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Rania Matar, Hadley and Garrett, Connections Across Barriers, April 16, 2020
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As we entered our second month amidst the devastation of the Coronavirus pandemic, we continued to look to art as a bright spot in our lives. After spending the first two weeks of social distancing cleaning out her studio, Brookline-based photographer Rania Matar turned to her camera as a way of processing all that is happening around her. To document this unique moment in time and because she missed seeing people, she started a photo project called "Connections Across Barriers", shooting neighbors from behind their windows and doors.
What routines have you settled into?
For me it is Friday barre classes with a favorite instructor and friends from all different facets of life. It is a wonderful way to let off some steam and connect with those around the country. Same for Zoom cocktail parties with friends who I haven’t seen in person in months. While there is always an underlying sense of anxiety and unease, with a glass of wine in hand we find ways to relax a little bit and enjoy each other.
I hope you are all finding ways to clear your heads and take care of yourselves.
- Hadley
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Deep dive: Contemporary Photography
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Left to right: Julie Blackmon, Fake Weather, 16 x 20 in., $1,500; Cig Harvey, Pink in a Touch, Red in a Stare, 14 x 11 in., $1,200; Paulette Tavormina, Merlin and the Cat, 12 x 12 in., $1,200; Jörn Vanhöfen, Gotthard #2754, 16 x 20 in., $1,500; Kirstina McComb, Boston Athenaeum 0100, 36 x 24 in., $700; Rania Matar, Nour #1, Beirut, Lebanon, 25 x 30 in., Sage Sohier, Mum in her garden, Washington, D.C., 35 x 42 in., $7,000
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Over the last few decades, photography has managed to do two things: saturate our everyday lives far more than before and become a fully recognized art form. For better or worse, photography can be produced almost cost-free on any cell phone to share with friends, while it has also entered galleries, museums, libraries and private collections as a highly valuable object. Many contemporary artists utilize photography to re-examine and re-interpret history, through methods ranging from appropriation to digital manipulation of existing images. In doing so, they seek to reveal biases, challenge accepted histories, and construct new narratives.
New technologies and formats are a key attribute of photography from the 1970s onward; among the most important are color photography, digital manipulation, and large-scale printing techniques. Contemporary photographers use these developments to present new perspectives. Photographers today address the history of photography itself, by blurring the division between documentary and fiction, through the elaborate staging of subjects, lighting and costume. This practice creates a tension between the trustworthy duplicate versus an imagined fiction.
The first four photographs pictured above are special limited edition prints created to support gallery programs and artists during this time.
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For its inaugural exhibition, MassArt Art Museum commissioned the Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos to do a large-scale installation. In this short video in her studio, she explains her process and the story behind "Valkyrie Mumbet", a work that honors Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman, an enslaved woman whose court battle for her freedom in 1781 helped make slavery illegal in Massachusetts. The installation is the newest in her Valkryie series, named after Norse female war goddesses, which pays homage to inspiring women.
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Hunt Slonem, Blues Duet, oil on canvas, 20 x 16 in., 2017
Hunt Slonem is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker, known for his Neo-Expressionist paintings of tropical birds, bunnies and butterflies. His love of color stems from childhood experiences in Hawaii and California, where his family lived while his father was an officer in the Navy. "I was influenced by Warhol's repetition of soup cans and Marilyn," Slonem says. "But I'm more interested in doing it in the sense of prayer, with repetition... It's really a form of worship." Utilizing thick, gestural brushwork, his paintings have a calligraphic quality.
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I've launched Curated, a section of my website that presents a selection of artwork that I've been looking at recently. I'll be updating it frequently as I continually see new artwork. A sample of artists included are photography by Sage Sohier, Mary Kocol and Cig Harvey; paintings by Julia Powell, Lillian Burk Meeser and Truman Seymour; and ceramics by Simone Leigh, Rebecca Hutchinson and Lauren Herzak-Bauman.
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How you can support arts and culture
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Artist Relief.org
The partnership between seven arts grant makers and foundations will launch the Artist Relief Fund with $10 million; $5 million in seed money from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and another $5 million in initial contributions from foundations across the United States, with ongoing fundraising to follow.
Grant makers Academy of American Poets, Artadia, Creative Capital, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, MAP Fund, National YoungArts Foundation, and United States Artists have collaboratively launched The Artist Relief Fund to provide rapid, unrestricted grants in amounts of $5,000 to assist artists facing dire financial emergencies due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (VLA)
Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts of Massachusetts provides legal services, advice, and educational programming to artists and cultural organizations in Massachusetts. The VLA accomplishes its mission through the work of a panel of more than 500 attorneys who volunteer their time and services to provide legal counsel, education, and organizational support to the Massachusetts arts community. The program serves individual artists, musical groups, and cultural organizations.
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