ArtBeat: What To See

---

The Human Condition + Communication-Technologies @ The Foundry for Art Design + Culture, Cohoes. As part of the Foundry’s Visiting Artist Series, this exhibit of works by Nancy Daly and Elizabeth Kostojohn explores how human communication has changed in the face of technological change. Artist reception : Saturday, December 21, 6-9pm. Artist lecture : Sunday, January 19, 1pm. (Through January 19)

---

2×2 Collective: double consciousness @ The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy. A collaboration of four artists: Ben Altman, Maria Driscoll McMahon, Sandra Stephens and guest artist Carla Rae Johnson. Working with the gallery space in both traditional and non-traditional ways, the artists find common ground in their uses of the figure at the intersections of the social, political and the personal. (Through December 21)

PHOTOBOOK 2013 @ Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson. A juried international exhibition of photobooks and photographs. (Through December 22)

---

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)

OUTSIDER: Selections from the estate of Cynthia Coulter. @ BCB Art, Hudson. The late Cynthia Coulter was a well-respected artist who had a passion for collecting unique and unusual outsider art from her native state of Oklahoma, as well as from country locales in Texas, Illinois, and New York. This tribute exhibition will focus on select pieces from her impressive collection, such as ornate handmade lamps fashioned from ice cream sticks and marbles, tables made from twigs and sewing spools, colorful paintings and drawings, and carved and polychromed wooden animals. Per the artist’s wishes, all proceeds from the sale of these artworks will be donated to various charities, including the Texas Women’s Shelter and the US Humane Society. (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)

2013 Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region @ The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls. One of the oldest regionals in the country, this year the show is comprised of work by 75 artists selected by juror Dan Cameron. (Through December 29)

The Birds and the Bugs @ Limner Gallery, Hudson. Paintings and sculpture by Dave Channon. (Through December 29)

Tracy Helgeson @ Harrison Gallery, Williamstown. A solo exhibition of paintings inspired by the rural landscapes of valleys and old barns of upstate New York. (Through December 31)

Annual Members’ Exhibition @ Saratoga Arts, Saratoga Springs. This annual show features over 150 artists exhibiting artworks ranging from painting, drawing and printmaking to sculpture, functional fine art and photography. (Through December 31)

JFK 1963-2013 @ Time + Space Limited, Hudson. An installation by Linda Mussman inspired by the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK and its lingering impact. Appropriating images, in the spirit of Warhol and Rauschenberg, Mussmann offers her impressions of a time past. (Through December 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. (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)

Dmitri Freund: Emerging Light @ Good Purpose Gallery, Lee. Expressionist works by Russian-American painter Dmitri Freund. Also on display are Nina Evan’s painted glass tables. (Through January 2)

Exquisite Illusion @ The Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield. Paintings by Warner Friedman and assemblages by Michael Zelehoski, curated by Van Shields, Berkshire Museum’s executive director. Zelehoski reconstructs three-dimensional found wooden objects, like crates and pallets, into two-dimensional picture planes, while Friedman’s paintings feature spare landscapes framed by unexpected architectural details. (Through January 2)

Radical Transformation @ The Berkshire Musem, Pittsfield. An exhibition of works by two area-based painters, Janet Rickus and Colin Brant, curated by artist and critic, Carol Diehl. Rickus is known for her meticulous still life paintings of fruits and vegetables, while Brant’s subject is lush landscape that often includes vignettes of people at play. (Through January 2)

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)

upstate Artists @ The Laffer Gallery, Schuylerville. A group exhibition of works selected by David Miller, Professor Emeritus at Skidmore College. Artists include: Abraham Ferraro, Anne Francey, Anne Sutherland. Audrie Sturman, Bob Augstell, Cheryl Horning, Chris DeMarco, Chris Gonyea, Christopher Murray, Constance Alexander, Dan Greenfeld, David Aimone, David Arsenault, David Francis, David Seiler, David Waite, Dorthea Osborn, Gary Shankman, Hollyn Blair, Ian Creitz, Jay Freud, Jenny Hutchinson, Jill Fishon-Kovachick, Jim Flosdorf, JoAnne Axford, Kate Edwards, Laura Frare, Laura Von Rosk, M.C. Huskie, Mark Schmidt, Mary Kathryn Jablonski, Maxine Tucker, Newbold Bohemia, Paul Kant, Peter Leue, Randi Kish, Regis Brodie, Robert Gullie, Robert Whiting, Russell Serrianne, Samuel Negrich, Sandy Miller, Stu Eichel, Susan Stuart and Tom Schottman. (Through January 5)

The Aura of Fiery Inspiration @ Thompson Giroux Gallery, Chatham. Group show featuring John Hampshire, Philip Howie, Tatiana Klacsmann, Jonathan Potts, Gabrielle Senza and Nick Walters. (Through January 5)

Melange @ Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson. Featured artist Juan Garcia-Nunez works in a multitude of media including painting, film and photography. This show will feature a selection of his paintings spanning two decades. There will be several pieces from his series Crossings, which consists of large paintings on plexi-glass which are used as negatives to make contact prints. The exhibition also features works by David Paulson, Scott Nelson Foster, Jane Bloodgood-Abrams, Vince Pomilio and Harry Orlyk. (Through January 19)

The Fluidity of Representation @ Martinez Gallery, Troy. Works by three Capital Region artists: paintings by Gary Masline, art photography by Nancty Noble Gardner and sculpture by Gay Malin. (Through January 31)

Dinotopia: The Fantastical Art of James Gurney @ Arkell Museum, Canajoharie. The exhibition features Gurney’s original artwork used to illustrate the Dinotopia book series. (Through February 9)

Weather Event @ The New York State Museum, Albany. American painter Charles E. Burchfield’s depictions of the weather south of Lake Erie, where the artist lived for most of his life. Individual weather events are examined through both an artistic and scientific lens. (Through February 23)

Nude @ Sohn Fine Art Gallery, Stockbridge. Photography and mixed media in a broad range of styles by John Atchley, Peggy Braun, John Clarke, Greg Gorman, Eric Korenman, Hildy Kronen, Jack Krove, Mona Mark, Matuschka, Irmari Nacht, Lincoln Russell, Cassandra Sohn and Savannah Spirit. (Through February)

Big and Bold: Contemporary Paintings, Collage, and Sculpture from the Albany Institute’s Collection @ Albany Institute of History & Art. Paintings by Leigh Wen and Susan Stuart, collage by Michael Oatman and sculpture by Sharon Bates are a few of the works selected for the inaugural exhibition of the Institute’s newly renovated Lansing Gallery. (Through March 2)

Dancing Princesses: The Picture Book Art of Ruth Sanderson @ Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge. A renowned fantasy artist and illustrator of children’s literature, Ruth Sanderson has created imagery for more than seventy-five picture books, many of which bring classic tales to life. This special holiday installation, featuring more than sixty original illustrations for classic and original stories, includes her personal favorite—The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Now in the permanent collection of the Norman Rockwell Museum, Ruth’s paintings and studies for this enchanting tale will be accompanied by the opulent costumes that she commissioned specifically for her work. (Through March 9)

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)

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)

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)

Wendell Minor’s America @ Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge. Award-winning illustrator Wendell Minor drew his way through childhood in Aurora, Illinois, inspired by America’s heartland and the richly illustrated magazines that were so much a part of life at the time. Determined to forge a career as an artist, he sold his beloved 1955 Chevy to pursue his studies at the Ringling School of Art and Design in Florida, and moved to New York in 1968, with little more than his portfolio in hand. Since then, his striking visual narratives and elegant designs have appeared on nearly two thousand book covers and more than fifty children’s books. This exhibition celebrates the artist’s four-decade career,with more than 150 artworks gleaned from his expansive visual chronicles, and commentary reflecting on his collaborations with prominent authors, scientists, and historians.. (Through May 26)

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)

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.