http://www.mfa.org Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Exhibitions and Events Calendar en-us Copyright 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Wed, 12 Jul 2006 05:00:00 EST Museum Museums Art webmaster@mfa.org webmaster@mfa.org http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification 60
One-hour tours, given by Museum-trained guides, feature masterpieces from the collections.
Location: Sharf Visitor Center
Tickets: Free with Museum admission.
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
One-hour tours, given by Museum-trained guides, feature masterpieces from this collection.
Location: Sharf Visitor Center
Tickets: Free with Museum admission.
Click here for details
Related Collection: Art of Asia, Oceania and Africa
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
One-hour tours, given by Museum-trained guides, feature masterpieces from this collection.
Location: Sharf Visitor Center
Tickets: Free with Museum admission.
Click here for details
Related Collection: Art of Europe
Language: English
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]> Half-hour tours, given by Museum-trained guides, feature an in-depth look at three masterpieces. Free with Museum admission.
Location: Sharf Visitor Center
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
One-hour tours, given by Museum-trained guides, feature masterpieces from this collection.
Location: Sharf Visitor Center
Tickets: Free with Museum admission.
Click here for details
Language: English
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
Women of Faith by Rebecca M. Alvin (2008, 60 min.). Throughout history, nuns were allowed certain advantages over other women—such as a formal education--while being oppressed within their vocational pursuits. What would make a woman choose this life today? Through interviews with Poor Clares and Maryknoll Sisters, a former nun, and a Roman Catholic Womanpriest, the film examines their choices to lead profoundly religious lives in the Catholic tradition during this post-feminist era. By allowing her subjects to speak for themselves about their lives, beliefs, and choices, Alvin presents a picture of a different kind of feminism. "Alvin's lens is wide open, and what she catches is sometimes surprising and consistently thought provoking" (Bethany Gibbons, Cape Cod Today). A discussion with the director follows the July 5 screening.
Location: Remis Auditorium
Tickets: Members, seniors, students $6; general admission $7
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
One-hour tours, given by Museum-trained guides, feature masterpieces from this collection.
Location: Sharf Visitor Center
Tickets: Free with Museum admission.
Click here for details
Related Collection: Art of the Ancient
Language: English
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
One-hour tours, given by Museum-trained guides, feature masterpieces from the collections.
Location: Sharf Visitor Center
Tickets: Free with Museum admission.
Click here for details
Language: English
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
One-hour tours, given by Museum-trained guides, feature masterpieces from the collections.
Location: Sharf Visitor Center
Tickets: Free with Museum admission.
Click here for details
Language: English
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight by Wendy Keys (2009, 73 min.). For many, Milton Glaser is the personification of American graphic design. Best known for co-founding New York Magazine and the enduring I Love NY campaign, the full breadth of Glaser’s remarkable artistic output is revealed in portrait. From newspaper and magazine designs, to interior spaces, logos, and brand identities, to his celebrated prints, drawings, posters, and paintings, the documentary offers audiences a rich appreciation of works by this great modern Renaissance man. Artfully directed by first-time filmmaker Wendy Keys, the film also captures Glaser’s warmth, humanity, and the boundless depth of his intelligence and creativity.
Location: Remis Auditorium
Tickets: Members, seniors, and students $6; general admission $7
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
Three Monkeys by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (2008, 109 min.). From the director of Climates and Distant, Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys centers on a family's struggle to cover up the truth after a rising politician convinces his driver to take the blame for a hit and run. The film has all the makings of a noir-style psychological thriller--resentment, adultery, murder, and cynicism--but retains Ceylan's trademark striking cinematography, meditative shots, elliptical intrigue, and bleak tone. "No one working in cinema today can suggest an interior psychological state, solely through the camera's external observation of an unmoving character, as well as Ceylan can" (Peter Brunette, Hollywood Reporter). In Turkish with English subtitles.
Location: Remis Auditorium
Tickets: Members, seniors, students $8; general admission $10
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
Socialize under the Stars Fridays, July 3 – August 28, 2009, from 5:30–9:30 pm This summer, kick off your weekends every Friday night at mfasummerfridays. Leave your work week behind and relax wih friends both old and new. Enjoy live music outside in the Calderwood Courtyard and a specialty cocktail from our cash bars. mfasummerfridays Musical Line-up: July 3 – The Reggae Goldies July 10 – Grupo Fantasia July 17 – DJ Deja* July 24 - Four Piece Suit July 31 - DJ Dave Pettengill August 7 – Carnivale at mfasummerfridays August 14 – The David Eure Ensemble August 21 – The Paulo Stagnaro Latin Group August 28 – DJ Deja *July 17 will be sponsored by Equinox Fitness Club. Open to visitors twenty-one and older. Members: entry is FREE Nonmembers: entry is FREE with Museum admission Media sponsor is
Location: Calderwood Courtyard
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
In a Dream by Jeremiah Zagar (2008, 80 min.) Set in the vibrant, bohemian neighborhood of South Philadelphia, the film chronicles the life of Isaiah Zagar, an eccentric, tormented artist whose mosaic murals reveal his love for his wife Julia. Their opposing natures complement one another perfectly for decades, but suddenly the family is torn apart at the seams. Isaiah declares to the camera, "As people get older they have less and less passion." He confesses to an affair with his assistant, is kicked out of the house, and spirals into a debilitating, suicidal depression. A fascinating portrait of love and betrayal, family bonds, and the intimacy of dysfunction, the film was chosen as the Emerging Visions Audience Award in the SXSW Film Festival. Discussion with the director follows screening.
Location: Remis Auditorium
Tickets: Members, seniors, and students $8; general admission $10
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
Scottish artist Jim Lambie is the third artist to participate in the series RSVPmfa, in which the Museum invites artists to consider the extraordinary collections, architecture, and grounds that comprise the Museum of Fine Arts as a background for the installation of their work. Lambie transforms ordinary objects—vinyl tape, turntables, speakers, doors, mirrors, clothing, chairs—that he finds on the street or buys in secondhand and hardware stores into vibrant sculptures and site-specific installations. Lambie champions sensory pleasure over intellectual response, approaching his work with a simplicity and straightforwardness of form and material. "I'm not an information artist, I'm not like a schoolteacher, I'm just working with materials," says Lambie, who experiments with space and form in a way that breaks with traditional notions of elegance, deploying humble materials to create objects and installations that challenge the high-tech, high-brow aesthetics common to much of contemporary art and design. Lambie redefines the shapes and relationships of the materials he uses without veering too far away from simply letting them be what they are. Like music, which serves as an artistic model for him, Lambie’s art fills its surroundings and transforms the environment: "You put a record on, and it’s like all the edges disappear. You’re in a psychological space. You don’t sit there thinking about the music, you’re listening to the music. You’re inside that space that the music’s making for you." In Jim Lambie’s hands, ordinary objects are transformed into powerful, enigmatic, and compelling environments where the edges disappear and the space he makes is for you. This exhibition made possible by The Contemporaries, whose generous donations directly support the Museum's Department of Contemporary Art. Read the Boston Globe article about the installation.
Location: Cohen Galleria
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
As part of celebrating the renovation and re-opening of the State Street Corporation Fenway Entrance, this exhibition tells the story of the Museum's history, its architecture, and its vital role as a community resource and partner. Rarely seen historic photographs, paintings, sculpture, archival documents, and architectural fragments bring the long and distinguished history of the MFA to life for a new generation. The exhibition, on view in the Lower Hemicycle, opens with the founding of the MFA in 1870 and documents the first Museum building in Copley Square, as well as the many expansions and renovations to the Museum's present home on Huntington Avenue, which opened in 1909. It also explores current and future building plans, including the transformative project underway now and the recent acquisition of the Forsyth Institute building.
Location: Lower Hemicycle
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
In the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Suzhou was a center of beauty, thought, and culture. Many of the period's greatest minds eschewed civil service in favor of a life of refinement in China’s garden city, where they composed poems, wrote calligraphy, and produced paintings of great subtlety and elegance. Dotted with gardens of intricate design, crisscrossed by meandering canals, and blessed with warm weather for much of the year, Suzhou was beautiful and rich; the city became home and muse to the loose confederation of artists known to history as the "Wu School," after the city’s ancient name. Many types of paintings were produced in Suzhou, but certain concerns were paramount: personal expression was favored above displays of painterly skill, simplicity was preferred to showiness, and scenes that captured Suzhou's unique local character were particularly prized. The works in this exhibition, all drawn from the MFA's permanent collection, offer an overview of Suzhou painting and calligraphy from its period of greatest achievement—the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Supported by the June N. and John C. Robinson Fund for Chinese Paintings in Honor of Marjorie C. Nordblom.
Location: Carpenter Gallery
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
Celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston-Kyoto Sister City relationship at this vibrant exhibition focusing on contemporary ceramics and prints created by artists in Kyoto and the surrounding Kansai region. Included are ceramics on loan from private collections, including the magnificent porcelain vase above, Vertical Flower (2007) by Sakurai Yasuko, and ceramics and prints from the Museum’s collection. In addition, contemporary textiles by four Kyoto artists illustrate the rich melding of traditional Japanese textile traditions with innovative processes and methods.
Location: Compton Gallery
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
The Museum recently acquired seventeen Japanese paintings largely produced and exhibited in Tokyo in the 1930s—the early Shōwa era—an overlooked period in the history of the arts in Japan. In many cases the subject matter, as well as the size, gave these paintings a commanding presence: large, elegant images of skiers, of stylish tea-house attendants in an art deco tea room, of young women in the latest Parisian fashion standing on the prow of a sailboat, and of a traditional Japanese woman standing in front of a decorated Christmas tree. Painted for Japanese audiences, and exhibited at the leading Tokyo annual exhibitions, these paintings expressed a worldview held by large numbers of Japanese during the 1930s. They saw themselves as sophisticated citizens of the world: Their country created a national park system to rival that of the United States, their country sent successful teams to both the winter and summer Olympics (and, in fact, was awarded the right to host the 1940 games by the International Olympic Committee), and they celebrated Christmas exactly as all western countries did (although in Japan it did not have any religious significance). In "Shōwa Sophistication: Japan in the 1930s," these works are interpreted from the point of view of their contemporary Japanese audience, putting the images in their social context and that of artistic tradition from which they emerged.
Location: Second-Floor Japanese Galleries
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>

In keeping with the MFA's Venetian theme this spring and summer, a display of European and American canvases is on view in the Upper Hemicycle in "Mad on Color: Paintings of Nineteenth-Century Venice." Works by Renoir, Monet, Whistler, and others show the influence of Venice's unique combination of water and light on the painting of the Impressionists and their contemporaries.
Location: Upper Hemicycle
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
"Catch them while they're hot." The New York Times
"[O]ne of the most breathtaking old-master exhibitions you'll ever see..." Newsweek In the sixteenth century, Venice was one of the largest and richest cities in Europe, and steady demand for paintings from both local and international clients fostered a climate of exceptional competition and innovation. "Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice" is the first major exhibition dedicated to the artistic rivalry of the three greatest Venetian painters of the sixteenth century: Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese. Although forty years separate the birth of Titian from that of Veronese, the careers of the three painters overlapped for almost four decades, and the eloquent record of their artistic dialogue is most apparent when the powerful canvases each produced are considered side by side. Juxtapositions of two, three, and sometimes four paintings demonstrate how much these three artists were influenced by one another and how they used their paintings as critiques. Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese together created a body of work that defined a "Venetian style" through loose technique, rich coloring, and often pastoral or sensual subject matter. These elements inspired countless later artists, promoting a Venetian current in painting up to the twentieth century. The exhibition includes approximately sixty paintings from the most important museums in Europe and the United States, as well as pictures that have remained over the years in the settings for which they were painted--churches in Venice. Watch an NECN-TV segment about the exhibition, featuring Frederick Ilchman, Mrs. Russell W. Baker Assistant Curator of Paintings, and Rhona MacBeth, Eyk and Rose-Marie van Otterloo Conservator of Paintings and Head of Paintings Conservation.
Location: Gund Gallery
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>

Boston's individual communities may appear to be unrelated, but by considering the city as a whole, we can begin to understand what we share, and revel in our differences. On view in the Courtyard Gallery, "Paper Telephone" is a collaborative artist's book made by children from eight community centers throughout Boston. Together they have woven a story that is a reflection of the city itself, filled with meandering thoughts, dissonance, and the chance beauty of random order. Click here to view an interview with artist Adrian Rodriguez.

---

Generously supported by the Linde Family Foundation.
Location: Courtyard Gallery
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
In the decades following the Constitution of 1917, Mexico became a powerful magnet for foreign artists and intellectuals drawn to its ideal climate, dramatic landscapes, and inexpensive cost of living. Photographer Edward Weston's early biographer, Nancy Newhall, described Mexico as his "Paris," because Weston's short time there had such a lasting impact on his career. In the mid-1920s a vibrant photography movement in Mexico City centered around Weston and his Italian-born lover, Tina Modotti, and, during the 1930s, on the Surrealist-inspired work of Mexican native Manuel Alvarez Bravo, as well as the American photographer and documentary filmmaker Paul Strand. "Viva Mexico!" draws heavily on the The Lane Collection of photographs on long-term loan at the MFA and features about 35 rare works by Edward Weston taken during the pivotal years of 1923 through 1926. The work covers a wide range of subjects: heroic portrait heads, avant-garde nudes, starkly abstract urban views and landscapes, and images of Mexican toys and folk objects. Also included is a select group of pictures by Weston's contemporaries--Modotti, Strand, Bravo, and his young son, Brett, who made some of his first serious photographs during his brief visit to Mexico with his father. Don't miss the companion print exhibition "Vida y Drama: Modern Mexican Prints" on view in the Clementine Haas Michel Brown Gallery May 30-Nov 2, 2009. Watch the WGBH-TV "Greater Boston" segment on the two exhibitions.

---

Supported by the Bruce and Laura Monrad Fund for Exhibitions. Media sponsor is El Planeta.
Location: Herb Ritts Gallery
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>
Alberto Beltran's large drawing titled "Vida y drama de Mexico," made in 1957 as a preparatory design for a poster, sums up the spirit of this exhibition, which shows that twentieth-century Mexican printmakers recorded contemporary life and all its complexity in a distinctly modern and Mexican visual language. The drawing is a preparatory study for Beltran's poster "Vida y Drama de Mexico--20 Anos de Vida del Taller de Grafica Popular," which advertised an exhibition of prints published by the Taller de Grafica Popular (TGP) workshop between 1937 and 1957. The massive hands use printmaker's tools to gouge a printing block. The couple in the background at left represent the challenges and hardships faced by everyday people (the "vida"). The political corruption and economic exploitation (the "drama") to which the TGP's images drew attention are suggested by the calavera at right. The graphic arts have flourished in Mexico since the first printing press arrived in 1539. Twentieth-century artists gravitated toward printmaking as a means to explore the pre-Hispanic past and indigenous visual traditions, and to experiment with American and European avant-garde styles. Their prints gave form to the ideals of social, racial, and economic equality that had fueled the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and continued to influence the social changes that followed. The exhibition features prints from between 1926 and 1932 by Rufino Tamayo and los tres grandes (the "big three" muralists): Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. These artists set the standard for modern Mexican style. Prints published in the 1930s to the 1950s by the circle of artists associated with the Taller de Grafica Popular (the People's Graphic Workshop, founded in 1937) drew connections between Mexico's political struggles and the fight against fascism at the core of the Spanish Civil War and World War II. The exhibition also contains more intimate images, such as artists' self-portraits and female nudes. Inspired by their history and what they saw around them, these printmakers generated some of the most original art made in Mexico during the twentieth century. Don't miss the companion photography exhibition "Viva Mexico! Edward Weston and His Contemporaries" on view in the Herb Ritts Gallery May 30-Nov 2, 2009. Watch the WGBH-TV "Greater Boston" segment on the two exhibitions.

---

Supported by the Benjamin A. Trustman and Julia M. Trustman Fund and the Remis Fund for Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. Media sponsor is El Planeta.
Location: Clementine Haas Michel Brown Gallery
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>

Technology has rendered music more accessible and pervasive than ever before. MP3 players are omnipresent; every cell phone can make a statement about the owner's musical taste. Music is everywhere, and in the process has become both more public and more private. We all travel through life with our own soundtrack—sometimes others can hear it; sometimes it's ours alone. Visual artists, however, have been inspired by music throughout history. They have responded by transforming something that is arguably intangible, into visual, physical form. "Seeing Songs" presents an eclectic mix of work—mainly from the Museum's collections—that draws on music as inspiration, focusing on abstract as well as representational art and connections to musical forms as varied as classical, jazz, and pop. From lyrical works on paper by Wassily Kandinsky and a painting by Stuart Davis that depicts music as gesture and improvisation, to recent videos by Gillian Wearing and Candice Breitz that explore the relationship between pop stars and their fans, this exhibition brings together an international group of artists in whose work we see songs.
Location: Foster Gallery
Click here for details
(c) 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ]]>