Danforth showcases region's best
Fresh from hanging nearly 200 artworks on the walls at the Danforth Museum of Art, director Katherine French is breathless - and awed. The downtown Framingham museum's increasingly notable "Off the Wall" annual juried show is finally up, after officially opening yesterday, and the usually articulate French is at first too impressed to talk.
"The museum is full with some of the best contemporary art in New England and I'm not inflating that claim," said French. "It really does represent some of the best contemporary work being produced here, or in the country, or anywhere today. There's nothing second tier about it."
Since its founding in 2006, "Off the Wall" has increasingly drawn submissions from the region's most respected artists as well as from newcomers whose talents are just beginning to emerge. Both are groups that the Danforth actively recruits for membership.
"Many artists connect with galleries and collectors through this show. They get picked up by other museums via this show," said French. "We have curators from other museums who come several times a summer to see this show, because we have work by over a hundred artists and you can't go to that many studios."
French also points out that as other museums have shifted their focus outward, the Danforth's role in supporting regional art has grown more critical. "At one time, the Danforth, the DeCordova, and the Fuller Craft Museum were all doing this. But we, by attrition - because the Fuller is now concentrating on craft and the DeCordova has a very ambitious national program - we're the ones left really focusing on regional art."
That focus can launch careers, as noted photographer Rania Matar of Brookline well knows. She will be showing "Nun with Blowing Veil, Cheleka, Lebanon" at the Danforth, her work coming fresh from the walls of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. She credits a show at the Framingham museum with getting her to the ICA in the first place.
"The Danforth was a turning point for me," said Matar, whose debut book of photos shot in Lebanon, "Ordinary People," will be released this fall. "It really pays off to submit to these things that may seem like they might go nowhere but then can turn out to be life changing."
This year, visitors to "Off the Wall" can first take in 61 pieces juried into the main show by Lisa Tung, director of curatorial programs and professional galleries at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and Joseph Carroll, owner of Carroll and Sons gallery in Boston. They approached the show almost like one unified work of installation art.
"We combined works that played with color against color, or patterns that related to each other, or interesting juxtapositions of ways of dealing with line," said Carroll. "The idea was to have a visual dialogue between pieces."
Another 140 works were juried by French into a companion exhibition, "A Community of Artists." Pieces include paintings, photography, sculpture, prints, and a significant amount of fiber arts.
Well-known artists showing include Jo Sandman, Susan Schwalb, John Schulz, Antoinette Winters, and Yu-Wen Wu, and the prestigious Boston Printmakers group is well represented by artists including James Baker and Vivian Berman.
Newer artists also abound, such as Resa Blatman, whose mammoth, frilly and freaky "Beauty and the Beasties" panel (in oil, acrylic, and glitter) is a show in itself.
"Resa Blatman is definitely an artist to watch," said French. "Her engagement in materials is fascinating. Her work doesn't look like anyone else's, and she's so ambitious in the sense that she's trying things that nobody else is trying and she's really succeeding."
Carroll said much the same about the Danforth itself. "This show is a way to embrace the community and be open to artists in a way a lot of other institutions are not," he said. "Most reach out with a more focused or narrow approach. So I'd encourage people to come down and see the Danforth for the resource that it is."
"Off the Wall" and "A Community of Artists" exhibitions are running through Aug. 2 at the Danforth Museum of Art, 123 Union Ave., Framingham. Museum hours: Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission: $10; students, seniors $8. 508-620-0050, www.danforthmuseum.org.
The all-natural, organic eats on the menu for the Friday evening shows through August include pork and buffalo hot dogs, free-range chicken sausage, gourmet Wagyu beef burgers, and a host of country breads and fresh local cheeses. Choose your picnic, distract the kids with the farm's bucket of toys, then settle in for some tunes.
Music ranges from jazz and folk to country, acoustic rock, and blues. The lineup for tomorrow's opening night includes one outsized Hopkinton talent who ought to be discovered soon. At just 14, Sasha Yatchenko is still evolving. But for now she has managed to channel a little bit of Edie Brickell, Suzanne Vega, and Norah Jones into her selection of radio-worthy original tunes. Really. Then again, she's had time to get so good. She started penning her own music way back when she was 10. Listen to her debut CD at www.myspace.com/sashayatchenko.
Sweet Summer Nights concert series opens tomorrow, 7-8:30 p.m., continues Fridays through August at Sweetwilliam Farm, 153 North St., Upton. Free. 508-529-2000, www.sweetwilliamfarm.biz.
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