Boston Symphony Orchestra, reviewed by Tommy Petroskey

The Perfect Composition by Tommy Petroskey

            I don’t know where to begin about the insatiable performance at the Boston Symphony.  Never before have I set foot in the Boston Symphony Hall before Thursday night, but needless to say I was blown away.  The captivating cathedral ceilings with the intricate golden crown molding added an essence to the music that was simply like no other.  There wasn’t s single bad seat in the house.  With two balconies that surrounded the entire Hall, the acoustics of the beautiful music traveled effortlessly to the ears of everyone.

            The set started out with 5 breath taking movement from no one else but the brilliant Mozart.  This was a fantastic commencement of the performance because it set the standard to what was about to come later on in the symphony.  The movements flowed fantastically and the conductor took perfect control of his orchestra.  For the second piece the symphony splashed a taste of contemporary music that was unique but fit nicely within the concert.  August Read Thomas composed the piece with a solo cello performer Lynn Harrell that was magnificent.  The piece beautifully scaled all parts of the musical spectrum as many forms of contemporary art do.  I specifically liked the range Thomas used in this piece.  He used easily the highest notes on the instruments and the lowest all in one composition.  The final piece composed by Saint-Saën was the best of the three symphonies in the concert by far.  It was a beautiful piece in the key of C minor that not only left the audience with an excellent impression but also wrapped up the show perfectly.  The piece was grand and moving that made the entire concert simply amazing.            

20th Century Modern Genius by Tommy Petroskey

20^th Century Modern Genius by Tommy Petroskey

            At the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts the Linde Family wing of contemporary art has a fantastic collection.  However one piece stuck out the most.  Josiah McElheny is a contemporary artist who is most commonly known for his blown glass sculptures.  His piece titled Endlessly Repeating Twentieth Century Modernism was fantastically futuristic and mesmerizing to look at.  The piece uses chromed glass blown effigies displayed in a casing of one-way mirrors.  The mirrors, all facing toward each other, allows us not only to see into the casing at the captivating glass sculptures but also creates an infinitely receding reflecting of the piece.  This gives the art an appearance that no matter what angle you look at the glass sculptures will continue in a line forever in every direction. 

I found this specific piece fascinating because of the creativity and simplicity it expresses.  Most contemporary art is pushing for their own attempt to have a unique meaning and to be different from all the rest.  However what makes this piece different from all the others in the exhibit was its lack of meaning and complexity.  Don’t get me wrong this piece was noting short of extraordinary and it was nothing like I have ever seen before, but the depth in significance McElheny was portraying was practically non-existent. 

Finally I believe the staging of the actual work of art I believe was substantial in different ways.  The actual piece was displayed within a large reflective cube.  The contrast of the mirrors on the inside of the artwork to the mirrors on the outside display was interesting to me.  I think that McElheny chose to do this because it gave the affect of the art inside the case more of an important denotation.  I look forward to seeing more works of McElheny because this piece impresses me plenty.  The futuristic appearance certainly gave this piece a lot of style and I give McElheny a great deal of credit for the design.                    

MASS MoCA, review by Tommy Petroskey

                                                                                                

The Tobacco Project
by Tommy Petroskey

What do you get when you cross tiger skin with 500,000 cigarettes?  Xu Bing’s fantastically genius works of art of course!  Xu Bing is a Chinese artist who was born in 1955 and lived through countless historical Chinese events, including the Cultural Revolution.  It wasn’t until 2004 when Xu Bing started his Tobacco Project to try to relate human issues to symbolic forms of his art.  In 2011 Bing finally made his masterpiece in the Tobacco Project, the tiger-skin rug made up of half a million cigarettes.

Throughout the Tobacco Project Xu Bing had been poking at the idea that cigarettes are the death of us, however, the tiger skin rug was the best possible symbol to his main idea.  The piece astonished me at first.  Never had I seen anything like it.  Not only did the quantity of the piece overwhelm me but also the creativeness of positioning the cigarettes to produce shading and different colors.  I had so many questions about the piece the second I laid my eyes on it.  How was it made?  What was his motivation?  What does it mean?  How are all the cigarettes staying together?  How many cigarettes are there? And the list went on.  Xu Bing did such an incredible job with this work of art I could not find anything I didn’t like about it.  In fact I was looking to find something I didn’t like about it, and I did not find one single thing.  The piece was assembled on the floor in Mass MoCA, (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) meaning I could walk 360 degrees around it for the full affect.  Given that the cigarettes were positioned just so, on the opposite side of piece appeared the tobacco rolled inside each cigarette.  This was my favorite aspect of the piece because this affect changed the color of the tiger skin from the traditional orange and white to brownish black and white just by looking at it from a different angle.  Xu Bing’s fantastic work does an incredible job of capturing the essence of human addictions and eccentric design and creativity.  This exhibit left me fascinated for hours afterwards and would highly recommend experiencing some of Bing’s artwork in the near future.                  

Isabella’s Piano by Tommy Petroskey

Isabella’s Piano by Tommy Petroskey

  

            I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed by the collection of art in the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston, MA. What I’d have to say astonished me the most was the size of the museum itself.  To scale each room, and notice each piece of art, it took me about 2 and half hours.  However I feel as if observing every room in this museum is borderline unnecessary. 

If you are looking for hot tight rooms that contain not much more than dusty furniture and old musty china, than by all means the first floor is the floor for you.  If I were to go back to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum I would skip right to the 2^nd floor, no questions asked.  I tend to be absolutely mesmerized by size and quality of art, as opposed to the age or a captivating theme.  The 2^nd floor of the museum had a great mixture of mind-blowing architecture and hypnotic art.  Specifically the tapestry room was easily my favorite part of this whole museum.  The dark wooden walls and perfectly polished stone floor made this the most attractive looking room in the house.  Ten large tapestries decorate the walls floor to ceiling.  Not to mention this was probably the biggest room I have ever set foot in, everything in it was so tastefully done.  The piece on this room, however, that caught my eye greater than any other in the museum was the unique grand piano at the end of the room accenting the beautifully sculpted fireplace.  The piano was entirely made out of rich mahogany wood and lined every edge with golden leafed molding.  The distinctive intricately carved legs accented the design of the beading the surrounded each edge of the piano.  Upon the two front legs, closest to the keys, there was a young golden face imprinted within the artistic edging.     

In total the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum was certainly remarkable.  The unique, deep-rooted architecture certainly contributed to a fantastic atmosphere for the paintings.  Although one like myself may get a little tired of wondering the whole entire building, this museum was definitely worth a visit.