Lifestyle

By Richard Campbell It is not often that the visual arts attempt to engage the audience into playing on a jungle gym, but William Forsythe’s “Choreographic Objects” currently installed at the ICA in the Seaport gives the viewer room to romp.  The choreographer’s experience-based works  coincide with his residency at the Boston Ballet, and would be considered a collaborative effort, bridging the visual arts, writing, and choreography.  Where many conceptual artists come to this kind of work without in-depth experience in dance, William Forsythe is coming from a life-long career in classical ballet. After having worked for the Stuttgart Ballet,  he was director of Ballet Frankfurt for twenty years, and formed his own Forsythe Company between 2005 and 2015.  All that experience adds a power [...]

       On Thursday, November 8, South Boston’s Society of Arts + Crafts (100 Pier 4 Boulevard, second floor) held its Opening Reception for “Adorning Boston and Beyond” and “Our Cups Runneth Over”.  These are cleverly combined exhibitions of both jewelry and cups, which are on view until February 17, 2019.  Admission is free; don’t miss it.   by Rick Winterson   The Society of Arts + Crafts is sited in the middle of South Boston’s Seaport District, at the corner of Seaport and 100 Pier 4 Boulevards.  The Society is on the second floor, just a short walk across Seaport Green from District Hall and the Courthouse Silver Line Station.  It is really a fine place to visit, combining (as it does) an [...]

  SOUTH BOSTON SPORTS By Richard Campbell The  Veteran’s Day Weekend DAV5K race grows each year and is responsible for raising money to help over a million American Veterans each year with a myriad of services.  The Boston Castle Island trunk of the run is just one of six locations where the national event occurs but has special significance with its start at Fort Independence.  WRKO announcers handled the opening ceremonies and various organizers for the race spoke of the importance of this kind of event for veterans and their families.  With a loop around Pleasure Bay one can see that veterans of all stripes, and their supporters  were out in force. The weather was crisp, but not formidable as last year.  The teams for [...]

By Richard Campbell  The Spanish Pop Surrealist Okuda San Miguel has landed his brightly colored mythical creature sculptures on the Seaport Boulevard, lending a playful quality to what is essentially a highway through the Seaport. His larger than life sized geometrically formed sculptures face forward on the boulevard, beckoning more to drivers than to the pedestrian passer-by. The identity of the mythical figures is encased with an architectural sense of sculpture. They are the perfect anecdote to break up the seemingly never-ending sequence of blue glass boxes.  Looking somewhat like computer generated art, they are often cryptically named. In contrast to the native growth on the medians, these shiny sculptures will draw the eyes and add a notion of modernity to the new Seaport that [...]

  By Richard Campbell  Founded in 2014 by Harvard, MIT, MGH, and The Boston Globe, the annual Hub Week now sporting many new sponsors, materialized on City Hall Plaza Monday October the 8th this past week. The showcase runs through the 14th and is comprised of over 200 events. This year’s theme is “We the Future”, which seems as much about cultural innovations as future crisis points mitigated by technologies. Hub Week brings smart people from around the world to showcase innovations in technology, medicine, education, humanities and the arts. While there are really only three full days of forums-Wednesday through Friday- the week includes satellite experiences all around Boston. Home base on City Hall Plaza is where select environments, staged experiences and amenities create [...]

  By Richard Campbell While South Bostonians are surrounded by water and are usually happy to convene with the ocean via a walk out to Castle Island, there is no doubt that an annual sojourn to the Boston Harbor Islands is a great way to end the season. Events are more sporadic in September, but there is still plenty to discover in the early fall, as the season ends on Columbus Day. First time visitors usually only make it to Georges Island, but fall is the perfect time to explore new horizons. This year, due to storm damage, sadly there is no public access to Little Brewster Island, the home of Boston Light- the first and last lighthouse station in the nation. Georges and Spectacle [...]

By Richard Campbell The venerable Society of Arts and Crafts gallery in the Seaport District is such a manageable showcase of recent arts, and so accessible to Seaport travelers with its free admission and friendly gallery talks, it’s a hidden gem in plain sight. Shows running through the summer are The Cover Up featuring fabric works of Donna Rhea Marder, Infinite Vibration, sculptural and wall pieces of by Niho Kozuru, and Artist in Residence Wood Quilts by Laura Petrovich-Cheney. I attended Donna Rhea Marder’s presentation on her work which was one of those rare moments when a visual artist reveals a quirky sense of humor that approaches a respectable entertainment value all by itself. Her descriptions of how she arrived at various techniques using primitive [...]