This week, Jared Bowen and Joe Mathieu get in the Halloween spirit with “The Rocky Horror Show.” Then, Jared reviews the works of Hans Hofmann at the Peabody Essex Museum and Daniela Rivera at the Fitchburg Art Museum.
“The Rocky Horror Show,” presented by Moonbox Productions at a pop-up theater in Harvard Square through Nov. 2
It wouldn’t be Halloween without "Rocky Horror"! Moonbox Productions has taken over an empty Harvard Square storefront to bring Richard O’Brien’s cult phenomenon “The Rocky Horror Show” to life. For the unindoctrinated, “The Rocky Horror Show” tells the story of soon-to-be-married Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, who break down outside the castle of mad scientist Dr. Frank ‘N’ Furter and are swept up in a raunchy, Frankenstein-inspired experiment.
Cleverly lampooning sci-fi and horror movies of old, Jared says this production is “everything you want in your Rocky Horror: cheek, camp, and lots of attitude.”
“Hans Hofmann: The Nature of Abstraction,” on view at the Peabody Essex Museum through Jan. 5
A new exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum looks back at the artistic legacy of Hans Hofmann, one of the great painters and art teachers of the 20th century. “Hans Hofmann: The Nature of Abstraction” examines the German-born artist’s painting career, which experienced a vibrant rebirth after more than 40 years as a devoted teacher. After befriending artists in Europe like Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, Hofmann taught art in Provincetown, Mass., to some of the most well-known artists of the 20th century — including Louise Nevelson, Helen Frankenthaler and Robert Motherwell.
“He was very well known as a teacher, and he's really seen as this conduit between the European avant-garde,” says associate curator Lydia Gordon. “He brought that knowledge and those techniques to America, where artists are really hungry for a new way to think about painting.”
“Daniela Rivera: Labored Landscapes (Where Hand Meets Ground),” on view at Fitchburg Art Museum through Jan. 12
Rappaport Prize-winner Daniela Rivera is making her mark at the Fitchburg Art Museum. A New England artist born and raised in Chile during the Augusto Pinochet regime, Rivera began her career by reacting to the violence she saw in her homeland, eventually evolving her practice to create massive, labored works that tell stories from her home country.
“I don't think about how much it's going to take. … I just go into the thing and I put [in] all my body and then it aches for weeks after,” says Rivera. Her latest exhibition, titled “Daniela Rivera: Labored Landscapes (Where Hand Meets Ground),” features enormous paintings of the hands of Chilean coal miners and a massive tilted box painted with ash titled “Tilted Canvas,” further exemplifying the painstaking labor of Rivera’s work.
What spooky creative projects have you been up to this Halloween? Tell Jared about it on Facebook or Twitter!
