“Art for All, British Posters for Transport,” the exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT is aptly named. Certainly, posters are the most democratic form of art. Plastered on walls in public places, they’re available to everyone, as is the Yale Center for British Art, which charges no admission.

Posters are decorative eye-candy. And this is one sweet show. But posters are also a powerful economic, social and political tool. The image is the message. Its appeal is basic. It can be understood quickly and by anyone.

“Countdown to Zero makes old terrors radioactively new again.”


“A hair-raising look at nuclear proliferation from the producers of An Inconvenient Truth.”


“A nuclear wake-up call about the real threats we face and the urgent need for action.”


These press comments (respectively from Entertainment Weekly, The Wall Street Journal, and The Huffington Post) describe a terrific film, Countdown to Zero, that is coming to the Kendall Square Theater on July 30th. It's terrific in both senses: wonderful and terrifying, for it is about nuclear weapons.

The most exotic destination you can visit this summer is in Massachusetts at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem. The featured exhibition, “Fiery Pool: The Maya and The Mythic Sea,” captures the excitement and essence of the ancient American civilization in a dramatic new way.

At its zenith, between 300 and 900 A.D., the Maya civilization comprised about 2,000,000 people in hundreds of cities across Mexico and Central America. They spoke several dialects of the same language. It was the only literate society in pre-Columbian America and scribes were such an important social class that some were chosen from among the younger sons of the royal families. The Mayans also had developed highly-advanced systems of mathematics, astronomy, architecture, and art as well as a complex religion.

The following music video featuring a new Reform Immigration For America version of the old hymn and Civil Rights Movement anthem “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize” was recorded on January 22, 2010 by a group of local activists and musicians from Boston, Massachusetts. The recording project was conceived and produced by John Shayeb, whose career as an activist and union organizer has been inspired by the courage and commitment of those who fought for a better future during the Civil Rights movement. This new version of the venerable classic is intended to honor those activists and acknowledge that the struggle to be treated with dignity and respect has never ended.

While Massachusetts Senate President Therese Murray and a handful of Democratic Senators were busy outflanking their Republican colleagues on the right in the we hours of the morning of May 27 by crafting the most conservative immigration measure to hit the state in a good long time, Zac de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine was equally busy spearheading a musical boycott of Arizona, where the most draconian immigration law in the country (SB 1070) has already prompted significant outrage. “The Sound Strike”—as the boycott is called—has attracted outspoken musicians from Kanye West to Sonic Youth, with others getting on board as I write. (The full list of artists who have joined the Sound Strike can be seen at http://www.thesoundstrike.com ) They are protesting a law that has been widely criticized for encouraging law enforcement to detain anyone who looks Latino. Why Massachusetts would want to get on that bandwagon remains a mystery.

Somerville, MA - On an otherwise ordinary warm spring night, about 40 people gathered for free spaghetti, socializing and learning at Sprout, a community learning space at 339R Summer Street near Davis Square. Sprout seeks to actively engage the public with an interactive and broad form of science education. Continuing with its monthly spaghetti dinner, on Wednesday evening the space hosted four performance artists who presented their versions of “Performance in a Public Space.”

At five tons, the pale pink cube that dominates the lobby at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, may be the largest, heaviest piece of glass ever cast. Then again, maybe it’s not. The art in the museum’s latest exhibition, titled “Roni Horn A.K.A. Roni Horn,” is ambiguous.

Horn’s art is up close and personal. You can’t fully experience “Pink Ton,” labeled “Untitled (Aretha),” from across the gallery. Nor can you just walk around it. To appreciate the sculpture, you have to peer over the side and look into it. Despite first appearances, the cube is not solid. Its interior contains a vertiginous, undulating pink swirl of cloud-like forms that seem to descend into infinity. This work, like many of her pieces, reacts to the environment. It’s constantly changing.

An exciting international multimedia art show opened in the U.S. last Wednesday at the UMass Boston Harbor Gallery, and I headed over to take some photos - since, fair disclosure, I'm part of the Caerleon Sims/Virtual Art Initiative group staging the event (although I have no work on display). According to lead organizer Prof. Gary Zabel of UMB, "Through the Virtual Looking Glass is the collective name for exhibitions of virtual art that are taking place in April 2010 in five real world galleries and other spaces in as many countries, specifically, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, and the United States. Australia will also participate in the April events virtually, while hosting a real world exhibition at a time later this year."

The “Art of the Steal,” which just opened at the Kendall Square Theatre, Cambridge, documents a true Horatio Alger story and how it went awry.



A boy grows up in a working class Philadelphia neighborhood, attends public schools, and, after earning an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, studies chemistry and pharmacology in Berlin. He meets a German scientist. Together they develop a new antiseptic silver compound. The American returns to the United States and partners with the German in a firm to manufacture and market their invention. Their product is phenomenally successful. When the American buys out his partner five years later, it provides him with vast financial resources.

Capitol/EMI is the smallest of the so-called Big Four major record companies. Like the other majors EMI been bleeding money over the last several years, but EMI has been bleeding talent as well, having lost signature acts such as the Rolling Stones and Radiohead since their 2007 purchase by private equity company Terra Firma. Rumor has it that Queen is talking to other labels. And EMI just lost a suit over downloading to Pink Floyd, an act that has been with the company for over 40 years. In addition to being seemingly unable to restructure their debt covenants successfully, EMI doesn’t seem to get the internet either. The recent departure of OK Go is a case in point.