Photograph by Jeffrey Sturges
The Chinese American artist Shen Wei is perhaps best known as principal choreographer of the spectacular opening ceremonies at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. In
Scroll Painting, his dancers performed across the stadium floor as a constantly changing, LED-lit ink-and-wash-scroll depiction of China’s evolution from ancient to modern times. The moving bodies became brushstrokes, color, and paint: a visual medium transformed into live action.
Suspension in Blue, Number 6, 2018
Photograph by Stewart Clements
A formally trained Chinese opera performer and 2007 MacArthur Fellow, Wei is an artist whose paintings, films, and dances are visual
and performative while speaking to the crux of mind, body, and spirit. Wei “focuses on discovery the unfolding of a surprise, a new way of thinking about the forms of energy in the body and in nature that brings with it the understanding that everything is connected,” notes Pieranna Cavalchini, co-curator of “
7 Podcasts About the Art of the Scam
These shows, about corporate fraud, pyramid schemes, Hollywood impersonators and more, feeds the national appetite for stories about deception.
Credit.Irene Rinaldi
Published Feb. 16, 2021Updated Feb. 17, 2021
Scammers, grifters and con artists are always in season. But the summer of 2018 was memorably dubbed the “Summer of Scam,” following the release of several high-profile stories. First came John Carreyrou’s explosive nonfiction book “Bad Blood,” which chronicled the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes and her fraudulent biotech company Theranos, followed swiftly by Jessica Pressler’s New York magazine exposé about the fake heiress Anna Delvey (soon to be the subject of a Shonda Rhimes-produced Netflix series). Fraud bled into the winter with the release of two documentaries about the misbegotten Fyre Festival and its impresario, Billy McFarland. Our national appetite for stories about deception does not seem to have abated, and
Boston Museums reopen after second COVID closure
Christian Jaeger/Correspondent
Wicked Local
Some of Boston’s museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, welcomed visitors the week of Feb. 8. Museums reopened after a second closure in a year due to the pandemic.
The return is part of the phase three, step one of Massachusetts’ coronavirus reopening plan that began on Feb. 1. The plan permitted museums, movie theaters, gyms, and other businesses to reopen at a capacity limit of 40% beginning Feb. 8. They were previously opened at a limited 25% capacity. New visitor requirements include symptom checks and pre-planned time slots, according to the museum websites.
Artist Shen Wei in his New York studio in 2014. (Courtesy Jeffrey Sturges)
Painting, at its best, is like alchemy. A painter quiets the mind and allows his materials and some other unidentifiable force a muse, inspiration, the Chinese concept of “qi” perhaps to take over.
That unnamed life force manipulates oils and acrylics into suggestive brushstrokes, smears and stains, assembling and dissolving before our eyes, inviting us to ponder the universal energy that courses so vigorously through the world and our own bodies.
Now through June 20 at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the public can take in the powerful yet peaceful canvases of Chinese choreographer, dancer, filmmaker and painter Shen Wei in “Painting in Motion.” The three-part exhibit features Shen’s large-scale abstractions in which he’s unabashedly unleashed his “qi,” notebooks filled with sketches plotting his spellbinding choreography, and several of his mesmeric short films. A façade outside
Last Call with Maura Tansley and Elizabeth Halloran, partners at Worcester s premiere women-owned law firm
By Sarah Connell Sanders
The law firm of Tansley | Halloran recently opened its doors at 11 Pleasant St. in Worcester. We sat down with Maura Tansley and Elizbeth Halloran to find out what it means to be compassionate local attorneys in 2021.
What sort of law do you practice and how long have you been in Worcester?
EH: I grew up here in Worcester. I moved back to Worcester when I was hired in the District Attorney’s office in 2012 right after I graduated law school. My practice is primarily criminal defense as well as family and probate litigation.