The Top 11 Art Exhibits of 2016

Far and away, my favorite art exhibit of the year was the lively group show Flocked Blocked & Stenciled, a wallpaper exhibit curated by Taylor Polites that featured nearly three dozen area artists, including my boyfriend. (His name is Jason Tranchida. He flocked.) In the interest of not being Mr. Nepotism Guy, I’ve excluded that show from the list – although to reiterate that was totally my favorite, brimming as it was with digestible snippets of insanity – but here are shows #2-11, presented alphabetically because I couldn’t really figure out an order. (The longlist featured 26 shows!)

Also, you may notice that Law And Order Party only covered seven out of ten shows. This fall, there was an excellent trio of shows that ran more or less simultaneously in Providence at GRIN (Leah Piepgras), Yellow Peril (Jessica Deane Rosner), and 186 Carpenter (Suara Welitoff). One flaw with Law And Order Party’s calendar-based organizational system is that it makes gallery coverage excessively competitive, especially for galleries that are open either by appointment only or only on Saturdays (which describes a majority of non-academic contemporary arts venues in Providence).

Acknowledging that, you’ll be seeing a slight shift in gallery coverage come 2017.

Diana al-Hadid at David Winton Bell Gallery

Deborah Baronas at ArtProv

John Tabor Jacobson at Avenue Concept

Todd Oldham at RISD Museum

Leah Piepgras at GRIN

Jessica Deane Rosner at Yellow Peril

Jason E. Smith at Newport Art Museum

Suara Welitoff at 186 Carpenter

Prisoners Cinema at Gelman Gallery

Surface Appeal at Dedee Shattuck Gallery
(pictured: Jeanne Heifetz)