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Renzo Piano's new wing pays tribute to the Gardner Museum's magic

The challenge from the start of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum expansion project was: how do you follow up a masterpiece? The 99-year-old Fenway institution is world-renowned for its old-master collection installed in dramatic period rooms inside a
Intimate grandeur
By GREG COOK | January 20, 2012

Brian Zink, Marisa Martino, and Robin Mandel

Zink's new show, "Assembled" at Howard Yezerski Gallery (460 Harrison Ave, Boston, through February 7), features handsome, hard-edged abstractions assembled from mod, jitterbugging patterns of flat Plexiglass tiles.
By design
By GREG COOK | January 13, 2012

Painting – and video – of the American landscape

"Painting the American Vision" — 45 rapturous paintings from the New York Historical Society — surveys the Hudson River School painters, dubbed for the upstate New York river where they spent their summers prospecting for sights to transform into ravish
Manifest destiny
By GREG COOK | August 05, 2011

Slideshow: ''Eva Hesse Studiowork'' at the ICA; Tory Fair's ''Testing a World View (Again)'' at the deCordova

This slideshow accompanies Greg Cook's review of "Eva Hesse Studiowork" at the ICA through October 10, 2011, and Tory Fair's “Testing a World View (Again)" at the deCordova Sculpture Park through April 29, 2012.
"Eva Hesse Studiowork" through October 10, 2011 | ''Testing a World View (Again)'' through April 29, 2012
By PHOENIX STAFF | July 29, 2011

Eva Hesse at the ICA and Tory Fair at the deCordova

Hesse's ability to imbue her art with body and blood and gravity anticipated the kinder, gentler minimalism of today's Anish Kapoor, Rachel Whiteread, and Roni Horn, as well as the fleshy fairy-tale figures of Kiki Smith. Boston sculptor Tory Fair has d
Women's work
By GREG COOK | July 29, 2011

The deCordova thinks about ''murals''

In "Wall Works" at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, curatorial fellow Lexi Lee Sullivan attempts to corral a trend in art today that spans graffiti and interior decoration.
Off the Wall
By GREG COOK | July 22, 2011

Phoenix critic confesses all

As the anniversary of the show approached, it seemed like the MFA might let this landmark in its history — and Boston art history — pass unnoted. So I stepped up as, let's say, a guest curator.
Flushed
By GREG COOK | June 24, 2011

Greased up in Gloucester

When people picture the greasy pole, they often envision men scaling a vertical pole, as in Boston's Festival Betances.
Big Slick
By GREG COOK | June 24, 2011

[Flashback] “Flush with the Walls” MFA art stunt turns 40

In 1971, Boston After Dark (the alt-weekly that would eventually become the Boston Phoenix) investigated a particularly whimsical outburst of art activism: Way before the...
By Nate Homan | June 23, 2011

Worst Public Art Manifesto No. 1

Long-term public art has a greater responsibility to the community, to the public, than regular gallery art.
Taking the stuffing out of stuff we have to look at
By GREG COOK | September 10, 2010

The Seeker

Salvatore Mancini has photographed factories along the Blackstone River Valley to record a local history of the Industrial Revolution.
Salvatore Mancini’s quest for elemental connections
By GREG COOK | June 25, 2010

Unholy contraptions

In Tavares Strachan's video The Rocket Launch (2009), two black men in white chemical suits load sugar cane into the back of a three-wheeled mini-truck, then drive down a palm-tree-lined road to a run-down building labeled Bahamas Aerospace and Sea Exp
Tavares Strachan's rockets, plus 'The Boat Show' at Drive By, and 'Sensed, Unseen' at GASP
By GREG COOK | June 25, 2010

Art in the air conditioning

From Picasso to William "Shrek" Steig's cartoons, and surfer photos to a Twilight Zone toy store, New England offers art worth traveling to this summer. Here we round up the best in the region, no matter the weather or your artistic inclinations.
Local museums keep you cool — and the art's pretty good, too
By GREG COOK | June 18, 2010

Majestic mysteries

Though your brain knows better, you can’t help getting the feeling that the moon sitting in the RISD Museum’s Farago Gallery has floated down from space.
Intriguing installations by Lowe, Elson, and Younger
By GREG COOK | June 18, 2010

In 'The Tradition'

In 1978, Rhode Island College presented “Four from Providence.” The exhibit was a call to revitalize the reputations of four Providence artists of color who had often been overlooked since their peaks in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Bannister’s ‘Five From Providence’ honors its namesake
By GREG COOK | June 11, 2010

Head games

One of the best artworks seen around here in recent years was Newton artist Deb Todd Wheeler's installation Live Experiments in Human Energy Exchange , at the (now defunct) Green Street Gallery in Jamaica Plain in 2006.
Deb Todd Wheeler and Ben Sloat give conceptual art a kick
By GREG COOK | June 11, 2010

Minimalism and mementos

After 5 Traverse gallery closed in February, crackerjack curator Maya Allison, who was co-director there, lined up a handful of small independent projects and seemed like she might be on her way to starting her own operation before she landed a gig as cu
Jamey Morrill's sculptures and 'souvenirs' at Craftland
By GREG COOK | June 04, 2010

Finding a niche

The DeCordova's sculpture; Judi Rotenberg's farewell
The DeCordova's sculpture; Judi Rotenberg's farewell
By GREG COOK | June 04, 2010

Celebration of sensation

The Rhode Island School of Design’s “Annual Graduate Thesis Exhibition” typically has too many people doing too many different things for any common themes to emerge. But prominent installations in this year’s showcase at the Rhode Island Convention Cen
RISD’s ‘2010 Annual Graduate Thesis Exhibition’
By GREG COOK | May 28, 2010

Photos: RISD’s 2010 Annual Graduate Thesis Exhibition

Prominent installations in this year’s showcase at the Rhode Island Convention Center.
Student's works of art at RISD's graduate thesis exhibit
By PHOENIX STAFF | May 28, 2010

Power plays

Some weeks back, I got to listen to Brown University archæology professor Stephen Houston pronounce the throaty, staccato sounds of Maya hieroglyphs carved across a six-foot-wide limestone panel.
The Maya and the Kennedys at the Peabody Essex
By GREG COOK | May 21, 2010

Slideshow: The Maya And The Mythic Sea at Peabody Essex Museum

Mayan works of art at the “Fiery Pool: The Maya And The Mythic Sea,” exhibit
“Fiery Pool: The Maya And The Mythic Sea,” Peabody Essex Museum through July 18
By PHOENIX STAFF | May 21, 2010

The surreal world

Corey Grayhorse offers a style of synthetic glitz that seems to channel our society’s plastic, superficial heart.
Dreamworks by Corey Grayhorse at AS220
By GREG COOK | May 21, 2010

Photos: Corey Grayhorse's pop-surreal dream photography at AS220

Beauties, beasts, and fashionable creeps
Corey Grayhorse at AS220 through May 29, 2010
By COREY GRAYHORSE | May 21, 2010

Delightful details

Mary Jane Begin’s exhibit “Back to the Future: From The Wind In the Willows to Willow Buds” at the Providence Art Club’s Dodge House Gallery showcases her child’s fantasy wonderland realism.
Mary Jane Begin’s wonderland realism at Providence Art Club
By GREG COOK | May 14, 2010

Puppet pageants

In the beginning, there was Kermit. Not Kermit the Frog — not just yet. That would come nearly 15 years later.
The influential art of Jim Henson and Peter Schumann
By GREG COOK | May 07, 2010

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Nature studies

“A bird feeder,” Hamilton writes in her artist statement, “creates an intensified microcosm of the trials and hardships of avian existence.”
New works by Catherine Hamilton and Susan Twaddell
By GREG COOK | May 07, 2010

Random stuff

If you were going to create a portrait of the Internet, what would it look like?
Versteeg’s ‘In advance of Another Thing,’ ‘Sitings 2010’ at RISD
By GREG COOK | April 30, 2010

Slideshow: ''The Beast In Me - Johnny Cash'' at the Nave Gallery

Artwork from "The Beast In Me—Johnny Cash: Art Influenced by the Struggle of a Man" at the Nave Gallery
Artworks from "The Beast In Me—Johnny Cash: Art Influenced by the Struggle of a Man" at the Nave Gallery
By NAVE GALLERY | April 23, 2010

Cheap thrills

They say Dr. Lakra got his pen name from the doctor’s bag he carried around when he first began tattooing, two decades ago. “Lakra” puns on the Spanish word “lacra,” meaning scar or blemish, but it’s also slang for “delinquent” or “scumbag.”
The inky delights of Dr. Lakra
By GREG COOK | April 23, 2010

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