November 2005 Archive

Peace on turkey day

peaceablekingdom Originally uploaded by sokref1. Happy day to all and an image from one of my all-time favorite artists, Pennsylvania homeboy, Edward Hicks, who never got enough of the lambs and lions lying down together and painted it different every time. This version of Hicks’s “Peaceable Kingdom,” circa 1848, is from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

Barnes, the Period Piece

I had a eureka moment about the Barnes yesterday while I was filling out a survey from a museum studies student who wanted my opinion on how to make the Barnes work on the Parkway. (We have a Barnes thread at the left for more on the institution and its struggle. Here’s Libby’s post on a John Perrault

Shipping news; sales pitch

Every once in a while, someone writes in about a shipping disaster or problem, but today, I’m writing about one woman’s solution.Kathryn Pannepacker, she of the mini-rugs strewn all around the 2005 Philadelphia Fringe Festival and the rug mural at Belmont and Girard, had to ship one of her weavings–”7000 Q-Tips”–to Lithuania (top image, “7000 Q-Tips”). She was super excited, the piece having been accepted by Textile 05, an international biennial in Kaunas, Lithuania . She said she was one of perhaps three Americans in the show, which also included aritsts from places like South Africa, Israel and Japan (here’s ... More » »

Weekly Update – Mr. Anthony and Ms. Rutstein

This week’s Weekly has my review of Anthony Campuzano‘s exhibit at the Levy Gallery at Moore College and a sketch of Rebecca Rutstein‘s exhibit “Ebb and Flow” at Bridgette Mayer Gallery. Here’s the link to the art page and below are the stories with some added pictures. And here’s one and another recent post on Campusano’s art.Touch of Classroom Anthony Campuzano says he didn’t do well in school. But his edgy word-based drawings — currently on view at the Galleries at Moore — exude a love of language and a knowledge of self and world that comes from deep study, ... More » »

Santoleri’s middle earth; other installations

Paul Santoleri took a bunch of drawings, plopped them up on the walls upstairs and downstairs at the Painted Bride, and then connected them, allowing their imagery to flow beyond the edges and unite in one glorious explosion of action from the first floor to the second and back again. Transforming Escher’s hard-edged Mobian space into decaying organic, biological fantasies, dense grottos and paths that suggest a map of Middle Earth, Santoleri deftly shifts from tiny scale to mural scale. Making all those marks, covering all that space in less than two weeks is also amazing. And coming out with ... More » »

Peaceable Kingdom by USPS

northeastdeciduousforest Originally uploaded by sokref1. It isn’t really like Edward Hicks‘ great paintings of lambs and lions at peace. But my new sheet of stamps from the Post Office made me glow all over with happiness. I didn’t have to settle for those ugly US flags or hokey “love” stamps. And what’s more the whole thing is like a Where’s Waldo puzzle because the stamps are nested and you’ll know them only by their 37s. And of course in January when postage goes up to 39 cents this little stamp adventure story will be obsolete. And finally, there’s a turkey ... More » »

She speaks aphorisms

Apart from the crowded conditions and the fact that I couldn’t see the slides and the fact that it went on way too long I really enjoyed Jenny Holzer‘s talk at ICA the other night. See Libby’s post for more and pardon some redundancy here. What struck me was how the artist uses the second person “you” in some of her writings and by you she means me, not herself. Her voice is imperative. (image is a holzer imperative) It made me think of Anthony Campusano‘s word art at Levy Gallery at Moore and his use of “you” When he ... More » »

Did you miss the The Print Center Annual Auction?

Well Libby and I did. The rain storm last Wednesday night squashed our double-header plan of back to back art events — Jenny Holzer‘s talk at ICA and the Print Center auction. We didn’t bring hip boots and knew we’d be soaked by the time we arrived for the second event, and while we wanted to visit the little painting we donated and see all the other great donated work and maybe even bid on something, we couldn’t face the rain. According to an email we got from artblog pal Astrid Bowlby, a Print Center friend who’d donated an etching ... More » »

Shapes for words

We weren’t the only ones who came to hear Jenny Holzer speak at the Institute of Contemporary Art Wednesday. The event sponsored jointly by the ICA and the Penn Humanities Forum packed the small auditorium there as well as seats lined up in the space beyond the double doors. With such a crush of humanity and the chock-a-block folding chairs, I felt like a sardine undergoing pasteurization in the can. Whew (image top, the crowd at the ICA taken over my shoulder). Holzer, it turns out, was a lot funnier than her art, which sometimes barely cracks a smile (the ... More » »

On the road–just looking

My crits had a few surprises at last weekend’s conference of the Society of Photographic Educators Middle Atlantic. Colette Copeland had asked us to help out, so we left Philadelphia at 5 a.m. to get there in time for our scheduled time to look at portfolios and talk to whomever showed up. We set a record to Fairfax of 2 1/2 hours! While I was talking to Nancy Breslin, whose diaristic photos enchanted me, I had to take a picture of her pinhole camera. In these times of plastic and digital, it has an ur-camera kind of clunkiness that just ... More » »