May 2007 Archive

New York addendum

The Rapture, by Mark Shetabi, and sculpture of a gas station with a peephole beneath into a bunker. As Roberta said, it was one of four things in the show that had sold signs on them. Saturday was rainy, but I managed to see a few of the things I wanted to see. I’m going to add a comment or two on some things Roberta saw and then add a couple of things she didn’t see. My first stop was Philly artist Mark Shetabi’s work at Jeff Bailey Gallery was Mark Shetabi’s work, mostly paintings of grisaille empty, oppressive spaces ... More » »

New York out-takes

Richard Serra sculptures in the Sculpture Garden, MoMA. Note the photographer on the roof taking overhead pictures. MoMA was packed last Thursday. I said to Steve remember when we used to come visit the old MoMA, the little squishy MoMA? We would make trips to New York from Madison all the time in the late 1970s. We were always there the week between Christmas and New Years, a high tourist invasion time. Yet our trips to MoMA — in my rosy memory — were not marred by uber-crowded conditions. Crowd in front of Picasso’s Demoiselles D’Avignon, now celebrating its hundredth ... More » »

The lives of objects: Stoetzel, Hawkinson, Paine

Two gallery shows in New York and one public art project are having a nice conversation right now about sculptural objects and how vibrant that practice is. While the works by Lee Stoetzel, Tim Hawkinson and Roxy Paine couldn’t be farther apart in affect ultimately their points and purposes are not so far apart. All ruminate on nature and the unnatural, humankind and machinery — and the importance of materials to help tell a story. They’re all great. Lee Stoetzel at Mixed GreensLee Stoetzel’s computers, cypress pecky wood. Lee Stoetzel makes finely-crafted sculpture out of wood. Among the pieces at ... More » »

Zoe in New York

Doesn’t this look like a real New York gallery? Well, it is. And that’s Zoe’s work hanging on the walls. I just have to get up here the amazingness of seeing Zoe Strauss‘ work in fine-art quality prints. The textures, the colors, the everything. It’s not that we don’t know what the photos look like. It’s that we don’t know what the photos look like. Honest. Tastykakes piled high on the gallery’s reception desk The whole affair at Silverstein Photography was outstanding, like the Tastykakes with the wine. Oh, there was beer too, and that’s what Mark Barry and Brent ... More » »

New York — the Philadelphians

Steve and I were in New York Thursday and Friday and first on my list of things to do was see the solo shows of Philadelphians and artblog favorites, Zoe Strauss and Mark Shetabi. Both exhibits (Strauss’s at Silverstein Photography and Shetabi’s at Jeff Bailey Gallery)look tremendous!! And I’m happy to report that Shetabi sold four works including his freestanding sculpture with the peephole environment, The Rapture. (Strauss’s show had just opened the day we visited so no sold stickers yet. Maybe we’ll know more after the opening, which Libby attended and will tell you about.) Strauss’s show is up ... More » »

Power lines

photo by Justin Mott of Urban Outfitters window display This in from John Caperton: My partner Justin just sent me these cellphone shots taken of thewindow at Urban Outfitters out by Penn. They are from a diagram of thePhilly art scene… I think? by Justin Mott My own reaction was kind of mixed. Hooray. This group is being feted as a cultural commodity, sort of like movie stars!!! Then there was the dark side. How about the Mark Lombardi Abscam flow charts? Maybe its an art conspiracy. by Justin Mott And then there’s the question of the connection between the ... More » »

Jitterbugs–William H. Johnson’s World on Paper at PMA

Harlem Cityscape with Church, c. 1939-40, William H. Johnson (1901-1970). Tempera on paperboard. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation. Only a Scrooge could turn his nose up William H. Johnson’s art works, opening tomorrow at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The exhibit of William H. Johnson’s World on Paper is a traveling exhibit organized by the Smithsonian. But it has been enhanced by a bunch of local contributions–accounting for the number of oils in the exhibit–from area collectors and the PMA. The exhibit is a crowd pleaser. Johnson, an African-American artist born in 1901, slides down easy, ... More » »

Greenmachine: Art, Technology and Nature

Post by Andrea Kirsh Keiko Miyamori, detail of installation of bark rubbings on rice paper that she made in Japan I’m grateful to “Greenmachine,” outdoor installations using technological components by three artists, if only for getting me to the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, a very beautiful site at 8480 Hagy’s Mill Road, a bit north of Manayunk. As we say at Pesach, “It would have been enough.” But the art itself is well worth the trip – in fact, the best installations I’ve ever seen in a natural setting. Keiko Miyamori, Katie Murken and Chris Vecchio made interventions which ... More » »

A girlie’s nudes: Orly Cogan at Projects

Orly Cogan, Cupcake Girl, 55 x 53 inches, ebroidery applique and paint on vintage print tablecloth The embroidered nudes of Orly Cogan have it both ways. They express the artist’s exuberant self-possession of her own body in circumstances that are clearly of this moment in time (with cellphones, hair dryers, current clothing styles, etc.). But they refer copiously to the history–art history and archetypal fairy tale roles–of women objectified. So Cogan gets to have her cupcake and eat it, too, by icing her feminist perspective with a little titillation. I had a lot of favorites in her exhibit, . . ... More » »

Look! It’s loads of art in Episode 9

In Episode 9, we find some great stuff in the South Street area. First we stop at Falling Cow Gallery, which was showing lots of cut paper from Adam Parker Smith, Sarah Daub and Leslie Mutchler in its Paper Cuts exhibit which ran until May 12, and then we go to Jinxed, where we see some terrific graffiti-style drawings by L.A. artist Albert Reyes. That show, too is over, so the only place to see these great exhibits–and our commentary, as filmed by the great videographer David Kessler–is right here on Look! Check it out!!! You can find the entire ... More » »