2019 BAM Catalog

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NOT JUST ANOTHER PRETTY PICTURE

James Allen, Kevin Bubriski, Firoz Mahmud, Sandra Moore, Saira Wasim, Dan Wolf

 Death of a Loved One - 1890s Fashion

Collection of Greg Lafave

Dark Matter

Works by Advisory Board Members of the Berkshire Art Museum

BERKSHIRE ARTISTS OF THE CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS CENTER 1990-1999 

(Click here to view full CAC Show catalog)

Dale Bradley, Christopher Gillooly, Brandon Graving, Robert Henriquez,   Henry Klein, Barbara May, Robert Schechter, Maria Siskind, David Zaig.

 This exhibition showcases the work of nine artists who had a close association with the Contemporary Artists Center (CAC) and to the Berkshires.  In addition to engaging the few artists who were already here, the CAC stimulated hundreds of artists to visit the area, some who later made the Berkshires their permanent home.

The vitality of the work created by these artists represents much of why the CAC became well known in art circles around the world.  These artists utilize many types of art processes, including paint, print technology, large printmaking, photography and sculpture.   Most of the works in the exhibition were conceived and/or created around the decade of the 90s, many inspired by the artists’ interaction with the CAC.

Artists already living in the area and who became very active with the CAC’s art programs included Dale Bradley (printmaker who had a studio in the mill and built up the CAC’s printmaking facilities), Maria Siskind (primarily sculpture) and Christopher Gillooly (photography and sculpture).  Barbara May (painter, works on paper) came to the Berkshires around the time that the CAC was started, in part to share in the artistic renaissance that MASS MoCA projected to bring and later served as the CAC’s board president.

Artists who later moved to the Berkshires included David Zaig (then living in Cambridge, MA and who served as one of the main staff artists), Brandon Graving (who came from New Orleans as an attending artist and later became its master printmaker), Robert Henriquez (who was the very first attending artist from NYC and later became involved as a visiting artist), Henry Klein (who first came from Connecticut as an attending artist), and NYC artist Robert Schechter (who came to the CAC to work on the “Monster Press”).

History:

Having an abundance of excess space in the Historic Beaver Mill (North Adams), Barbara and Eric Rudd founded the Contemporary Artists Center in 1990. During the first summer session, 19 artists came to reside, work and interact in the newly repurposed spaces.  By the second season and each subsequent summer, more than 100 artists from around the country and world came to the CAC to live and create and exhibit.   To interact with the attending artists, the CAC invited some of the world’s most important museum/gallery directors and artists, including such notable museum figures as Tom Krens (Guggenheim), Kirk Varnedoe (MOMA) and Walter Hopps (Menil) and such distinguished artists as Julian Schnabel, Jenny Holzer, Elizabeth Murray, Judy Pfaff, Grace Hartigan, Larry Bell, and many others.

During the 1990s, the CAC’s residency programs and workshops geared for large-scale printmaking encouraged attending artists to experiment.   To show their new work to the general public, the CAC provided five galleries for an average of 15 shows each summer.  Additionally, the CAC sponsored weekly lectures and gallery talks, performances, open studios and events such as “Downtown Installations,” where attending CAC artists created large installations in the many empty downtown storefronts.   Rudd directed the CAC for ten years, and the CAC continued to operate for seven additional years before downsizing and moving out of the region.

 The remarkable 17-year history of the CAC indicates clearly that the CAC -   along with MASS MoCA which opened ten years after the CAC was started - was a major catalyst for many artists to move to the area.  Today, hundreds of artists are working in mill studios and lofts throughout the northern Berkshires, further stimulating the region’s cultural vibrancy.

ART AND ARCHITECTURE

  Keith Bona

  Peter Dudek

  Howard Itzkowitz

  William Sweet

The Berkshire Art Museum presents four artists whose interest is based in architecture.   Keith Bona uses the computer to make his architectural renderings of well-known local buildings, but emphasizing an abstractness of line and color.  Peter Dudek constructs and stacks common building materials to produce abstracted versions of cityscapes.  Howard Itzkowitz uses the pencil and pen to sketch interesting old buildings and cityscapes, many created during his travels in Italy.  William Sweet makes architectural models using common cardboard materials.  The two models in the exhibition, the Clock Tower building at MASS MoCA and the Historic Beaver Mill, played an important role in North Adams’ artistic renaissance.

SARAH SUTRO - COLORS

Sarah Sutro’s work infuses transparent layers of ink with themes of time,

infinite scale, and tabular structure. Large overlapping marks of natural color and black ink express the intersection of nature and culture, celebrating the aliveness and uniqueness of the natural world. In Bangladesh and Thailand where Sutro worked and lived, she learned how to develop natural inks from organic materials. The paintings are abstract, yet the work evokes a physical presence connected to land and water.

Sutro earned a BFA from Cornell and Yale, and an MFA from University of the Arts, London. With solo and group shows in Boston, New York, San Diego, Berkeley, Belgrade, Bangkok, Montenegro, Dhaka, and London, Sutro’s work is in collections locally and internationally. A recipient of a Pollock Krasner Grant, she has been a resident at the American Academy of Rome, MacDowell Colony, Ossabaw Island Foundation, Millay Colony for the Arts, Blue Mountain Center, and Art Dulcinium, Montenegro. Her work can be seen in Joseph Carroll and Sons Gallery, in the Boston

Drawing Project.  Additionally, Sutro taught many years in colleges and universities in Boston, and was a Robert Frost Award Finalist. A book of her poetry, Etudes, has just been published through Finishing Line Press.