Top Rated Exhibitions in 2023
/As a contributing writer to Art & Object I was pleased to have two of my top rated exhibitions of 2023 included in this list.
https://www.artandobject.com/slideshows/top-art-exhibitions-2023
Here you will find postings of recently published articles, book, film and exhibition reviews written by me. Occasionally I'll toss in a link to something related to the interests of writers, artists, and filmmakers.
As a contributing writer to Art & Object I was pleased to have two of my top rated exhibitions of 2023 included in this list.
https://www.artandobject.com/slideshows/top-art-exhibitions-2023
t'ART magazine is a British, feminist leaning journal that has just published my essay My Mother's Mink Coat and The Afterlife of Things.
I hope you enjoy it:
https://www.t-artpress.co.uk/post/my-mother-s-mink-coat-and-the-afterlife-of-things
A little music for this writers ears in my inbox today:
Hello Cynthia Close,
Thank you for your submission to Inscape’s 2024 edition.
We have decided to accept Sex Lies and Meeting Pete and we're wondering if it is still available.
If it is still available, we ask that you send us a Word Doc of the piece and a short bio at your earliest convenience. If your work is not available, please let us know as soon as you can.
And, again, we’re so excited at the prospect of publishing your work!
Sincerely,
The Editors
Fashion played a huge role in communicating identity and details of character of the subjects in the portraits by the great American painter John Singer Sargent. MFA, Boston has mounted a fabulous exhibition that examines this aspect of Sargent's career, presenting the actual clothes his sitters wore, alongside the paintings. I learned so much about his process and exciting details about the people who he painted in writing this review for Art & Object.
https://www.artandobject.com/articles/john-singer-sargents-portraits-fashion-takes-center-stage
In writing Emmi Whitehorse: Profile of an Artist for Artist's Magazine all my preconceptions connected to the descriptor Native Artist no longer apply. Her ethereal abstractions float like dreams. My piece, describing her method, has just been republished by the Artist's Network.
https://www.artistsnetwork.com/working-wednesday/emmi-whitehorse-profile-of-an-artist/
My profile of four contemporary Indigenous artists originally appeared in the print edition of Artist's Magazine. Their unique perspectives on Native identity was an eye opener for me. It has now been republished on the Artist's Network.
https://www.artistsnetwork.com/art-inspiration/native-american-artists/
The rewriting of the art historical cannon recognizing the true value of women has risen to heights that I never thought I'd see in my lifetime. Art & Object has republished an earlier piece that coincides with my my recent review of Making Her Mark at the Baltimore Museum of Art. My eldest granddaughter, who is an art major at Concordia, will be a future contributor to this ongoing precedent.
https://www.artandobject.com/slideshows/10-fearless-women-artists-throughout-history
The Baltimore Museum of Art has done more for championing the role women have played throughout art history than any other comparable institution that I know of. This show is remarkable for its scope and is emblematic of their ongoing commitment to repositioning women in the art historical canon. I loved writing this review that focused on some of my previous favorites and some new discoveries. Check it out, published today on Art & Object.
It's been awhile since I received an acceptance for my creative nonfiction but this was a welcomed msg in today's email:
Hi Cynthia,
Thank you so much for your submission to the 12th issue of WayWords.
We would like to publish your piece, "Jumping the Shark"!
Our deadline for revision is October 16, we plan to publish by October 21!
We appreciate the courage it takes to send your work into the world and invite you to explore other Writer's Workout opportunities, including future quarterly issues of WayWords, our quarterly competition, Fiction Potluck, our annual anthology series, Tales, and other competitions and workshops. I hope you'll join us for our free conference in March, 2024.
Congratulations and thank you again for your submission!
-The WayWords Team
This was a tough feature to write since Crystal Bridges, the sponsoring gallery/art center, limited the number of images that could be used in the PR for the show. Here's my review for Art and Object.
https://www.artandobject.com/articles/annie-leibovitzs-new-exhibition-re-examines-artists-practice
Hans de Roos is one of the most original thinkers I ever had the pleasure of working with. We had a joy ride when he helped me envision and launch ARTWORKS, in Germany in the 1990s. He dabbled in kite building, as a "hobby" and wound up winning accolades. I was his willing accomplice when he designed and built this huge 3D replica of the Santa Maria to celebrate the 500-year anniversary of Christopher Columbus in 1992. We flew it in the Munich Gardens, and it took us both to a dried rice paddy outside of Bangkok where we flew this baby in an international kite festival.
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10160690996810320&set=a.10151393405740320
I have been writing for Art New England for many years. They are one of few surviving art magazines that relies on print distribution to their largely subscriber-based audience. They do have a website where only a limited selection of articles can be found. The bulk of the articles are printed on glossy, full-color, large format pages. There is something to be said for being a hold out but as a result most of what I write for them is unavailable online. In the July/August issue I wrote a feature on the Vermont cartoonist Ed Koren known for his frequent appearance in the New Yorker. Ed died this April at age 87 but You'll have to buy the magazine to read it. I also wrote a short piece on Cold Hollow Sculpture Park in rural Enosberg, Vermont for ANE's Summer of Joy focus on stuff to do this summer in New England. That you can read here: https://artnewengland.com/summer-of-joy/
I am so grateful to the editors at Wordpeace for publishing my very personal essay Battles With Birth Control. I hope my honesty blows a little smoke into the eyes of the hypocrites trying to control women's reproductive freedom today.
Read it here: https://wordpeace.co/current-issue-wordpeace-8-2-summer-fall-2023/nonfiction-8-2/cynthia-close/
I had great fun writing this short history for Art & Object about art instruction on TV. I was able to revisit my own experience learning to draw as a young child with Jon Gnagy on my parent's b&w 1950s television.
https://www.artandobject.com/articles/joy-painting-televisions-gateway-learning-self-taught-artist
My essay, Here Comes Trouble has just been published by DeepOverstock Press in their Romance themed anthology. It is the 21st book of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction in this ongoing series of literature in various themes. I’m reading my essay on their podcast on Spotify and Apple. Click on the link below or copy/paste it in your browser.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deep-overstock-fiction-podcast/id1526944685
This is my first article working with a new editor, published today in the Observer. The wording in the opening paragraph was extensively simplified, which I'm not really happy with. In some sections I also submitted more apropos photos which they did not use. But, when you are getting paid, you give the client what they want. My other publishers focus on the arts where the Observer is a general interest, newsy, publication.
https://observer.com/2023/06/six-american-artists-homes-to-visit-this-summer/
The situations surrounding the creation of public monuments and events following their installation offer a microcosm of the culture and time that created them. My article today in Art & Object explores some of that history.
Art & Object just republished my piece about animals as subject matter through art history, that included my review of the 2020 Shelburne Museum exhibition, Creature Comfort, Animals in the Home.
https://www.artandobject.com/news/creature-comfort-animal-art-home
This acceptance in my Submittable inbox is the kind of message that starts the day with a smile:
Dear Cynthia,
Thank you for sending us "Battles With Birth Control". We would like to accept this piece and publish it in the upcoming summer/fall 2023 issue of Wordpeace, if it is still available. Please let us know. Thank you for entrusting us with your work!
Thanks again.
Sincerely,
Monica Barron, Nonfiction Editor
Lee Desrosiers, Founding Editor/ Publisher
Wordpeace.co
I was able to bring my twenty years of experience working with ethnographic filmmakers when I was the executive director/president of Documentary Educational Resources (D.E.R.) into the writing of this review for Art & Object of The Yanomami Struggle, an exhibition at the Shed in NYC.
https://www.artandobject.com/articles/who-speaks-yanomami-ongoing-yanomami-struggle-told-through-art
The published works of Cynthia Close on documentary film, art, and women in the arts.
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