December galleries guide

Creature conflicts People often describe Aggie Zed’s sculptures as “whimsical,” or “cute.” “I can see whimsical, but I don’t ever see cute,” says the artist, who uses handmade ceramic and mechanical bits in combination with found materials such as scrap metal, wire, and plastic milk jugs to create what she calls “really dear beings that […]

Training ground: Maria Varela captures a life of activism in ‘Time to Get Ready: fotografía social’ at The Fralin

By Ramona Martinez In “Time to Get Ready: fotografía social,” a National Museum of Mexican Art exhibit on view at The Fralin Museum of Art, you will find all the classic elements one expects in a “good” photography show. Maria Varela’s photographs are compositionally sophisticated and emotionally intimate. They are candids, yet they look like […]

Together apart: Marriage Story works through tears and humor

Though Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story openly invites comments on the irony of the title—this is, after all, a movie about divorce—it’s in their separation that Nicole and Charlie Barber (Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver) see one another for who they are, as opposed to who they’d become while married. The life they built together was […]

Change agents: Beatrix Ost retrospective warns of a dystopian future

Walking into Beatrix Ost’s “Illuminations & Illusions,” now on view at Second Street Gallery, I was immediately reminded of Hieronymus Bosch’s famous triptych “The Garden of Earthly Delights.” It wasn’t one particular painting that suggested this, but rather the cumulative effect of all the work. Like Bosch, Ost creates complicated, often fantastical tableaux of people, […]

ARTS Pick: Hiss Golden Messenger

Hiss honesty. M.C. Taylor has been playing music as Hiss Golden Messenger for more than 10 years. His style, though memorable, is hard to categorize as squarely folk, Americana, or gospel. Sure, there is mandolin and a folky twang, but on the next track you might be surprised by an electronic piano. The things that […]

ARTS Pick: The Flying Karamazov Brothers

Let it fly. Performing as clever pranksters since 1973, The Flying Karamazov Brothers have happily basked in the career-long praise from audiences and critics who call them zany, goofy, and creative. The Brothers mix juggling, theatrics, and comedy into their precisely calibrated act in which every joke and acrobatic stunt lands perfectly. According to Variety, […]

Siding with vinyl: The pros and cons of Record Store Day

Perhaps you’ve seen them, the vinyl devotees. They live among us, frequently darting in and out of record stores and flea markets, some more conspicuous (and vocal) than others. But twice a year, on the Friday after Thanksgiving and a Saturday in April, many wake early and convene outside independent record shop doors. They line […]