Have you taken in an art exhibition lately? After a year of limited access to art, museums throughout UpCountry’s coverage area are filling their galleries with new shows, just in time for spring. Here is a look at what’s open or opening soon …
Bennington Museum
75 Main St., Bennington, Vt.
802-447-1571; benningtonmuseum.org
WHAT’S NEW
Opening April 2:
“Robert Frost, ‘At Present in Vermont’”
Renowned poet Robert Frost lived and worked in Bennington County from 1920 to 1938. During that time, he wrote three of his four Pulitzer Prize-winning works. The exhibit, Robert Frost, ‘At Present in Vermont,” examines his life and work in the context of the landscape and culture of Bennington County and includes works from his circle of friends and colleagues.
“Neveruses: Beyonder”
Artist J. Stoner Blackwell repurposes single-use plastic shopping bags, which were banned in Vermont on July 1, 2020, to create works of art. Blackwell’s work highlights the plastic bag’s significance as “an emblem of consumer culture” and the “persistence of environmental exploitation.”
“Performative Acts: Dona Ann McAdams”
“Performance Arts” celebrates the career of award-winning and internationally recognized photographer Dona Ann McAdams with a retrospective of her work, including her photos of anti-nuclear, pro-choice, anti-war, feminist, queer liberation and AIDS activism protests.
“Love, Marriage and Divorce”
This exhibit explores the highs and lows of love and heartache, from gorgeous Victorian wedding gowns to scandalous tales of sexual harassment.
UPCOMING
“Boundless,” works on paper by artist Dusty Boynton, will be on view from August through December.
Brattleboro Museum and Art Center
10 Vernon St., Brattleboro, Vt.
802-257-0124; brattleboromuseum.org
WHAT’S NEW
Opening March 18:
“Glasstastic 2021”
What happens when children in kindergarten through sixth-grade are invited to dream up and draw imaginary creatures that could be turned into glass sculptures? The result is “Glasstastic 2021,” which features 26 glass sculptures created from those drawings.
“All Flowers Keep the Light”
Flowers have been seen for millennia as spiritual and emotional touchstones. In “All Flowers Keep the Light,” seven artists explore the symbolic potential of flowers using a variety of artistic media and means.
“Jennifer Mack-Watkins: Children of the Sun”
Jennifer Mack-Watkins’ works on paper draw from the illustrative imagery found in “The Brownies’ Book: A Monthly Magazine for the Children of the Sun” — a first-of-its-kind periodical for Black children that ran from 1920 to 1921.
Also opening March 18: “Adria Arch: On Reflection” and “Kenny Rivero: Palm Oil, Rum, Honey, Yellow Flowers.”
UPCOMING
Opening June 19: “Novelties,” by Delano Dunn; “Expedition,” by John Newsom; “Double Take” by Erick Johnson; “Sequences: Ode to Minor White.”
The Clark Art Institute
225 South St, Williamstown, Mass.
413-458-2303; clarkart.edu
WHAT’S NEW
“A Change in the Light: The Cliché-verre in 19th-century France”
On view through May 16
“A Change in the Light” features the works of five French artists — Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, Charles-François Daubigny, Eugène Delacroix, Jean François Millet and Théodore Rousseau — drawn from a portfolio of clichés-verre (the glass print technique) plates. The portfolio, printed in 1921 and recently acquired by The Clark, is a special edition of just five that includes two variant paintings of each plate.
“Erin Shirreff: Remainders”
On view through Jan. 2, 2022
Working across mediums, Erin Shirreff uses photography, sculpture and video to shape and reshape two-dimensional and three-dimensional works of art as she explores what happens to an artwork once it enters the public record and is interpreted and re-interpreted by society and art historians.
Also on view: “Ground/work,” the museum’s first outdoor exhibition of site-specific sculptures is on view through Oct. 17.
UPCOMING
“Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne: Nature Transformed,” May 8 through Oct. 31.
“Nikolai Astrup: Visions of Norway,” June 19 through Sept. 19.
“Dürer and After,” the museum’s first exhibition of Albrecht Dürer’s works from its permanent collection in more than a decade will open in July.
Image courtesy of Glenn Kaino via the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
1040 Mass MoCA Way, North Adams, Mass.
413-662-2111; massmoca.org
WHAT’S NEW
Opening April 3:
“In the Light of a Shadow”
Glenn Kaino’s “In the Light of a Shadow” will fill the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art Building 5 gallery with four new large-scale installations addressing global protest. The exhibit will allow viewers “to look at the intersectionality between the history of civil rights and the racial and ecological implications of the global pandemic.”
“Close to You”
“Close to You,” conceived in the wake of a pandemic, invites viewers to reflect upon physical, emotional and spiritual proximity The exhibition features “the voices of BIPOC and queer artists, who — in spite of marginalization and disenfranchisement — have imagined divergent modes of kinship in the form of chosen families, safe havens and shared languages.”
Also on view: Blane De St. Croix’s “How to Move a Landscape,” “Kissing Through A Curtain” and “Wendy Red Star: Apsàalooke: Children of the Large-Beaked Bird,” as well as several smaller exhibitions, including Richard Nielsen’s “This is Not a Gag.”
Norman Rockwell Museum
9 Glendale Road/Route 183, Stockbridge, Mass.
413-298-4100; nrm.org
WHAT’S NEW
“Pat Oliphant: Editorial Cartoons from the Nixon and Clinton Eras”
On view through May 31.
“Pat Oliphant: Editorial Cartoons from the Nixon and Clinton Eras” highlights works of Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Patrick Oliphant, from a collection of his works donated by the Louis and Jodi Atkin family. The overall collection features three prominent aspects of the artist’s work — his editorial drawings from the Nixon and Clinton years, as well as personal drawings, paintings and sculptures.
Also on view: “Norman Rockwell: Telling Stories,” “Norman Rockwell: The Art of Persuasion,” “Norman Rockwell: Covering the Post,” “Selected Works from Norman Rockwell: Imagining Freedom,” “The Unity Project,” “Pops Peterson: Rockwell Revisited,” and “Norman Rockwell: Murder in Mississippi.”
UPCOMING
Opening June 12: “Enchanted: A History of Fantasy Illustration” and “Land of Enchantment,” a juried exhibition of outdoor sculpture installations accompanying the fantasy art inside the galleries.
