Word: mfa
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...Oxford New American Dictionary defines "still life" as "a painting of lifeless things." Unfortunately, in most cases, a lifeless subject means a dull painting. And five rooms full of dull paintings--the MFA's "Grand Illusion: Four Centuries of Still Life"--definitely makes for a lifeless show...
...exhibit recently returned from a tour of department store galleries in Japan; the money the MFA made from renting out this show funded the massive Reubens retrospective the museum mounted last year. "Grand Illusion" feels like a second-tier, low-budget project. It draws from the permanent collection, as many shows do during times of economic stress, but it doesn't add the new twist that a show making use of frequently-seen pieces desperately needs...
Although some of the pieces are interesting enough, don't make a special trip to the MFA for this show. The radio commercial tries to make "Grand Illusions" sound intriguing: "There may be only one way to peel a banana, but there are countless ways to paint one." There are many confusing and unthinking ways to hang...
...Label Show" is not the part of the MFA to visit when you're suffering from museum fatigue; it really makes you work, both physically and mentally. The exhibit deals with three questions: what art is; how art mirrors the time in which it is created; and how museums deal with contemporary art, which often seems to defy established categories...
...MFA's exhibition begins with Frankenthaler's first print, First Stone of 1961, and ends with her 1993 piece Freefall, which was completed just in time to be included in the show. In the years between the production of these two prints, Frankenthaler created a varied and extensive body of work totalling more than 230 prints...