associations so that the unconscious ones can take over. I am much more interested in what I don’t know than what I do know.”

Also on display in the Sculpture Garden are works by Deborah Masters. On display in the Carriage House are paintings by Kim Uchiyama, Daisy Craddock and Lee Marshall and assemblages by Nancy Shaver.(Through October 6)

At the Tree Line: Works by Ingrid Ludt and Iain Machell @ The Teaching Gallery, HVCC, Troy. Ingrid Ludt and Iain Machell, two very different artists, find a common thread in the connection between the various lifecycles throughout nature as portrayed in their mixed media drawings in pen, ink, pencil, marker and paint, and three-dimensional sculpture. Many of their works in “At the Tree Line” evoke the human figure and the landscape. (Through October 12)

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)

Quasibotanics: Recent Paintings by Charles Geiger @ Courthouse Gallery, Lake George. Charles Geiger’s painting practice interprets nature in a multi-layered context using scale shifts and environmental issues as pictorial metaphors, intermixing macro leaf, tree and marine forms into microscopic landscapes. (Through October 18)

Selected Faculty Exhibit @ The Schick Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs. The Schick Art Gallery begins its 2013-2014 season with this faculty exhibition featuring works by Terry Conrad (sculpture and prints), John Cunningham (sculpture), Fabian Lopez (paintings) and Paul Sattler (paintings). Gallery Talk: Tuesday, September 24, 4-5pm. (Through October 20)

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)

Harry Orlyk: Earth, Air, Water & Light @ The Clement Art Gallery, Troy. For almost forty years landscape painter Harry Orlyk has depicted the rural farmlands of Washington County and the surrounding area. Working on site in his van with the steering wheel as his easel, Orlyk shows us the presence of humans and how they have cultivated the land and how the land has reclaimed the human presence. This exhibition coincides with Orlyk’s new limited edition book, “Each Day.” Book release party and artist’s talk: Saturday October 5, 5-7pm (limited seating) (Through October 23)

Seldom Scenes @ Athens Cultural Center. Forty photographers responding to a visual call for unusual and off the beaten track natural phenomena, the human experience and obscure locales and structures within the Hudson Valley, including Nora Adelman, Bob Braine, Lee Courtney, Donn Critchell, Anita DeFina Hadley, John Diehl, Francis X. Driscoll, Robert Haggerty, Del Higgins, David Jeffery, Bruce LaPierre, Robert Lipgar, Dan McCormack, Jim Molloy, Estelle Nadler, Robert Near, Fred Neudoerffer, Rob Rondon, Jim Flosdorf, Linda Stipe, Linda Tommasulo, John Verner and Tom Vincent. (Through October 26)

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)

New York City: A Glance at Fifty Years @ Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson. A spectrum of artwork that emerged during several highly charged decades of the 20th century and into the 21st. All three artists, William Clutz (1933-present), Edward Avedisian (1936-2007), and Richard Merkin (1938-2009), lived and worked in NYC and most of the paintings in this exhibit were created there. (Through October 27)

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)

What the Trees Say: Saratoga’s Changing Treescapes @ The Spring Street Gallery, Saratoga Springs. Works by Anne Diggory from 1977 to 2013 that focus on the treescapes of Saratoga Springs. Inspired by the Urban Forestry Project of Sustainable Saratoga, Diggory has taken a fresh look at a subject matter that interested her over thirty years ago and intermittently during the years in between. The exhibition juxtaposes the new works with a large body of paintings from her early years and images of what those scenes look like today. Gallery talk: Saturday, October 5, 2pm. (Through November 16)

A World of Prints: Selections from the Union College Permanent Collection @ Mandeville Gallery, Schenectady. Prints from the 15th to the 20th century featuring works by Josef Albers, Paul Cézanne, Adriaen Collaert, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Honoré Daumier, Francisco José de Goya, Joe Goode, Robert Graham, David Hockney, Oskar Kokoschka, Lee Krasner, Roy Lichtenstein, Edouard Manet, Jean-François Millet, Joan Miró, Henry Moore, Francesco Piranesi, Ken Price, Joseph Raffael, Edward Ruscha, Frank Stella, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo and Michael Wolgemut. A variety of subjects are included, both abstract and representational, demonstrating a number of techniques including etching, engraving, lithography, screen-printing and woodcut. (Through November 17)

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)

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. (Through December 15)

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)

The Mystery of the Albany Mummies @ Albany Institute of History and Art. An investigation of two ancient Egyptian mummies and their coffins, one dating from the 21st Dynasty and the other from the Ptolemaic Period, acquired by the Institute in 1909. (Through June 8, 2014)