Every week, GBH Govt Arts Editor Jared Bowen brings his arts and tradition picks past Open Studio and into the GBH Information sphere. This week, Bowen joins Boston Public Radio hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan to speak arts information alongside the newest in performing and visible arts.
“The Art of Burning” by Kate Snodgrass
Now taking part in on the Huntington Theatre by way of February 12
Stuffed with allusions to the traditional Greek play Medea and impressed by the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, “The Artwork of Burning” is an exploration by playwright and longtime Boston theater chief Kate Snodgrass into the dissolution of a wedding and gender politics. Bowen says that “individuals discover lots of themselves in [the play] […] as arduous as among the material be — and it’s theater so it’s heightened — there’s so much to narrate to.”
Nile Hawver / Huntington Theatre Firm
“Sargent, Whistler, & Venetian Glass: American Artists and the Magic of Murano”
On view on the Mystic Seaport Museum by way of February 27
Whereas Venice is presently seen as a “vacation spot” for vacationers and humanities aficionados, that hasn’t traditionally been the case. Following Napoleon’s invasion of the world and till the 1800s, Venice and Murano — and the area’s artisanal glass blowers — have been typically ignored. Resurgence got here courtesy of author John Ruskin, who documented Murano’s “return to craft” and impressed the likes of John Singer Sargent and James McNeill to grow to be deeply invested in Venice. Now 200 years later, an exhibit on the Mystic Seaport Museum explores the “Magic of Murano,” that includes glass work alongside work impressed by the area.
Frank Duveneck / Mystic Seaport Museum
“The Floating World: Japanese Prints from the Bancroft Collection”
On view on the Worcester Artwork Museum by way of March 5
This present explores 400 years of Japanese cultural historical past from throughout the Edo interval, that includes “enchanting” prints from a wide range of artists. “Because the centuries progress,” Bowen explains, the artworks “get increasingly more vibrant.” The exhibit’s title, “The Floating World,” is a nod to increased society and the world that many “attempt[d] to be part of, or not less than to emulate.” Standard artists featured within the exhibit embrace Katsushika Hokusai, whose “Nice Wave” is now universally recognizable however who was equally well-known throughout his lifetime.
William Sturgis Bigelow Assortment, MFA
And many others.
Bowen, Braude, and Eagan additionally mentioned the story of The Sound Museum, an area in Brighton identified for providing an reasonably priced location for native musicians that was bought to a developer in late 2022. The Sound Museum’s demise is simply half of a bigger pattern in better Boston, the place older buildings, typically artist residences, are being purchased out, elevating the query of what the artists are to do “in a metropolis the place all the things is altering.”
And in terms of popular culture, no dialog with Braude and Eagan is full and not using a dialogue of considered one of their TV favorites, HBO’s “The White Lotus.” The finale of its second season on the finish of 2022, however many are nonetheless speaking about (and catching up on) the hit present. Its enduring presence within the common consciousness has led to the present’s “insanely catchy theme tune,” written by Chilean-Canadian composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer, being remixed by common DJs and performed in golf equipment.
Fabio Lovino / HBO
