February 2005 Archive

Dancing, wrangling and finances

I stopped in to see Allen Bentley‘s exhibit at Bridgette Mayer Gallery the other day. It was pouring rain and inside, Bentley’s hot colors and all the steamy bodies in motion in his paintings took the chill right out of me. These new works, which were selling well, Mayer said, show Bentley moving in a new direction, away from the dance motif and into edgier territory with more about gender politics, sex and power. It’s great to see artists take risks. (image is “Two Count,” 2004, oil on canvas) bentley, allen“Two Count” and another work, “Thunder,” (below) both large and ... More » »

Daffodils and snow

Yesterday I went to Ingrid Schaffner’s talk about Dali’s Dream of Venus. The talk was late in the afternoon on the Penn campus and on my way I saw these flowers — in bloom — on the sunny side of Steinberg-Dietrich Hall. Today we’re supposed to get 9 inches of snow. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

In town and out of town

You might not get to see Mark Shetabi‘s work locally this year since his Locks solo show has been postponed due to gallery scheduling conflicts. I’m trying to contain my disappointment. I’m a big fan, and the artist’s first Locks exhibit in 2003 was a great environmental work — completely transforming the Locks downstairs gallery into a mysterious, chilly office corridor. And it was one of the year’s stand-out shows here.shetabi, markBut the artist of the peephole environments and grisaille paintings, who told me the news, said that things are going well and that he’s been exhibiting successfully outside Philadelphia. ... More » »

Dali’s book and Yufit’s films

One is surreal and the other is expressionistic but they’re both hot and hallucinatory. My book review of “The Secret Life of Salvador Dali” is in PW today. Here. It’s a thrilling bad boy book with a great narrative voice and exquisite prose. Libby mentioned how poetic the guy’s titles are. Well that’s the give-away. He’s a writer!yufit, yevgeniyAlso in the paper today, my preview of Russian filmmaker Yevgeniy Yufit‘s wonderful black and white art films at Pageant Soloveev. Here. The gallery’s screening the films (the early shorts and later feature length works) and what I sampled when I was ... More » »

Trouble in Abington, er, Paradise

The theme of Abington Curator Amy Lipton‘s innaugural show, “Trouble in Paradise,” is loss. The context is the environment. That said, the thrust of the show is not one of overwhelming sorrow or shock but one of questioning and quiet observation. The works are uniformly interesting; some are beautiful, and at least one has lots of edgy atmosphere. And by the end of my looking, I thought that by repeating its theme, tweaking it this way and that the show succeeded as a visual essay on the fragile state of air, water, plants, animals, birds, bees and humans in the ... More » »

Developments in redevelopment

While I was at Vox Populi last week, I asked gallery director Yana Balson about what I assumed to be the imminent demolition of the gallery’s space. Vox, the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Highwire Gallery, the Asian Arts Initiative and a number of artists studios are in the Gilbert Building, at 1315 Cherry Street, a location that is scheduled to be gobbled up by the expansion of the nearby Pennsylvania Convention Center. The Gilbert Building, with its stacked large spaces, has become a terrific locus for viewing art in the past few years in Philadelphia, enhanced by its location down ... More » »

White with white and red all over; grisaille and more

Surprise. All white and I’m hooked. I’m referring to Justin Witte’s new work showing at Vox Populi this month. “Whitewash” takes not-surprising imagery–I’ve seen these lumbering lumberjacks in the woods from Witte before–mixes in a surprising material, white puff paint, the kind craftsy people use to decorate sweatshirts, screens it onto triptych canvases painted white, adds urban and suburban landscape details, and voila, we’ve got something new and interesting (left, a detail image which at this low resolution doesn’t look like much).witte, justinPart of what makes the work interesting is that you can get it on a really basic level ... More » »

Eco vibe at Abington

heffernan, julieI’ve been meaning to write about my talk with Amy Lipton, the new full-time curator at Abington Art Center. I met her a couple weeks ago when she walked me through her first indoor exhibit at the Center,”Trouble in Paradise.” It’s a show she originated at Van Brunt Gallery in New York (in May, 2004) and has brought with her to Abington — with a few changes. (top image is Julie Heffernan‘s “Study for Self Portrait as Hostile Takeover,” oil on canvas, 2004, and below is a detail of that detail-rich and Mardi-Gras bead heavy work, one reason to ... More » »

News honk!

Post from Karl Martino Hello Roberta and Libby, I just wanted to inform you that we picked you as this week’s featured blog at Philly Future. You are providing a great service to the community and I wanted to recognize it at the site. –Karl Martino is co-editor of Philly Future, an online blog aggregator

Friday–be there or be square

Four people thought the giveaway had come and gone and they missed it. Not so. The “Dorothy Speaks” giveaway begins Friday, Feb. 25. We’ll be out there at 17th and Market between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. with the first installment of the Dorothy Speaks collection, a series of 12 cards in all. We have only 750 sets to distribute, so get there early. Click info on left column for more. Volunteers welcome. Give away some art.