Still from ‘The End of the Tour’
BERKSHIRE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL CELEBRATES 10TH ANNIVERSARY with 80 FILMS
(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.) – The 10th annual Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF) will showcase nearly 80 new independent feature, documentary, short and family films from a record 23 countries over the course of four days from Thursday, May 28, 2015, through Sunday, May 31, at venues in Great Barrington and Pittsfield, as well as bringing filmmakers, industry professionals and film fans together for a variety of special events including panel discussions, Q&A’s, awards, dinners, and parties. The festival’s main headquarters is at the Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington.
SOFT-ROCK LEGENDS AMERICA to PLAY the COLONIAL
(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell, the surviving members of the folk-pop group America, whose string of hits in the early 1970s helped define that era’s soft-rock, peaceful easy feeling, perform at the Colonial Theatre on Thursday, May 28, at 7:30pm. In the early 1970s, America rose to the top of the pop charts with a string of hits that unabashedly smoothed over the rougher edges of the sound of singers and bands including Neil Young, Jackson Browne, and the Eagles by adding a pop gloss that made hits out of songs including “A Horse With No Name,” “I Need You,” “Ventura Highway,” “Tin Man,” “Lonely People,” and “Sister Golden Hair.”
Steve Forbert
STEVE FORBERT to BRING DISTINCTIVE FOLK-ROCK to HELSINKI HUDSON
(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Grammy Award-nominated singer-songwriter Steve Forbert brings his distinctive folk-rock sound to Club Helsinki Hudson on Thursday, May 28, at 8pm. Best known for hit songs “Romeo’s Tune” and “Goin’ Down to Laurel,” Forbert was touted as a “new Dylan” when he burst upon the scene in downtown New York in the mid-1970s.
Tall Cylinders, hand-built stoneware by Sue Browdy, Hillsdale, N.Y.
GARDEN ARTWORKS GO ON VIEW at SPENCERTOWN ACADEMY
(SPENCERTOWN, N.Y.) – “Concrete & Clay: Works Inspired by the Garden,” a group exhibition featuring seven regional ceramicists and one concrete fabricator, opens at Spencertown Academy Arts Center on Saturday, May 30, with an opening reception from 4pm to 6pm. The work will remain on display through June 21. Artists represented include Corinne Alexander, Sue Browdy, Kay Castelle, Mary Anne Davis, Marybeth Ketz, Justin Madsen, Lauren Mundy, and Jacqueline Wilder. “Concrete & Clay: Works Inspired by the Garden”” is the kick-off event for the academy’s 11th annual Hidden Gardens, which includes the Twilight in the Garden Cocktail Party on Friday, June 19, and an array of events designed to inform, inspire, and intrigue garden enthusiasts on Saturday, June 20, including the Garden Market on the Green, Hidden Gardens Tour with the theme “Artful Landscapes: Ornamental and Edible Gardens,” and a lecture on the art of growing food by Ellen Ecker Ogden, garden designer, chef and author of “The Complete Kitchen Garden.”
Twelve animals of the zodiac okimono, wooden, Japanese, 19th century. Collection of Berkshire Museum; photo by David Dashiell.
EAST ASIAN ART EXHIBIT at BERKSHIRE MUSEUM
(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – Immortal Present: Art and East Asia, a new exhibition featuring the Berkshire Museum’s historic collection of Asian art and showcasing works by a number of significant and influential contemporary artists with ties to Asia, is on view at Berkshire Museum now through September 7, 2015. The exhibit, curated by Maria Mingalone, Berkshire Museum’s director of interpretation, and Gary Smith, a noted Asian art scholar, illuminates the rich and diverse legacy of East Asian art, from its origins in the distant past to compelling current works.
Big Red by Murray Dewart (photo Paul Rocheleau)
EXHIBIT by TWO DOZEN BOSTON SCULPTORS at CHESTERWOOD
(STOCKBRIDGE, Mass.) – Boston Sculptors Gallery at Chesterwood 2015, an exhibition featuring site-specific contemporary sculptures by 24 Boston-area artists, is on view at Chesterwood through October 12. The new works by two-dozen members and alumni of Boston Sculptors Gallery, based in Boston’s South End, represent a diverse range of media and styles. An artist’s reception for Boston Sculptors Gallery at Chesterwood 2015 will be held on Saturday, June 27, from 4 to 7pm.
Liz Deschenes, Gallery 7, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2014 (Installation view), Courtesy the artist, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York (Photo: Gene Pittman)
LENS on CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY at MASS MoCA
(NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) — Three new exhibitions of contemporary photography are on view at MASS MoCA. The exhibits include Clifford Ross: Landscape Seen & Imagined; Liz Deschenes: Gallery 4.1.1; and Artists’ Choice: An Expanded Field of Photography. The eight artists represented in the exhibitions take an exceptionally acrobatic approach to the medium, from Clifford Ross’ Harmoniums and large-scale high-resolution images to Liz Deschenes’ panoptic photograms to photographs that encroach on sculpture and architecture.