Mark Feeney of Boston Globe wins 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism

I am delighted to report that Mark Feeney, resident art, photo, and culture critic at the Boston Globe, has won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism! I just learned about the great news. Congratulations Mark! You so richly deserve it!

I am also honored to report that one of the 10 stories with which Mark was nominated and won was his review for my PRC exhibition Picture Show. I had previously gone on about his insightful commentary and ability to create brilliant turns of phrases before.

You can read all of Mark's nominated, prize-winning stories here, including his reviews of the photographic efforts of several PRC friends -- Kim Sichel's aerial photography show, Arlette Kayafas's Charles Teenie Harris show, and Abe Morell's Mead Art Museum show. Being that we are a smaller non-profit in a largish city, I am thrilled and humbled that Mark has written about our shows so often, or even at all. You can read 5 of Mark's reviews of PRC exhibitions at this link.

I so very much appreciate the time that Mark spends in understanding an exhibition, something that not every critic does, and I know the artists do too. He always asks for all of the wall text and artist statements and spends a long taking in a show. In his writing, you can tell how much he enjoys pondering ideas of all stripes.

Here are some excerpts below from the Boston Globe story and above, a photo by another of my favorite Globe staffers, Dominic Chavez.

From the Boston Globe, Globe writer wins Pulitzer Prize for criticism
By Don Aucoin, Globe Staff, April 7, 2008

Mark Feeney, an arts writer and photography reviewer for The Boston Globe, today was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for criticism.

It is the 20th time the Globe has won the Pulitzer, which is considered the most prestigious award in journalism, and the second time in the past seven years that the newspaper has won the award for criticism.

Feeney, 50, won for 10 essays on visual culture that ranged from photography to painting and film. A self-described Globe "lifer'' who began working at the newspaper shortly after he graduated from Harvard in 1979, Feeney noted today that the Globe has long made arts criticism a cornerstone of its identity.

"More than anything else, it's about the paper,'' he said of the Pulitzer. "There are so many people who are deserving who don't get it. It's a crapshoot. I'm just amazed, overwhelmed, and really, really pleased that the dice came up for me this time. But it's not just for me. It's for the paper.''

The awards were announced this afternoon at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. ...

Feeney won the Pulitzer for 10 critical essays that suggest the fluency and brio of his writing style, and the range of interests on which he brings that style to bear. ...

"The Globe has a great tradition of reviewers, not just such prior Pulitzer winners as Robert Campbell and Gail Caldwell, but so many others, going all the way back to Michael Steinberg, Robert Taylor, Richard Dyer, Margaret Manning, and several current colleagues whom I will not embarrass by naming,'' said Feeney.

Feeney was born in Winchester, Mass., and raised in Reading, Mass. His mother, Agnes, who still lives in Reading, will turn 90 on Saturday."I've been at a loss as to what to get her for a present,'' Feeney said. "I guess I'm all set now.''

AICA awards update! Picture Show gets silver but feels like gold

Here is an update on the 2008 AICA USA awards from the New England region, which were held about 3 weeks ago at the end of Feburary. Yep, you can always count on me to post on the latest, most fast breaking news. HOWEVER, yesterday, an audio review of our awards was released on Chicago's super online arts podcast mag, Bad at Sports. (Well, actually, there is a reason - I was gone for 10 of those days...and promise to do a roundup soon on Fotofest & SPE.)

I am proud as a peach to report that the exhibition Picture Show that I curated at the PRC (and Boston Cyberarts) was mentioned very positively for 4 minutes! In the category of “Best Show in a University or College Gallery," Picture Show took second place at AICA NE, but as stated above, I feel like gold. Thanks again to AICA NE, George Fifield of Cyberarts, and all of the artists in Picture Show.

Art critic Greg Cook (of the Boston Globe, Boston Phoenix, and of course, the blog, New England Journal of Aesthetic Research) joined Matt Nash, James Nadeau, and Christian Holland of Big RED & Shiny for the Bad at Sports roundtable at MIT's Stata Center. You can listen to the roundtable of these fine folks discuss all of the shows and more here. If you want to hear the Picture Show part specifically, fast forward about 20 minutes in.

Supposedly, the AICA New England awards won't be held next year so they can concentrate on getting more members (they don't have any $ to do the awards, but each host museum, this year the Rose, helps out). I hope they continue it, as the evening was great for the whole community, allowing big and little guns like me and us to come together. It was truly great. Big RED and Greg Cook hope to maybe have the ceremony morph into something, read more about that here and here.

Here is a round up of AICA and Picture Show links:

• Greg Cook posts on the AICA awards the night they happened
• BRS's blog Our Daily Red gives the AICA rundown as well
• See pics of the Picture Show installation at the PRC here
• Boston Phoenix named Picture Show one of the best of 2007
• Matt Nash's review of Picture Show in Big, Red, and Shiny
• Mark Feeney's review of Picture Show in the Boston Globe
• Greg Cook on the Musee Patamechanique in the Boston Globe

Another accolade for Picture Show

I just learned that Picture Show has won an award from the New England chapter of AICA (Association Internationale des Critiques d’art, the International Association of Art Critics). I am so thrilled! I am so excited to be counted among a group of superb museums, galleries, and alternative spaces, and honored by critics and peers. I am not sure if it's a first or second place award or the exact category, but my guess for the latter is: "Best Group Show in Institutional/University Gallery, Boston-area." I'll let you know if it's a gold or silver after the ceremony in February!

From the AICA's literature:

Each year the ...[AICA] invites its nearly 400 members to vote for the best exhibitions created during that season as a way to acknowledge the exceptional work contributed by artists, curators, and dealers in the field of the visual arts. These prestigious annual awards are the art-world’s equivalent to those given each year by the New York Film Critics Society, the Drama Desk and the Academy of Motion Pictures. Additionally, for the past six years, the New England chapter of AICA has initiated its own awards ceremony to honor local efforts, which are also announced at the National AICA/USA awards ceremony....AICA was founded in 1949 as a non-profit governmental affiliate of UNESCO. The Paris-based AICA comprises 4,000 members in 74 national sections around the world. AICA, whose members are distinguished critics, scholars, curators and art historians, aims to further protect the field of art criticism as a discipline and emphasize its contribution to society, and to act on behalf of the moral defense of works of art.

A Golden Bee for Picture Show

I just learned today that the PRC's 2007 Boston Cybearts offering was featured in the Boston Phoenix's 2007 Art in Review. I am proud as pie to report that the good art folks there counted Picture Show among the best of 2007! The Phoenix gave the first nod to the amazing "Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination” at the Peabody Essex Museum. This was truly an outstanding exhibition -- a true visual and mental feast and a rare experience indeed -- and I am thrilled to have our exhibition share the same ink.

Here is the blurb on Picture Show:

Back to the future “Picture Show,” organized by Leslie K. Brown at Boston University’s Photographic Resource Center, went low-tech to mull motion pictures. The best stuff seemed teleported straight from some fabulous 19th-century inventor’s lab. Deb Todd Wheeler offered a magic picture wheel and hand-cranked light-up illusions. Steve Hollinger adapted old-time amusement hall flip-book animation technology to create visions of an atomic apocalypse. And a strange pedestal contraption by Hans Spinnerman of the terrific, hallucinatory Musée Patamécanique in Bristol, Rhode Island, somehow made a giant bumblebee appear to hover inside a bell jar.

I am particularly proud of this accolade because...

1.) It's the first time I curated a show with kinetic, interactive art and the first time I worked with this kind of new media meets old media (oh how nervous I was during the opening and throughout the whole show).

2.) I've always loved pre-cinematic and optical toys (and creating as much atmosphere in the gallery as I can).

3.) This is an idea I've had for some time.

4.) These artists were top notch and a joy to work with (and great senses o' humor too!).

5.) Perhaps it was because most of the work was constructed or assembled over several days right in the PRC, we developed a great sense of camaraderie. I count them among my friends. We took a particularly memorable trip to visit le Musée Patamechanique in Bristol, RI after the show ended its run. (Congrats on your recent grant!)
6-1000.) It was a joy to see how much fun visitors had with the show! You can browse pics of the light-sensitive, lens-based, and people-activated artwork here at this flickr set.

Thanks Steve, Olivia, Deb, Erica, Hans and Neil! And thanks Greg Cook!

ABOVE: Detail of Hans Spinnermen - The Dream of Timmy Bumble Bee. Installation at PRC, Photo by Jeremias Paul

Next Stop Wonderland

Two artists (and a museum) that I featured in the PRC show Picture Show are in the Boston Globe today, and it's a great, wild ride of an article thanks to Greg Cook. Neil Salley, curator of Le Musée Patamécanique--think cabinet of curiosities meets new media museum--has a large spread and even a video (see the latter here). I can't wait to see what it looks like on paper! If it's possible to miss an exhibition after it's down, I sure miss this one! Here is a link to the piece I showed by Hans Spinnermen at the PRC (you can explore the flickr set to to see the whole PRC show).

I spoke to Greg at length on the phone about le Musée and other efforts, such as the Museum of Jurassic Technology. Here is my quote in the newspaper:

The Musée's website is packed with footnotes that purport to explain what's going on and the institution's historical underpinnings. Leslie Brown, a curator at Boston University's Photographic Resource Center who has exhibited one of Spinnermen's contraptions, says, "You cannot read some of the footnotes . . . and not laugh. I think one of the footnotes said, 'See Marcel Duchamp.' All of Duchamp. It's like saying, 'See Philosophy.'"

Congrats Neil, Hans, and all of the patamechanics! A thanks goes to Greg, who is also at the helm of another another seemingly kindred institution, The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research.

UPDATE: Greg Cook posted some excerpts from his conversation with Neil on the NEJAR blog. Great stuff!

Neil Salley and Hans Spinnermen's Earolin, From Boston Globe

Picture Show: Home Run!

Since it is baseball season, it's apt to suggest that the current PRC exhibition, Picture Show, is a home run! We had an EXCELLENT review in the Boston Globe, courtesy of the amazing writer Mark Feeney. The show seems to have hit a nerve and we have gotten a lot of press. I am equally a fan of Mark's insightful reviews as much as I am grateful that he actually takes the time to read and experience a whole exhibition. He always knits together culture, history, and philosophy in his art reviews; I try to do the same in my exhibitions via art, text, and the environment. Exhibitions are my art, so I couldn't be happier that someone appreciated it at that level. The idea of this show has haunted me for a while. These wonderful artists worked very hard to install this complicated show and were so excited to be in such company that many made or adapted new works for the show. Here are some of my favorite phrasings from Mark's review:

The aim of this show of contemporary art is to re-create the enchantment viewers experienced when first encountering these visual marvels a century and more ago. The PRC gallery, curator Leslie K. Brown writes, has been made over into "a space somewhere between a cabinet of curiosity, carnival spectacle, and an early motion picture theatre." An even better analogy might be to the interior of one of Joseph Cornell's boxes. There's the same sense of sly magic and delicate otherworldliness.

In "Always, Just Beyond Reach," a set of outstretched hands can never quite reach a set of pretty flowers. Futility has rarely been so sweetly appointed. It's as if Laura Ashley were hosting a garden party in honor of Tantalus and Zeno.

In a league by itself is Hans Spinnermen's "The Dream of Timmy Bumblebee." It consists of an impressive contraption of metal and glass that looks not unlike an immobilized, Jenny Craig version of Robbie the Robot from "Forbidden Planet. " Projected within it is a film of a bumblebee in flight. The film is incidental to the rather majestic monstrosity of
Spinnermen's creation, which is on loan from le Musee Patamecanique, in Bristol, R.I.

I feel humbled; what more could a curator want than to have their gallery be compared to the inside of a Joseph Cornell box! (For Cornell fans, the Peabody Essex Museum will be hosting a huge retrospective of Cornell's work opening April 28.) The second quote is brilliant, what more can a writer pack into that last sentence!

Picture Show is up until May 6th at the PRC. As the artworks are interactive and kinetic, the show needs you to work! We hope that you can experience the show, but for those out of town you can check out Picture Show installation and opening images on our Flickr site. Enjoy!