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Polly Apfelbaum, Fluxus in Central Square, and the Axelrod Lecture at the MFA
BY RANDI HOPKINS
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Polly Apfelbaum’s art tends to dot the floors of museums and galleries like psychedelic lily pads; her swirling "carpets" made up of tiny bits of hand-cut and hand-dyed fabric evoke memories of collages made from torn magazine pages, each little scrap rich with the seductive, saturated hues of Vogue and Family Circle. Because you walk around them, looking down (all but the most recalcitrant viewers eventually find themselves on their hands and knees in front of the work), rather than going eye to eye with them, they maintain the elusive allure of a dazzling lake — there are parts you just can’t get close enough to. The artist herself describes them as "fallen paintings," but if they’ve fallen, they’ve also shattered or dissolved into countless fragments, each a tiny painting in itself and inducing a pleasurable disorientation. Apfelbaum recently spent two weeks in residency at Massachusetts College of Art, and the fruits of her visit include a site-specific installation that will be on view in "Polly Apfelbaum," which will open at the school this Tuesday, with the artist present that evening to speak about her work. Word is that she’s also utilized Mass Art’s big Polaroid camera to add an unexpected element to this installation — you’ll want to see for yourself. And speaking of yourself: Fluxus, that international experimental-art movement from the early 1960s that seemed so flaky and has turned out to be so influential, comes to Central Square in "Do-It-Yourself Fluxus," which opens at Art Interactive next Saturday, October 25, with an opening reception that should be very active on October 24. Emphasizing the original participatory aspect of Fluxus, and expanding the current notion of "interactive art," the exhibition serves up works that are conceptually interactive in addition to physically interactive ones. Which means that, besides pushing buttons and performing various tasks, visitors will be asked to enact works in their own minds. The exhibition re-creates several early Fluxus pieces that otherwise sit quietly behind glass at museums these days, giving this generation a go at the Age of Aquarius’s embrace of playfulness and the inner artist in each of us. Among the highlights: a new version of the great Fluxus Labyrinth (originally created in Berlin in 1976) and the New England premiere of Yoko Ono’s Imagine Peace (featured at this year’s Venice Biennale). For the more passive among us, there will be documentary footage of early Fluxus performances to put it all into historical perspective. What do Jan Vermeer and Duke Ellington have in common? Well, according to art scholar Richard J. Powell, both play a significant role in informing modern and contemporary African-American painters’ view of realism, a topic he will address at the Museum of Fine Arts this Sunday in the first Axelrod Lecture, the MFA’s new series of annual lectures devoted to the study of African-American art. Powell’s talk, which is free and open to the public, is called "Interiors in African American Painting (With Respect to Vermeer and Ellington)," and it will look at a broad mix of artists including Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It’ll be accompanied by an installation in the MFA’s lower rotunda of works on paper by contemporary artists including Martin Puryear, Richard Yarde, John Wilson, and Allan Rohan Crite that’ll be up through early November. "Polly Apfelbaum" is at Mass College of Art’s Stephen D. Paine Gallery, 621 Huntington Avenue, October 21 through December 13, with an opening reception on October 21 at 5 p.m. followed by an artist’s talk at 6:30 p.m.; call (617) 879-7000. "Do-It-Yourself Fluxus" will be at Art Interactive, 130 Bishop Allen Drive in Cambridge, October 25 through January 4, with an opening reception on October 24 from 6 to 9 p.m.; call (617) 498-0100. Richard J. Powell will speak on "Interiors in African American Painting" in Remis Auditorium at the Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue, on October 19 at 3 p.m. Call (617) 267-9300.
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