When I mentioned to a handful of artists my plans to check out the “Impressions of Florida” show at Bonnet House recently, one reaction was a dismissive “Oh, old-lady art.” The perception, sadly, was that the Bonnet estate’s annual juried show is a stuffy, unadventurous affair, something suitable only for…
Of the two new exhibitions at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, one appears to be a sure-fire crowd pleaser, while the other yields unexpected pleasures that prove ultimately more substantial. Put another way, maybe I’m just not that keen on looking at women’s dresses. “CUT! Costume and the Cinema”…
The 11 artists in this noteworthy group exhibition have one thing in common: All have completed a four-week course offered by the Artist as Entrepreneur Institute, a training program that teaches artists to think of and present themselves as small businesses. Eight are graduates of the most recent program, chosen…
If you think you have contemporary watercolor painting pegged — it’s a nice medium, for nice Sunday-afternoon painters who make nice, safe, boring art — then you’ll find Miles Batt’s retrospective as bracing as a slap in the face. Fort Lauderdale-based Batt doesn’t exactly reinvent watercolor, but he’s so alive…
If you wander off the street into “Frances Trombly: Paintings,” one of two heady new shows on view at Girls’ Club in downtown Fort Lauderdale, you may well think you’ve stumbled into an exhibition that is still being assembled. Several canvases lean against the walls as if waiting to be…
Above, “Faune dévoilant une dormeuse” by Pablo Picasso. When times are tough, museums often delve deep into their permanent collections. That’s exactly what the Boca Museum has done with this fine little secondary exhibition. It may not have the flash or dazzle of a traveling show or an aspiring blockbuster,…
Above, a candid moment from Marilyn Monroe in 1952. Remember when almost anything that emanated from Hollywood – movies, TV shows, even Saturday-morning cartoons – bore the end-credit tagline “Made in Hollywood, U.S.A.”? As a kid, that imprint seemed to be evidence of magic, as if Hollywood were its own…
Calling an exhibition “Best of the Best” is all but asking for trouble, but a new show by that name, now at Rossetti Fine Art in Pompano Beach, delivers what it promises. Gallery owner Tom Rossetti, an artist himself and a veteran judge of art shows around town, hit on…
Like the Supreme Court justice who knew pornography when he saw it, I know punk when I see it, and punk in all its messy glory is at the dark heart of “Raymond Pettibon: The Punk Years, 1978-86,” now at the Schmidt Center Gallery at Florida Atlantic University in Boca…
Put aside your preconceptions about drawing when you approach “Tom Wesselmann Draws,” now at the Museum of Art|Fort Lauderdale. The artist had his own distinct ideas about what constituted drawing, as he made clear in his introduction to this knockout retrospective, which includes more than a hundred works spanning four…
Sure, it’s satisfying when a local venue gets a crack at, say, a major Picasso show. But one of the great pleasures of going to museums is getting exposed to artists we know little or even nothing about. Case in point: The Boca Raton Museum of Art has done justice…
If there’s any doubt that patriarchy is alive and well — in some cultures more than in others — consider this wrenching drama exhibit A. It’s a remarkably assured first feature from writer/director Feo Aladag, and it has already amassed a handful of well-earned honors around the world, including the…
What’s most striking about the fall exhibitions at the Coral Springs Museum of Art is the uniformly high level of craftsmanship. So much contemporary art favors concept over execution that a presumption of craft is no longer a given. Technical accomplishment, in such a context, is especially worth nothing. The…
When was the last time you grooved on the work of a Croatian artist? If your answer, like mine, is “Never, that I can recall,” you can remedy the situation by visiting the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood. That’s where “Sinisa Kukec: And Yet Another Wayward Landscape” is now…
Many artists long to have their own galleries. Broward-based photographer Jeremiah Jenner made it happen. First he applied for a space at the Sailboat Bend Artist Lofts, on the fringes of downtown Fort Lauderdale. Then he transformed that space into a combination residence, studio, and gallery. The latter, Galerie Jenner,…
What is it about photorealism that pushes people’s buttons, eliciting oohs and ahhs about as reliably as fine chocolate? I can’t explain the phenomenon, but I’m just as susceptible to it as anyone. I found myself all cut-cooing as I made my way among the nearly two dozen paintings that…
Alfred Phillips is feeling rejected — not dejected, exactly, but a little passed over. The judge for an art show at an area gallery just turned down a canvas from his current body of work, and he’s still smarting. “It stings,” he admits cheerfully, even though he has dealt with…
It seemed especially fitting that on the same day I visited “Dinotopia: The Fantastical Art of James Gurney” at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, I also stumbled upon the 1993 movie Jurassic Park while channel-surfing. I’ve seen the Steven Spielberg screen version of Michael Crichton’s best-selling…
Summer has long been the Season of the Sequel in Hollywood. Just look at this year, which has already seen the release of Iron Man 2, Shrek 4, Sex and the City 2, Toy Story 3, and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Lately, it seems, South Florida museums are getting in…
Coral Springs has a museum?!” I have heard that refrain almost every time I’ve mentioned the Coral Springs Museum of Art over the course of at least a dozen years, and it resurfaced again before my most recent visit. It seems that no matter how often I sing the praises…
There’s not much middle ground with op art. Either you’re exhilarated by the mathematical precision of its lines and shapes and the illusion of movement generated by its juxtapositions of forms and bright colors or your mind and eye find those same ingredients taxing. As a proud member of the…
As the cheeky title indicates, this small group show replaces pomp with POP with mixed but mostly pleasing results. Perhaps inspired by his own latest series, gallery owner Timothy Leistner invited four fellow artists to submit works that partake in a style best represented by Andy Warhol. Leistner’s contributions are…
