East Boston, August, 2009—From August 6 to August 22, 2009, Atlantic Works Gallery in conjunction with The Biennial Project and The Weekly Dig presents The Boston Biennial 2009, a virtual snapshot of contemporary art works currently being created by artists in and around the greater Boston area.
Venice and Sao Paolo have one. New York, New Orleans and New Hampshire also have one. Even Worcester Massachusetts has one-- so shouldn’t Boston have one?? “What,” countless thousands may ask is “it?”….The “it” in this instance just so happens to be a biennial art exhibition and, as of August 2009, the city of Boston will finally have its own inaugural juried exhibition of contemporary art --thus (hopefully) helping to elevate the status of the city in the eyes of the contemporary art world!
Many people may even wonder, “What is a biennial and why does such an event matter?” Boston-based Biennial Project members Charlene Liska, Eric Hess, Laura Rollins and Anna Salmeron have sunk their teeth into such questions for the last year and a half. The Biennial Project is an artists’ collaborative whose goal is to explore the nature of and understand the perception of biennials within the art world. The simple definition of a biennial phenomenon is that it is a contemporary art exhibit which occurs every two years.
The theme of The Boston Biennial is…biennials…and all the aspiration and greed, sublime insight and cheap self-aggrandizement, profundity and narcissism that biennials have come to represent. If artists have ever looked with envy at the burgeoning biennial activity around them, attended a venerable Biennale and said to themselves, “I can do better than that,” or have no idea what a biennial is and just want to show their stuff to the world…this bi’s for you! At last, the Greater East Boston’s arts community shows what it’s made of to the wider world!
The public is invited to attend the OPENING RECEPTION on Thursday, August 6 from 6 to 9pm and to visit the gallery during the following hours: Fridays 2 – 6pm and Saturdays 2 – 6pm. The public is also invited to attend the Atlantic Works Gallery’s monthly THIRD THURSDAY SHINDIG on Thursday, August 20 from 6 to 9pm.
For more information or to learn how to submit work, please go to www.biennialproject.com.
To schedule a private press viewing and interview at a more convenient time, please contact Laura Rollins, 617.877.8249
Begun in 2003, ATLANTIC WORKS GALLERY, “East Boston’s Collaborative Space for Art and Ideas,” is a member-operated gallery located on the top floor of 80 Border Street on the waterfront of East Boston. It is T-accessible (near the Maverick T stop on the Blue Line) and parking space is usually ample. For detailed directions and other information about members and past and future shows, please see atlanticworks.org.