ArtBeat: What To See

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Howdy Doody @ Collar Works, Troy. A group exhibition of twenty artists with a theme referring to both the ventriloquism of puppetry and to an invocation of “hello” as the gallery opens its new permanent space at 621 River Street in Troy on the ground floor of the new Hudson Arthaus building. Opening reception: Friday, December 4, 5-8pm. (Through January 30)

Fellow Travelers @ The Chatham Bookstore, Chatham. Paintings by Barbara Willner, done in freehand bronze, of animals and insects. Opening reception: Friday, December 4, 5-7pm. (Through January 20)

Carrie Waldman @ Joyce Goldstein Gallery, Chatham. Paintings of the natural world by Carrie Waldman. Opening reception: Saturday, December 5, 4-6pm. (Through January 3)

Upstate Artists @ Laffer Gallery, Schuylerville. The gallery’s 4th annual juried show includes works by Ann Larsen, Anne Diggory, Ben Schwab, Carolyn Kibbe, Catherine Wagner Minnery, Cheryl Horning, Chris DeMarco, Chris Duncan, David Waite, Gary Larsen, Gordana Vukovic, Harry Wirtz, Ian Creitz, James Sankowski, Janet Marie Yeates, Janice Medina, Jim Flosdorf, Jackson Bryant, Karen Elem, Linda Hinkle, Linda Motzkin, Mary Pat Wager, Matthew Hopkins, Michelle Winnie, Rachel Nolte, Regis Brodie, Rob O’neil, Russell Serrianne, Sarah Pezdek and Takeyce Walter. Opening reception: Saturday, December 5, 5-8pm. (Through January 10)

Seen and Heard @ Spring Street Gallery, Saratoga Springs. A one-night pop-up exhibition of emerging artists featuring Camilla Busby, Sophia Baraschi-Ehrlich, Sam Friedman, Lei Jin, Meghan Murray, Jack Mullin, Elizabeth Stone and Madeleine Welsch. Exhibition date: Saturday, December 5th, 6-8pm.

Spectacle 99: The Affordable Art Show @ MCLA Gallery 51, North Adams. Participating artists include Stephanie Boyd, Valerie Carrigan, Danielle Christensen, Michelle Daly, John Etes, Sara Farrell-Okamura, Richard Harrington, Larry Lorusso, Jennifer Huberdeau, Ellen Joffe-Halpren, Amrita Lash, Jonas McCaffery, Julia Morgan-Leamon, Melanie Mowinski, Danny Oh, Hideyo Okamura, Jackie Sedlock, Sarah Sutro, Sarah Tefft and Sandra Thomas. In addition to the exhibition opening, for the second consecutive year, composer Phil Kline will lead Unsilent Night, an expansive chorus of boomboxes. The procession starts at 5:15 at MASS MoCA’s courtyyard. Opening reception: Thursday, December 3, 5-8pm. (Through December 27)

Also Noted:

Members’ Show @ Albany Center Gallery, Albany. Opening reception: Friday, December 4, 5-9pm. (Through January 17)

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In Secluded Corners @ John Davis Gallery, Hudson. A solo exhibition of assemblages by Pamela J. Wallace. (Through December 6)

David Shaw: Dear Everything @ Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson. An exhibition of new sculpture by David Shaw, who mixes the natural and the manufactured as he combines wood, glass, steel and rope with holographic laminate, paint and fake moss. (Through December 6)

Zero Eyes @ The Esther Massry Gallery, Albany. Janet Werner’s odd, elusive and sometimes grotesque figure paintings reveal her continued fascination with fictionalized portraiture and mostly female representation. (Through December 6)

The Wind Will Carry Us @ Theo Ganz Studio, Beacon. A timely group exhibit, dedicated to all refugees, featuring works of painting, printmaking and sculpture by Kenojuak Ashevak, Joseph Ayers, Samantha Beste, Sunok Chun, Elana Goren, Mialia Jaw, Lori Merhige, Eleni Smolen and Kenneth Wright. Online catalog here. (Through December 7)

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Bordering Utopia: Sculptures by Brian Tolle and Oded Hirsch: Three Videos @ University Art Museum, Albany. Featuring highly-crafted sculptures that combine detailed historical research with the latest techniques of production, Brian Tolle’s work explores America’s utopian quests from colonial times through the postwar era. Oded Hirsch’s videos feature a group of workers, cast against form formidable landscapes, who perform strenuous tasks across sea and land with anti-climatic results. (Through December 12)

2015 Selected Art Faculty Exhibition @ Schick Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs. Works by John Galt, Doretta Miller, Lauren Sandler and Peter Stake. (Through December 13)

From Concept to Console: Art and Aesthetics in Video Game Design @ Opalka Gallery, Albany. An exhibit focusing on the artist’s inspiration and process from early concept art to final in-game imagery, including works by the creators of Machinarium, Botanicula, Skylanders: SWAP Force, The Dream Machine, The Unfinished Swan, Transistor and Tengami. (Through December 13)

Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument @ Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie. An exhibition focusing on Gordon Parks’ 1948 photo essay in Life magazine covering Harlem’s gang wars, featuring 45 prints alongside contact sheets, issues of the original publication and related ephemera that both contextualize the images chosen for the story and suggest the ways in which the editorial process shapes the narrative arc. (Through December 13)

9th Annual Festival of Trees @ Schenectady County Historical Society, Schenectady. A festive collection of lit trees decorated by local businesses, organizations, and families, displayed at both the Schenectady County Historical Society at 32 Washington Ave and the YWCA at 44 Washington Ave in Schenectady. One ticket is good for both locations and tickets can be purchased at either place. (Through December 13)

Traces @ Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy. Mixed media artists Mary Pat Wager and Rachel Baxter collaborate on this exhibition focused on intuitive responses and transformation of materials and objects. (Through December 20)

Myths & Legends of the Hudson Valley @ Matteawan Gallery, Beacon. An exhibition of works of six artists who are interested in exploring history, art history and literature in a variety of media. The show includes paintings by Scott Daniel Ellison and Deborah Brown, photographs by Wendy Small, drawings by Deborah Davidovits and Valerie Hegarty and sculpture by Jackie Mock. (Through December 20)

Photobook 2015 @ Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson. Twenty Photobooks as well as photographys by the Best of Show winners. (Through December 20)

Radical Inventions @ Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson. Works by David Konigsberg, Shawn Snow, Ralph Stout, Stephen King, Juan Garcia-Nunez and Sue Bryan. (Through December 27)

Profound and Poignant @ Dyson Gallery, Schenectady. An exhibit that examines the lives of Union alumni and others from the College who were key witnesses and makers of history in the Civil War era, including two secretaries of state, military leaders, Medal of Honor recipients and the man who failed to prevent Lincoln’s assassination. (Through December 31)

Transitional Interpretation: American Roots Music By Five Photographers @ The Folklife Gallery, Guest curator and photographer Andrzej Pilarczyk, along with four of his colleagues (Joseph Deuel, Enid Farber, Bryan Lasky and Lawrence White), provides a look at an insider’s view of the dramatic worlds of live music performance. (Through December 31)

Ruth Christie Crotty @ AMP Galleries, Saratoga Springs. Plein air paintings by Ruth Christie Crotty as well as landscape paintings by Frankie Flores and a group show of small works. (Through December 31)

Clifford Ross: Landscape Seen & Imagined @ MASS MoCA, North Adams. This major mid-career survey documents Clifford Ross’s longstanding project to reconcile realism and abstraction. The exhibition takes place throughout two buildings, six galleries and an exterior performing arts courtyard and includes a 24’ high x 114’ long photograph on raw wood that spans the length of MASS MoCA’s tallest gallery and an immersive installation of animated video on twelve separate 24’ high screens. A second phase of the exhibition, launching June 26, features an immersive outdoor video installation and an augmented reality experience accessible through the viewer’s smartphone.

Salon 2015 @ Greene County Council on the Arts, Catskill. This annual members’ show will feature a large number of artworks and handmade crafts priced for holiday gift-giving. (Through January 2)

Affinity Atlas @ The Tang, Saratoga Springs. An exhibition of works by contemporary artists that draws inspiration from the last work of the pioneering art historian Aby Warburg, who from 1925 to 1929 (the year of his death) undertook an ambitious cataloguing project — a visual compendium of his life’s research. Forgoing the customary art historical narrative, Warburg instead chose to illuminate his scholarly research through a constellation of some 2,000 images, which he pinned onto a series of room-filling black panels. (Through January 3)

Audrey Flack: Heroines @ The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls. This exhibition features the contemporary artist Audrey Flack, a pioneer in photorealism and a nationally recognized painter, printmaker and sculptor. The subjects of the drawings and prints on view highlight women neglected or demonized by history. (Through January 3)

Linear Element and Reframing Nature @ Art Omi, Ghent. Two new exhibitions at the the Charles B. Benenson Gallery and Visitors Center: Linear Elements is a two person show focusing on recent sculptures and drawings by Alain Kirili and James Siena. Opening alongside this exhibition is Reframing Nature, featuring the work of Allan Wexler. (Through January 3)

Greatest Photographs of the American West @ Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield. A dual exhibition that includes National Geographic Greatest Photographs of the American West, featuring photography from the last 125 years, and Go West, which features objects, artwork and interactive stations. (Through January 3)

Pulled, Pressed and Screened: Important American Prints @ The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls. Milton Avery, Thomas Hart Benton, Dorothy Dehner, Jim Dine, Richard Estes, Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, Alex Katz, Robert Motherwell, Ann Ryan, Andy Warhol and Grant Wood are a few of the artists represented in this exhibition of fifty works covering fifty years of growth in the popularity of printmaking among artists. (Though January 10)

Holiday Glow @ Good Purpose Gallery, Lee. New paintings by Susan Himmel, Terry Wise and Jennifer Pazienza, along with an array of original works by several local artisans. (Through January 12)

#schenectadydoesntsuck @ Mabee Farm, Rotterdam. A new exhibit exploring all things that make Schenectady awesome. (Through January 16)

Muse @ Sohn Fine Art Gallery, Lenox. Works by Ormond Gigli, Greg Gorman, Eric Korenman, Hildy Pincus Kronen, Anne Mourier, Pops Peterson, Jack Radcliffe and Kevin Sprague. (Through January 31)

David Austin: Wild Strawberries @ Esther Massry Gallery, Albany. Paintings by David Austin, inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film, Wild Strawberries, which tells the story of an older professor’s nostalgic visit back to where he spent his childhood, inspiring a parallel journey for the artist. Also on display: Paintings by Ginny Casey and Steve Pearson and sculpture by Patrick Cuffe. (Through February 21)

No Place to Hide @ The Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs. Works by three contemporary artists who all address the impact of “being watched:” Hasan Elahi confronts the FBI after being mistaken for a terrorist, Addie Wagenknecht shows how our devices are constantly sending out information to the “cloud,” and Aaron Zinman elegantly reveals just how easy it is to find information about yourself. Artist’s talk and reception: Thursday, November 19, 5:30pm. (Through February 21)

Masters of the Golden Age: Harvey Dunn and His Students @ Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge. An exhibition celebrating the art and legacy of American illustration master Harvey Dunn. A brilliant and prolific illustrator of America’s Golden Age, Dunn was a prodigy of legendary artist Howard Pyle, and an admired teacher in his own right. . (Through March 13)

Love a Vet: Honoring Our Veterans @ Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge. An exhibition that honors the sacrifices of veterans, calling attention to the struggles that many face upon their re-entry into civilian life and featuring paintings, drawings and prints by Gail Anderson, Scott Bakal, Jim Bennet, Steve Brodner, Joe Ciardello, Dennis Dittrich, Jeff Fisher, Stephen Gardner, Bri Hermanson, Victor Juhasz, David Keefe, Tina LeMay, William Low, Angela Martin, Melanie Reim, Edel Rodriguez, Yuko Shimizu, Mike Wimmer and Jime Wimmer. (Free admission tickets for U.S. veterans and active military are available at any Berkshire Bank branch, through the run of the exhibition.) (Through March 13)

Episodic Drift #8 @ Mandeville Gallery, Schenectady. A large-scale installation by Jennifer Williams, who explores the concept of the ladder as thought pattern, life path and problem solver. (Through March 31)

Winter in America @ The School, Kinderhook. A multimedia group exhibition with works by John Ahern, Ghada Amer, Shimon Attie, Radcliffe Bailey, Glenn Brown, Yoan Capote, Geoffrey Chadsey, Gehard Demetz, Eric Fischl, Vibha Galhotra, Leon Golub, Betty Goodwin, Barkley L. Hendricks, Todd Hebert, Eva Hesse, Magdelana Jetelova, Hayv Kahraman, Titus Kaphar, Tallur L.N., Annette Lemieux, Eric Mack, Kerry James Marshall, Enrique Martinez Celaya, Richard Mosse, Adi Nes, Jackie Nickerson, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Robert and Shana Parkeharrison, Beverly Pepper, Raymond Pettibon, Claudette Schreuders, Claude Simard, Michael Snow, Nancy Spero, Bob Thompson, Andy Warhol, Carrie Mae Weems and Hank Willis Thomas. Also on display: Room With View featuring the sculpture and drawings of Mark di Suvero and photographs and ephemera from the Black Panther archives, including works by Margaret Bourke-White, Francis Mitchell, Flip Schulke, Stephen Shames, William Werrbach and Allen Zak. (Through March)

The Capital Region in 50 Objects @ Albany Institute of History & Art, Albany. 50 objects to chosen represent the diverse history of The Capital Region over the past four hundred years. (Through April 3)

An Eye for Excellence @ The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown. As the Clark Art Institute celebrates its sixtieth year, this exhibition aims to demystify why and how the Clark collects works of art, as well as examine the growth of the museum’s collection over the past two decades. (Through April 10)

Masterworks: 225 Years of Collecting @ Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany. An exhibition commemorating the Institute’s 225th anniversary that highlights works from its diverse collections, including paintings, furniture, silver, ceramics, sculpture, prints and more. (Through September 4)