December 2005 Archive

Technical bravura

Aesthetics and materials and bravura technique so predominate the paintings of Antonio Puri on exhibit at the Philadelphia Art Alliance in his show “Outside the Mandala” that the ostensible subject matter becomes a mere excuse (image, “Spill 34,” 38 inches wide). The work is layered with gestures small and large; with transparent, translucent, opaque, textured and flat areas; mixed media including beads; line and swaths of color and voids; spills and scraped areas. So rich is the technical range in the paintings that they become a kind of painting lesson for anyone who is paying attention. They are quite beautiful ... More » »

Holy markers, cyber eye tricks

Vis a vis the wall drawing in the vault at Gallery Joe by Xylor Jane, it’s finished, so there’s no more chance to see Jane in action. Here’s an image of it so you can compare to how it looked last week when I stopped by (see post). I was going to put up an installation shot, but then I decided to go with the image alone, because it amused me that without context, it looks like it must be a small drawing (image, “Quadrant (Chapter 118),” markers on wall). But as installed in the context of the vault with ... More » »

Off to New York today

I’m off to the big town today with Steve and Stella. It’s a family trip but I’ll get to see some art!! We’re going to the Frick and that great Hans Memling portrait show is still up. It’ll be mobbed since the show’s over Dec. 31 but I’ll elbow my way through and report back. Happy New Year, all!

Weekly Update – Mayer’s Sums and Seraphin’s Lines

This week’s Weekly includes my review of “Sum of All Parts” at Bridgette Mayer Gallery and a sketch of “Out of Line” at Seraphin. Here’s the link to the art page and here’s Libby’s post on the Seraphin show. New Mayer in TownJust when you think you’ve got a gallery’s aesthetic down, along comes a show that proves you’ve got it only half right. “Sum of All Parts” at Bridgette Mayer is a group show with much new work by 16 gallery artists. Many of the works cleave to the gallery’s signature aesthetic-layered abstract paintings with spiritual leanings and pattern ... More » »

New York happenings; other tidbits

Witmer, real and cyber First the real world: Contributor and fellow blogger Doug Witmer’s works will be on exhibit at Minus Space in Brooklyn in January (image, “Monk”). Now the digi world: Right now, his recent work is now featured on the front page of the Minus Space site, accompanied by an essay and extensive interview by the Oakland, Calif., artist and writer Chris Ashley–hey, we know him and his blog, too. A printed catalogue with excerpts from the interview is available for purchase through Minus Space. More Lohre You know those cards we all pick up when we visit ... More » »

Breaking news from Roberta and Libby

So here we are Googling ourselves to see how our friend Rob found our so-we-thought secret blog, Visiting Artists Project. Oh well, now it’s not secret anymore so feel free to check it out. And by the way comments on VAP are really enabled so go for it. But the big news is that Googling Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof brought up a lot of other Libbys and Robertas and our favorites, which we now claim as our new secret identities, are Roberta Flack and Scooter Libby. Like our namesakes we’ve been singing a lot ever since. Flack and Scooter ... More » »

Merry Happy Holiday, Everybody!

catinbox Originally uploaded by sokref1. Philadelphia will have temperatures in the 50s today: No complaints on that account. Scant posting from me lately due to holiday overload. But I’ll see you again soon. Cheerio and love to all.

Series, process, progress

Art-in-process that looks nothing like the process the City of Murals is used to is underway at Gallery Joe in the vault. If you stop by there you can see artist Xylor Jane working on a piece that, when I stopped by, looked like a square iris. Jane, whose first name has the same root as wood (a la xylem and phloem), bobbed up and down a ladder in the few minutes I stopped in, looking from the floor then hopping up to add another mark or two, then looking from the floor, etc., which I thought interesting and somewhat ... More » »

No pose

The shock that accompanied my first Nan Goldin experience from maybe 25 or 30 years ago is gone (image, “Gotscho Kissing Gilles, Paris 1993). A selection of works from a private collection, about 27 images in all (unless you count the triptych grid of images as three–or even 27 images) of mostly cibachrome prints are on exhibit at the Morris Gallery at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, in an exhibit called “Fantastic Tales.” With really only one shocking (to me) image in the show, arguably two, I had to pay attention to just what Goldin is doing and ... More » »

Holy trembling

Church. It’s a little chilly and dark, with lit images filtering in. That’s what it feels like on the second floor of The Print Center these days, thanks to Richard Torchia’s installation “Sun Pictures and Other Broken Images.” The images are of what’s outside–trees and buildings–turned upside down by the enormous cameras obscura that Torchia fashioned from the rooms themselves. The images are in multiples, yet each one looks slightly different. Torchia’s images are made only of light. Because of that, they tremble and change with the light and atmosphere that’s on the street, their focus tenuous. This is art ... More » »