My "Inside Art" Articles from July 2021

In July, I contributed four new articles to GoLocalProv. My column, which premiered in early June, continues to focus on local exhibitions and artists, contextualizing local art for a broad audience. This month, I wrote about Rhode Island Latino Arts reopening their gallery space in Central Falls and reviewed an exhibition of photographs by Mary Beth Meehan at WaterFire Arts Center. I also reviewed an exhibition of contemporary art at Jamestown Arts Center and produced a profile of artist and arts advocate Paula Martiesian.

Below, you can find links to each of these articles. I hope you will read them and consider sharing one or more with your own network. By sharing stories of art and artists in Rhode Island, we can support our creative community, encouraging patronage of our artists and galleries.

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I hope you will consider following me on social media, where I will be announcing each new article and other ongoing projects. Joining me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Pinterest is the best way to stay up to date.

I will continue to regularly share highlights from Inside Art here on my own blog, and will continue to produce articles here on the visual arts outside Rhode Island as well as interviews and other content. Your continued readership is deeply appreciated. If you have a tip for a show I should review, please feel free to email me.

-Michael

"Inside Art" Column Premiers on GoLocalProv

Arts writing and reporting is an essential element of a thriving local art community. As someone who believes in the importance of such arts journalism and crticism, I am happy to share that I was recently invited to write a regular column on the visual arts in Rhode Island for the local online news service GoLocalProv. My column, which premiered in early June, will focus on local exhibitions and artists and will contextualize local art for a broad audience. Below, I have included the announcement about this new feature as well as my first three articles from June, 2021. I hope you will follow along with this new project and consider reading and sharing my articles.

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My first piece for GoLocalProv focused on a summer exhibition at Bert Gallery in Providence that will highlight the work of local modernists Walter Feldman, Gordon Peers, and Florence Leif.

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My second article for GoLocalProv previewed the schedule for summer salons focused on a variety of contemporary artists at Coastal Contemporary Gallery in Newport, Rhode Island.

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My third column for GoLocalProv was a review of the reopened RISD Museum in Providence.

I hope you will consider following me on social media, where I will be announcing each new article and other ongoing projects. Joining me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Pinterest is the best way to stay up to date.

I plan to regularly share highlights from this new project on my personal blog, and will continue to produce occasional articles here on the visual arts outside Rhode Island as well as interviews and other content. Your continued readership is appreciated!

-Michael

Book Review: Rendez-vous with Art

Title: Rendez-vous with Art

Authors: Philippe de Montebello and Martin Gayford

Length: 248 pages

Publisher: Thames & Hudson

Year: 2014

More than a straightforward art history text, Rendez-vous with Art is an unusual volume that compiles engaging conversations between Philippe de Montebello, the longtime director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Martin Gayford, a British critic and journalist. These art-focused chats touch on a wide range of issues and emphasize the need to look closely at art in the modern world. It is a fast and delightful read.

The book is appropriately titled as it centers around a series of short meetings had by Montebello and Gayford in some of the world’s leading art places. Within the context of singular conversations about individual works of art, the authors touch either pointedly or glancingly on topics as varied as museum studies, sociological issues around art, or simply the need for close and careful looking. The enjoyment of looking and dissecting images is central to their friendly banter.

The conversational nature of the text invites us, the readers, into the intellectual but accessible crossfire between these two great art minds. It is a stimulating device that encourages us to interrogate our own preconceived notions about great art seen in important institutions. The book makes us a fellow interlocutor on a journey that is both about our perception of works of art and our ability to narrate those perceptions to others in a meaningful way.

In this sense, Rendez-vous with Art, touches on the central conceits of art history - the necessity to look, to examine, to describe, and to question. The artworks discussed are the fulcrum of the text. The physicality of objects is central to the face-to-face conversations at the core of this unwittingly quick and enjoyable read, which inserts art into a place often held by theory in art-writing.

The co-authors also contribute their respective views as the longest-serving director of one of preeminent art museums, and a journalist and critic whose skills for research and composition of sure-footed prose are at the top of their powers. They bring their years of expertise to bear in thoughtful and provocative talks that make us want to learn more, and look more.

This is, in short, a book that will renew your passion for closely examining, fully understanding, and deeply appreciating works of art.

Rendez-vous with Art is available at all major retailers, but do consider patronizing your local independent bookstore!

If you are an author or publisher who would like a book considered for future reviews here, please contact me at michael@michaelrosefineart.com.