November 2004 Archive

Crosses burning

I find myself filled with wonder at the quirkiness of the art world. The latest quirk is an effort by Slought Foundation and blind African-American artist David Stephens to burn 12 small crosses Friday, Dec. 3 at an as yet undisclosed location. The theory is that such an act will take the sting out of racist cross burnings by co-opting the symbol for non-racist meanings. By burning the crosses, Stephens and Slought state they are exercising free speech as defined in the Supreme Court’s Virginia vs. Black decision, which struck down the state of Virginia’s law banning intimidation aimed at ... More » »

Lowe’s artifice and Wall’s too

I was at the PMA today spending time with the lovely Pontormo and Bronzino portraits of those wacky Medicis. Great works and paradigms of sensitive depictions of people. Interested in portraiture? Rush on over. After finishing with the 1550s crowd, I went downstairs to the Contemporary Galleries to see Bill Viola’s video “The Greeting” a delectible side dish to the old masters’ show. (The ten-minute slow motion video is based on a Pontormo painting of the biblical “Visitation,” when the pregnant Mary gets a visit from St. Ann.) Before hitting the Viola, I snuck into the gallery next door to ... More » »

The out of towners

Philadelphia artists Dan Schimmel, Rob Matthews and Mark Shetabi each wrote us recently about their out of town goings on. Here’s the roundup and hope you get to see their work. Schimmel in Reading Dan Schimmel, artist, curator and director of the Esther Klein Gallery in West Philadelphia is exhibiting large paintings of his own at Freedman Gallery at Albright College in Reading, PA. In addition to his work (which, by the way, pushes in a bold new direction), Schimmel curated a companion exhibit of work by artists who have influenced him. (image left is “Albino” and below is “Swimmer.”) ... More » »

Paper world at Peng

I ran in to Peng Gallery Saturday to see the works on paper show. One of the four artists in the group exhibit, Tattfoo Tan, had been emailing me about his work in the Peng show and about his own gallery in Staten Island, Tattfoo Gallery. The artist and his gallery were profiled recently in the New York Sun. Even though Saturday was the last official day of the Peng exhibit, I wanted to check it out as a preview of Tan’s upcoming solo with the gallery in March. I also wanted to see what Dennis Lo, also in the ... More » »

Not rocks

Jonathan Tucker‘s exibit of rock-like shapes and stringy extrusions at Esther M. Klein Art Gallery feel like they ought to be hilarious (left, “Um”). The rock-oids have a clunky, clown-like quality and jolly, lovely colors that make them anti-rocks. They’re spotted with M&M dots and drilled with holes filled with glop or nothingness. They are the antithesis of Vija Celmins‘ rocks, that look like rocks and yet aren’t rocks and which raise all kinds of issues about reality and imitation and purpose and perfection. Tucker’s rocks stick to eachother with the help of the extrusions and other rocks (right, untitled). ... More » »

Old City and artblog in USA Today

We at artblog are accustomed to receiving random emails asking for help contacting artists or locating art by artists we’ve written about (thank you Google, Yahoo and other search engines: We love you). We try to help out and see that as part of our mission. But last month when we were in Pittsburgh covering the Carnegie International, we got something new, a query from a journalist at USA Today looking for advice on Philadelphia’s Old City. Gene Sloan, USA Today writer was working on an arts round-up feature for his paper’s travel section. He was featuring Old City as ... More » »

Friday quick reads

British sculptor Antony Gormley, who gave a slide lecture in Philadelphia recently (read Libby’s post), has a new old work debuting at Tate Modern, according to this morning’s Guardian. Gormley’s bed, made in 1980 out of 8,000 pieces of white bread (Mothers Pride) each piece chewed out so that the total vacuum approximated the artist’s body mass, is a work dear to Tate Director Nicholas Setota who, as a young curator, put it in a show. The work (the bread was dipped into hot wax to preserve it from molding), takes the outline of the artist’s body and looks like ... More » »

Clarification: A big fat Philly flub

Post from Sid Sachs [Sachs is responding to a comment in one of the MoMA reopening posts. -- the editors] The Ellsworth Kelly “Sculpture for a Large Wall” (sic.) was not RESCUED from the Transportation Building in Philadelphia since the building is still there and in better shape than ever. It was sold by Ronald Rubin for about $100,000 and no one raised an eyebrow and then Matthew Marks turned around and sold it to the Lauder’s for about $1,000,000. “Sculpture for Philadelphia” was commissioned by Vincent Kling. It was Kelly’s first sculpture, first commission and one of the first ... More » »

Heartbeats on Broad Street

Post from Sid Sachs [Sid is responding to a post about come upcoming work at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.--the editors] Well the fact that the ICA will have Richard Pettibone sets my heart a ticking and skipping a beat. Is this the show from the Tang? The guy is a quiet genius who has never gotten his due–a member of Ferus gallery in the early 1960s who with Sturtevant (and the unacknowledged Dorothy Grebenak) worked in or around a praxis that in the early 1980s would be called appropriation (left, Pettibone’s “Dada,” after Warhol). These paintings are ... More » »

A bit of holiday cheer

[On a holiday when Americans drive miles and miles to share their love and usually too much food with family and friends, I thought I'd run some travel pictures and a couple of cheery shaggy dog stories sent me by my friend Kitty. The stories are groaners that involve word play, and the two running here were my favorites out of the ten I read. They both involve familiar American songs. Forgive me if this is redundant with your email inbox. Safe travels and happy day, dears!] That old chestnut, hum along if you know it A group of chess ... More » »