The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute
The Clark’s new Visitor Center, designed by Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Osaka, Japan, features more than 11,000 square feet of special exhibition space, with galleries on two floors. A new Museum Store, café, and the main admissions desk are also housed in the glass, concrete, and granite building. Indoor and outdoor walkways connect the Visitor Center to the original Museum Building, which has been newly reconceived by Selldorf Architects, New York with renovated and expanded gallery spaces that increase overall gallery space by fifteen percent. A one-acre tiered reflecting pool is the focal point of a dramatic landscape design conceived by Reed Hilderbrand, Cambridge, Massachusetts, which unites the architecture with the 140-acre campus. The landscape design expands the Clark’s walking trails and provides new opportunities to view the spectacular Green Mountain and Taconic ranges that surround the campus.
Ongoing Location: The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA
The RISD Museum
The RISD Museum announces the completion of the $8.4 million renovation of its 1926 Eliza G. Radeke Building with the opening of newly renovated galleries for ancient Egyptian art and Asian art, and new spaces for costume and textiles. The seven-year Radeke Restoration Project transformed the museum’s central building, one of five interconnected structures, and reimagined the visitor experience of its internationally acclaimed collection of works of art and design. Initiated in 2006 by a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the project addressed three public floors of galleries and teaching spaces in four phases. Dramatic installations in expansive gallery cases and large display drawers juxtapose textiles and garments from different cultures, times periods, and media—illustrating the ebb and flow of ideas, aesthetics, and techniques integral to the history of design, craftsmanship, trade, culture, and current artistic practice.
Ongoing Location: Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island
Darker Shades of Red: Soviet Propaganda Art from the Cold War Era
The new exhibition, Darker Shades of Red offers visitors a rare opportunity to revisit and analyze the Cold War period through the exploration of the Soviet Union’s official brand. Strikingly graphic and explicit in its socialist message, the collection reveals the economic, social and political ideology of the Soviet Union from the mid 1940s to1990. The exhibit includes original Soviet posters (with translations) and assorted ephemera like medals and orders, statuettes and factory banners. The objects in the exhibit are drawn from the private collection of Gary Hollingsworth, a Florida art restorer who traveled extensively in the former Soviet Union.
On view through August 30, 2014. Location: Museum of Russian Icons, Clinton, MA
Extreme Mount Washington
Mount Washington Observatory's newest educational offering, Extreme Mount Washington delivers the science and excitement of a Mount Washington winter to summer visitors of all ages through high-tech, hands on exhibits. Learn how rime ice forms, pilot a snowcat, see how Mount Washington Observatory scientists observe and record the infamous conditions and more. Get a taste for life in the alpine zone, no ice axes required. On view continuously.
Ongoing Location: Inside the Mt. Washington State Park Sherman Adams Visitor Center, North Conway, NH
Extreme Habitats: Into the Deep Sea
Explore the vast and extraordinary deep sea, the last frontier on this planet. Feel like you are in a deep-sea submersible as you look through view ports. The Bruce Museum has created highly accurate casts of deep-sea organisms created from molds on loan from the American Museum of Natural History: Pacific Viperfish, Giant Tube Worms, and more! Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History is lending preserved deep-sea specimens collected from various deep-sea explorations and dives around the globe. The University of Connecticut is assisting with interpretation of the New England seamounts, or underwater mountain ranges. Rare footage of creatures of the deep comes from Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is sharing cutting edge information on the deep-sea submersible Alvin as well as their expertise on deep-sea ecosystems around the world.
On View through November 9, 2014 Location: Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT