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Visual Arts

A view of “Portraits From Boston, With Love,” an exhibition running through Sept. 8 in the Fenway Gallery at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. (Courtesy Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum)

Found family and a celebration of queer identity in 'Portraits From Boston, With Love'

An exhibition of works by queer artists highlights the beauty of their chosen families, self-discovery and love. The show runs through Sept. 8 at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Arts & Culture

Aug 15, 2024

Installation view of "La Toilette" at LaiSun Keane. (Courtesy Dan Watkins/LaiSun Keane)

In 'La Toilette,' four artists shift narrative of bathing scenes at LaiSun Keane

At the SoWa gallery, artists Kyra Gregory, Isabelle Higgins, Jenny Olsen and Salome Rigvava reimagine bathing and washing routines through contemporary female and nonbinary lenses.

Arts & Culture

Aug 1, 2024

Mia Bagneris poses for a portrait atop the empty platform of the former Jefferson Davis monument in New Orleans in February 2021. Bagneris, an associate professor at Tulane University, teaches a course on narratives surrounding the Civil War in American art and visual culture. (Jennifer Ortiz for WBUR)

Reimagining public monuments

WBUR's Cristela Guerra has reported on the nation's ever-changing commemorative landscape. As Boston embarks on a multi-year monument program, Guerra reflects on the impact of public memorials and representation.

Arts & Culture

Jul 29, 2024

Roberto Mighty stands beside a monument to Prince Hall, a prominent black leader and abolitionist of the time, inside the North End’s Copp’s Hill Burying Ground. (Cristela Guerra/WBUR)

Boston launches project reimagining who is memorialized

Monuments in Boston are evolving as the city asks big questions about who is honored and memorialized. A $3 million multi-year grant from the Mellon Foundation is supporting this change,...

Arts & Culture

04:47Jul 29, 2024

Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1888. (Courtesy Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum)

Remembering Isabella Stewart Gardner 100 years after her death

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum director Peggy Fogelman reflects on Boston's famously eccentric resident on the centennial of her death.

Arts & Culture

Jul 17, 2024

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The Gun Violence Memorial Project will be on view in Boston beginning in August at venues across the city. (Courtesy MASS Design Group)

Memorial to gun violence victims, made of keepsakes, coming to Boston

The Gun Violence Memorial Project is an ever-changing collection of quiet and beloved items. This August, the exhibit is coming to Boston, displaying simultaneously at City Hall, the Institute of...

Arts & Culture

Jul 8, 2024

Faces on sculptor James Tyler's "Tower of East Cambridge Faces" get dried, as part of a routine cleaning by Cambridge Arts conservation technicians. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)

How Cambridge's public art protectors fight graffiti and grime

Cambridge has the largest public art collection in New England. After each long, messy winter, the city’s conservation team mobilizes to take care of that massive trove.

Arts & Culture

04:39Jul 1, 2024

Artist Tanya Nixon-Silberg sews a phrase heard in childhood to a burlap tapestry for "Mother Tongue." (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)

'Mother Tongue' confronts the language of white supremacy in motherhood

Artist Tanya Nixon-Silberg asked 14 mothers of color what phrases they heard growing up and what they say to their children now. The result is a textile project that explores...

Arts & Culture

03:57Jun 25, 2024

Museum of Fine Arts Director Matthew Teitelbaum (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

MFA Director Matthew Teitelbaum announces plans to retire

Over the course of his tenure at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Teitelbaum has overseen a slew of changes and challenges. He plans to retire in August 2025.

Arts & Culture

Jun 21, 2024

Salvador Dalí, "Old Age, Adolescence, Infancy (The Three Ages)," 1940. (Collection of The Dalí Museum. Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

16 art exhibits to explore this summer

From a dystopian video game to an exploration of nature to an artist’s vision of a globe without borders, the season brings a bounty of exhibits that will refresh the...

Arts & Culture

Jun 18, 2024

Hew Locke's installation, "The Procession," was commissioned by Tate Britain in 2022. It's now on view at the ICA's Watershed in East Boston. (Courtesy Mel Taing/Institute of Contemporary Art)

'The Procession' at the ICA Watershed is a spectacle of form and color

The latest exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art's Watershed features an installation by artist Hew Locke. Consisting for 140 figures, they appear live with the consequences of the past.

Arts & Culture

Jun 14, 2024

Guide Allison Sillers explains the significance of Fernando Botero’s Venus to patrons of the Women's Lunch Place during a tour at the MFA, Boston. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

MFA offers free tours for homeless women from a day shelter

The tours are organized through a partnership between Women's Lunch Place, a daytime women's shelter and advocacy center in Boston, and the Museum of Fine Arts.

Arts & Culture

03:18Jun 13, 2024

Artist Susan Thompson standing in the Hyde Park branch of the Boston Public Library where her exhibit of quilts, “Go Down to the River and Talk to ‘JAH’,” are on display. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Susan Thompson's complex and colorful quilts

The textile artist's works are now up as part of her exhibit "Go Down to the River and Talk to 'JAH'" at the Boston Public Library's Hyde Park branch, on...

Arts & Culture

04:07Jun 6, 2024

A photograph titled "Rashayda family, 2018, Negev/Aqaba desert" in photographer Skip Shiel's exhibit at Newton Free Library. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)

A photography exhibit about the West Bank ignites tensions in Newton

Protesters effectively shut down a reception for the exhibit, sparking questions about free speech and the role of public libraries in civic discourse.

Arts & Culture

04:48May 21, 2024

Artist Cicely Carew's "Rooted" sculpture, at Northeastern University's Krentzman Quadrangle. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)

Giant flower sculptures bloom on Northeastern's campus

Cambridge artist Cicely Carew designed the fifteen-foot high sculptures to withstand the elements and infuse color into a drab urban landscape.

Arts & Culture

May 10, 2024

Stefanie Belnavis, who launched Birthlooms, photographed Dr. Sade Bully-Bell pregnant with Isaiah Bell. (Courtesy Stefanie D. Belnavis/Birthlooms)

Boston photographer captures tender and tough birth stories

Stefanie Belnavis started Birthlooms to capture the stories of Black and brown birthing people. "I just want to continue empowering... folks to honor their stories."

Arts & Culture

May 9, 2024

A cocktail dress designed by Valentino and worn by Donna Summer in 2011 for an event in Zurich, Switzerland. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Donna Summer's disco style on display at the MFA

The Boston-born singer's glittering garments are on display in the Museum of Fine Arts' fashion exhibition "Dress Up."

Arts & Culture

05:35May 8, 2024

Visitors walk along artist Massiel Grullon's ground mural “Knotical Waves,” commissioned by Now + There, at Lot Lab, near the Charlestown Navy Yard in 2023. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)

Boston will host its first 'Public Art Triennial' in 2025

Over the past 10 years, public art nonprofit Now + There has commissioned 52 participatory, site-specific sculptures and murals to enrich Boston’s landscape. The vision of the organization is expanding...

Arts & Culture

May 1, 2024

Child's coffin, 1295–1186 B.C. (Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

Sleuthing leads the MFA to return an Egyptian coffin to Sweden

The MFA and the Gustavianum, Uppsala University Museum In Sweden worked together to correct the record on an ancient object's origins.

Arts & Culture

Apr 26, 2024

Artist Jean Shin drills holes through recycled copper to nail it onto a tree stump forming a human perch as part of her exhibit at Appleton Farms, “Perch.” (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

An eco-art installation that's for the birds — literally

At Appleton Farms in Ipswich, migratory bobolinks return each May to use the grasslands for breeding. Artist Jean Shin has installed a pastoral art installation called "Perch" highlighting the critical...

Arts & Culture

04:55Apr 24, 2024