Boston Public Library, The
McKim Building
Since the hometown team was taking yet another spring beat
down it seemed like a good Saturday to avoid Fenway Park. I instead followed my
sister’s advice and we visited her place of employment, the Boston Public
Library to see reThink Ink.
reThink Ink is displayed in three different spaces in the
library which might have been distracting, but actually provides a good
opportunity to explore the rich diversity of this museum-like venue.
BPL’s 1895 McKim building is a pleasing pastiche of European
architectural styles and 19th century public art, featuring a
keystone by Saint-Gaudens. The airy, expansive scale of Copley Square and
Trinity Church lend a “palazzo” feel to the library façade.
Lush interior architectural details abound; aside from all
the spectacular murals by John Singer Sargent and the like, are two exquisite
marble or alabaster drinking fountains. The beautifully landscaped interior
courtyard is a perfect sanctuary for a library; gently gurgling fountains
soothe the psyche of harried patrons.
A most intriguing exhibit at the library are the Wiggin
Gallery Dioramas built in the 1940s. This small dark room in a corner of the 3rd
floor contains a series of 12 intricately assembled miniature stage sets
depicting famous artists in the process of creating some of their most well
known plein air works or art in situ.
I’ve always been captivated by the diorama format; static
yet animated theater that narrates a poignant fragment of historical content.
Of course as the grand theater of the dioramas seen at NY’s Museum of Natural
History trump all others in grandeur and spectacle, these modest little vignettes
offer an intimate, almost voyeuristic view into seemingly archaic versions of
art history.
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Rembrandt Van Rijn (1606-1669)
This story concerns Rembrandt’s wager that he could dash off
an etching in the time it took Jan Six’s servant to go out and get mustard.
Hmm, do you think they had some nice rye & pastrami waiting?
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F.L. Griggs (1876-1938)
This British illustrator contributed to an early roadway
guide, Highways and Byways for
Macmillans. Here he is drawing one of the first Holiday Inn’s.
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Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827)
Help, Tommy fell over! Gotta wind proof your plein air set
up. From “A Party Angling on the Thames
at Twickenham”
Jean-Louis Forain (1852-1931)
This French lithographer is represented in his studio from a
surviving photograph.
He appears to be a tad cranky from all that peering &
leering.
Sir Muirhead Bone (1876-1953)
This Scottish etcher was known for his architecturally
precise renderings of urban construction and demolition sites. His precarious
perch is seen here as he worked on “Manhattan Excavation” during the 1920’s.
How about that name?!
George Bellows (1882-1925)
This 3D version of “Stag at Sharkeys” is the most eye
grabbing of the bunch. You can almost hear the thudding thumps of pugilistic
thuggery.
Henri De Toulouse Lautrec (1864-1901)
My favorite in the group. (please excuse the limited
photographic clarity, these things were difficult to photograph with an I
Phone) Depicting HTL sketching in a circus, this masterful dollhouse
construction includes two separate rooms with performers and miniature
reproductions of HTL posters on the walls.
reThink Ink, a comprehensive exhibit of Beantown print
makers, is an invigorating collection of two and three-dimensional print media
that extend the boundaries of traditional technique. Culled from the artistic
endeavors of Mixit Print Studio members in Somerville MA, the efforts of this
distinguished and adventurous group of print makers encompasses a wide range technical
expertise and innovative concept.
Although this show features only artists from the 25-year
history of Mixit’s existence, the BPL has a long history of supporting Boston
area print making artists with a large permanent print collection extending
back decades.
Indeed, the more contemporary aspects of the permanent
collection from Mixit artists are well represented here. Of particular interest is the work of
Robert Siegelman. His flamboyant but controlled abstracts nicely balance the
dichotomy between decoration and gesture, while lending a fluid grace to playful
compositions.
ROBERT SIEGELMAN, Untitled (#2424-35) (1987) Monotype with
watercolor crayon.
The Portfolio Project contains 66 prints “that exemplify the variety and inventiveness
of contemporary printmaking taking place in the Boston area”.
Part of the Portfolio Project, Kim Berman’s “Rethinking
Ink: A Pathway” combines compellingly poignant landscape
representation that invokes a toxic waste dump, with a socially relevant
statement that doesn’t rely on an overtly demagogic narrative. All activist
artists should be so artful.
I found reThink Ink’s “Installations: Challenging Tradition”
selections to be the most overtly engaging aspect of this exhibit overall.
Ilana Manolson’ s “Terra Flow” is rightly given prime wall
space and takes full advantage of muted natural light flowing in from a main
ground floor entryway. This chart-like, landscape oriented relief construction
details intuitively conceived earthly contours, while fragile root forms
connect floating sections that might otherwise drift apart.
Manolson also has an evocative print on display downstairs
in the juried section. “Ghost of Tea Times Past” which features succinct use of
figure/ground relationships anchored by finely tuned chromatic layering.
http://www.manolson.com/
 
Jan Arabas has found a way to suspend her print portraits of
Cambodian children in a seemingly lighter-than-air kite-like contraption
influenced by Cambodian craft and fabric. This simple yet elegant display case
invites us to interact by strolling all around its delicate structure.
By contrast, in “Hyperion” Mary Sherwood Brock’s collection
of dental/oral orifices, bulging eyes, and other variously garish body parts,
demands and commands our attention. Clever use of serving plates hung in an
oval-ish grid focus on printmaking craft as grotesquerie, effectively drawing
the viewer in for a closer look at that which we might not otherwise care to
see.
Heddi Vaughan Siebel’s inverted dingy framework on sawhorses
invites us to share in autobiographical histories. This skeletal craft is
adorned by tags scripted with short messages from viewers that engage in a kind
of disjointed dialogue. The artist’s intent may have been to revisit ancestral
identities, but the result is a form of unintentional social media; a sort of
wishing well of amusingly Tweet-ish indulgences.
HEDDI VAUGHAN SIEBEL, Far, and Further (2012). Monoprints
with film loop on gampi and mulberry papers.
Kudos to the BPL curators for installing such a well-coordinated,
yet diverse review of Mixit artists. I do wish the well organized and
informative website for the exhibit had included a post of the great video
playing on the ground floor entrance to the show. Detailing some of the artists
at work making prints, it’s a revealing and educational inside look at the
printmaking process.
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