History – Page 10 – Salem Main Streets

BONS Balloting: Give a Warm Vote to Your Fav Biz

Salem Dining, Salem Festivals, Salem Shopping No Responses »

Feb 142016

On a brisk, minus degree feel-like day as we’re having, the options on activities could be limited. While there are still plenty of things to do and see in Salem, if you don’t want to go outside, but still wish to be in a “Salem state of mind” then may we suggest voting for 2016 BONS Readers’ Choice Awards (which began February 1st and ends May 1st).

Winners will be listed in the annual BONS issue of Northshore Magazine (to be distributed in July), alongside Editors’ Choice for the same categories. But, note, online voting is for Readers’ Choice only; Northshore editors and the BONS committee select Editors’ Choice BONS winners separately from the Readers’ Choice winners.

The top vote recipients in the survey and eligible write-in nominees from 2015 voting are used to populate the drop-down menus. This is your opportunity to share with others why you frequent – may we say “haunt” – restaurants as well as general and specialty small businesses in Salem.

If you’ve never voted or haven’t recently, a few things of which to be aware:

Previously, regional or national chains were allowed to qualify as nominees. But beginning in 2015, that privilege was restricted to only local organizations and locally owned franchises
Traded votes for services or discounts is cause for disqualification. In other words, retailers are not allowed to produce a marketing mailer, website ad, social media post, etc., that offers a discount or free service with proof of a vote.
Businesses with multiple locations are to be recognized by the specific location. For example, if a business has locations in Salem, Peabody, and Andover, each location will have its own nomination.

Votes are tallied by the amount of unique votes each business receives. You are not allowed to vote for the same subcategory more than once; to ensure that all votes for each category are unique, their system requires a verifiable email address for each vote.

This year, more than a dozen new sub-categories, including Cookies and Distillery, and an entirely new category: Mingle have been added. Check them out.

Coexistence and Exclusion Intersect at PEM

History, Salem Event No Responses »

Feb 062016

Alienation, and the desire to transcend it, are the driving forces behind “Intersections” the Peabody Essex Museum’s next Present Tense Initiative installation which showcases Pakistani-American artist Anila Quayyum Agha. It opens February 6th.

In the past, growing up under the strict conventions of gender that inform Pakistani society, Agha felt excluded and cloistered at home, while her male peers enjoyed warmth and companionship inside Pakistan’s exclusively male mosques. Fast forward to current day, now living in America, Agha experiences new freedoms and, yet, a different kind of exclusion — that of being a Muslim.

“Intersections,” an immersive single room installation conjures a site where a thousand years ago Islamic and Christian traditions thrived in coexistence.

A five-foot laser-cut steel cube at the center of the gallery casts patterned shadows that echo the filigree found at the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain, a historic structure that was cooperatively built in the 14th century by Muslim, Jewish and Christian artisans and represents the coexistence of the Western and Islamic worlds.

A single light bulb centered in the cube creates the interplay of light and shadow across all of the gallery’s surfaces, as well as the viewer. It has been said that Agha presents an immersive meditation on the nature of boundaries, categorization and alienation, while evoking the power of that which is mutual and common to us all.

“Intersections envelops us physically and symbolically in a realm where beauty transcends division and conflict, ” says PEM Curator of South Asian Art Sona Datta. “Agha’s work asks us to consider worldly binaries — the sacred and the profane, inclusion and exclusion, male and female — while providing a sublime environment that leaves us in a state of awe.”

Anila Quayyum Agha was born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1965. She received her BFA from the National College of Arts, Lahore, and an MFA in Fiber Arts from the University of North Texas in 2001. She has had solo exhibitions in the United States, United Arab Emirates and Pakistan. Agha is currently an associate professor of drawing at the Herron School of Art & Design at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.

“Intersections” is on view at PEM from February 6 through July 10, 2016. For more info call 978 745-9500.

The Present Tense Initiative is PEM’s dynamic, interdisciplinary exploration of contemporary art and culture and celebrates the central role that creative expression plays in shaping our world today. The Present Tense Initiative engages leading creative agents and thinkers to cultivate innovative experiences fueled by the intersection of cultures, disciplines and technologies. By encouraging innovation and fostering new forms of creativity, PEM seeks to push the boundaries of what a museum experience can be.

Attend this exhibit and see for yourself.

(Photo courtesy of the artist)

Real “Ghost Army” to Reappear in Salem

History, Salem Event No Responses »

Feb 032016

There is reality and there is perception in life, but in the summer of 1944, camouflaging which was which was the point of an absurd, yet deadly, yet creative ruse being played out during World War II. The details of which were in The Ghost Army, an award winning documentary by Rick Beyer that played to sold out houses at the 2013 Salem Film Fest — and is returning as the Salem Film Fest presents a special screening of The Ghost Army this Thursday at CinemaSalem at 8:15pm. Beyer will be available for a Q&A session.

During World War II, a handpicked group of American GI’s undertook a bizarre mission: create a traveling road show of deception on the battlefields of Europe, with the German Army as their audience. The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops used inflatable rubber tanks, sound trucks, and dazzling performance art to bluff the enemy again and again, often right along the front lines.

Many of the men picked to carry out these dangerous deception missions were artists. Some went on to become famous, including fashion designer Bill Blass. In their spare time, they painted and sketched their way across Europe, creating a unique and moving visual record of their war. Their secret mission was kept hushed up for nearly 50 years after the war’s end.

Beyer has been quoted as saying “The idea that American soldiers in World War II went into battle with inflatable tanks and sound effects records was so bizarre, so contrary to every image from every war movie I’ve ever seen, that it immediately attracted my attention.”

The story will do the same for you.

For more details on the documentary, check out the coverage by PBS and view this excerpt.

For tickets to the showing at CinemaSalem please go to this website.

The Salem Film Fest will return March 3-10, 2016.

Secrets Revealed; House of 7 Gables Has More Stories To Tell

History, Salem Event No Responses »

Feb 022016

Secret Rooms Project continues to gather momentum at the House of Seven Gables. Thus far, $120,000 of the projected $200,000 needed to make the project a reality has been raised. What project? What secret?

The House of the Seven Gables has apparently guarded a long-held secret that is now ready to be shared with the world:

“The storied past of The House of the Seven Gables has something more to reveal within the original four walls of this venerable 1668 mansion. Two second-floor chambers (rooms) were partitioned off decades ago and later used for utilitarian purposes. Recent careful removal of the partitions and 18th-century flooring have revealed a large chamber and adjacent living space with original 17th-century wide pine floors, hand-forged nails and an exposed gunstock post.”

If you’ve visited the House several times for the various tours, lectures and events and thought you knew it inside and out… surprise!

The goal is to restore these previously private and largely unknown spaces and open them to the public. These newly restored rooms are expected to impart greater scope and meaning to the stories The House of the Seven Gables tells.

For as old as the building is, for as many people that have walked through it, you can well imagine the excitement that is surrounding this project from the Gable staff”s point of view.

From the Gables website:

“To turn this opportunity into a reality we need your help. Restoring these hidden-from-view spaces will involve a lot of tender loving care and require structural reinforcement of a summer beam (the main weight-bearing beam). The project is expected to cost $200,000. The good news is we have already raised over $120,000. We are looking to you to help us raise the balance and launch this exciting new chapter in our nation’s literary and cultural heritage.”

If you are on their email list, then keep an eye on your inbox for details about a crowdfunding campaign, which will soon go live.

Otherwise, to learn more, visit the Gables website.

(Photo courtesy of John Andrews of Social Palates Photography )

PEM Provides Creative Weekend Alternative

History, Salem Event No Responses »

Jan 102016

Let’s face it, if you’re not a football fan, the next few weekends will leave you on your own as the sports aficionados in your household are glued to the couch watching NFL Playoffs. What will you do? Consider visiting the Peabody Essex Museum which is open on weekends from 10am to 5pm.

What do they have at the PEM? A diverse selection to entertain, inform and intrigue (especially today as the rain drops silently fall outside).

For example, just opened on Saturday, is Alchemy of the Soul: Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, a most ambitious collaboration between the Afro-Cuban artist and her husband, musician and composer Neil Leonard.

PEM describes the exhibition “Through large-scale blown-glass sculptures, paintings, photographs and evocative soundscapes, the artist draws on the structural forms found in the abandoned sugar mills and rum factories of her childhood island home. Incorporating the sweet smell of rum, this multi-sensory exhibition creates an intoxicating re-conceptualization of the often-brutal history of the Cuban sugar industry, offering a visceral experience that ignites the senses and our emotional awareness of place, memory, identity and labor.”

It runs until April 3, 2016.

Interested in making the PEM a weekend event (especially during baseball, hockey and basketball seasons)? Here are some upcoming exhibitions and events for the next 6 months.

Intersections: Anila Quayyum Agha

February 6 — July 10, 2016
Intersections is an immersive single room installation that bathes the visitor in a geometric array of light and shadow. Inspired by traditional Islamic architectural motifs, Pakistani-American artist Anila Quayyum Agha’s laser-cut steel lantern conjures the design of the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain, a historic site of cross-cultural intersection where a thousand years ago Islamic and Western cultures thrived in coexistence. Agha, an internationally renowned award-winning artist, creates mixed-media works that engage topics ranging from global politics and cultural multiplicity, to mass media and gender roles.

Asia in Amsterdam: The Culture of Luxury in the Golden Age

February 27 — June 5, 2016
Amsterdam in the 17th century was a vibrant city with global connections. The largest and most powerful trade and shipping company in the world, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) filled Dutch homes with Asian porcelain, lacquer, sumptuous textiles, diamonds and spices. Inspired by these novel imports, Dutch potters, textile designers and jewelers created works of art we now perceive as distinctly Dutch. Artists such as Rembrandt, Willem Kalf, Jan Steen and Pieter Claesz were also quick to incorporate these luxuries into their paintings. Co-organized by the Peabody Essex Museum and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, this exhibition of nearly 200 superlative Asian and Dutch works of art explores the transformative impact that Asian luxuries had on Dutch art and life in the 17th century.

Rodin: Transforming Sculpture

May 14 — September 5, 2016
Whether working in plaster, marble or bronze on an intimate or monumental scale, Auguste Rodin captured the emotional and psychological complexities of human beings in ways that few sculptors before or after him have achieved. He also profoundly changed the language of sculpture by playing with accident and emphasizing the act of creating rather than completing a work of art. Rodin favored fragmentation and recombination as the principal expression of the significance he attached to change and transformation as the keys to creativity. Featuring sculptures and drawings, this thematic exhibition highlights the drama and experimentation that have established Rodin as one of the greatest sculptors of all time. Originally titled Metamorphosis: Rodin’s Studio, the exhibition was organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, in collaboration with the Musée Rodin, Paris.

The Peabody Essex Museum is located at 161 Essex St, Salem, MA. For more info Call 866‐745‐1876 or visit pem.org.

(Image credit: Auguste Rodin, The Thinker, large version, 1903. Patinated plaster for bronze casting, Paris, Musée Rodin. © Musée Rodin. Photo by Christian Baraja)

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