July 2007 Archive

What we want to see Friday

This month, Dan Fuller is everywhere that’s open. (Some galleries are taking the month off, like Locks, FUEL, Gallery Joe, Pentimenti.) Fuller, a newbie in town, curated this show at COPY that is on our don’t miss list for first Friday: THE DAY THAT WE WENT AWAYDawn Kasper and Fawn KriegerCOPY GALLERY: 319 n. 11th st. flr. 3, Philly, PA.,opening 7 to 11 Bloody hell or red paint or daughters of Hermann Nitsch! at Copy Gallery We think a show with Dawn and Fawn suggests the cool woods on a hot night. The show description is “contemporary works that represent ... More » »

Everything’s up to date in Kansas City, and Akron, too!

Post by Andrea Kirsh Akron Art Museum, architect–Coop Himmelb(l)au; image © Roland Halbe People who think that serious art and architecture are only to be found in big cities on either coast are just showing their provinciality. A couple weeks ago I received an invitation to the opening of the new building at the Akron Art Museum, and when my friend Barbara Neswold offered to share the drive, I accepted. This small city (population 217,000) in the mid-west had turned to architects from a small, middle- European country: the Austrian, Coop Himmelb(l)au, which has been among Europe’s most exciting firms ... More » »

Artblog pop quiz

Card number 1 Card number 2 Card number 3–NOTE: NOW FLIPPED TO ITS CORRECT UP-DOWN, NORTH-SOUTH ORIENTATION. Card number 4 OK, so this is a visual literacy game I found at Target. Flash cards for….did you guess? The USA states. The one that made me laugh out loud is Wyoming, which has a Russian Suprematist tilt and is completely mysterious. Colorado is another jaunty Suprematist state. It would have been nice to see some useful information on the backs of the flash cards (which cost $1!! such a deal), like say, population, area, geographical distinctions, size, rivers and lakes, biggest ... More » »

Biz newz and flash in the panties

While trailing all the hot spots that Roberta visited the week before (23 Degrees at the Ice Box and Naked Paper at Tower Gallery) I picked up some bits of info worth sharing. On the business side, the enormous Crane Arts Building is fully rented out as of Sept. 1, co-owner Nick Kripal said when I bumped into him at the CFEVA 23 Degrees exhibit. Wow!!! Busybee Design moved in to a first floor space, Pig Iron Theatre Company will be performing at the Ice Box space there for the Fringe, while an architectural sculpture installation (of rammed earth, a ... More » »

Garden History and a Meditation on Ruins: Winnifred Lutz’s “Garden” at the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh

Post by Andrea Kirsh Winifred Lutz’s garden at the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh What is a garden? I took a course on the history of gardening in the Department of Landscape Architecture art the University of Oregon (it began with the Garden of Eden, of course) and learned that any intervention in the outdoor environment can be considered a garden. It needn’t have a lawn or an ordered arrangement of planting, or even plants; think of the stones and raked sand in Japanese temple gardens. These thoughts came back to me last week when I visited the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, ... More » »

Hello ! Gallery, bye bye world

A nice crowd turns out for ! Gallery’s grand opening I don’t know how to get to 727 Oak Lane with public transportation. But after I saw the exhibit at ! Gallery, I wish I had. The exhibit is entitled The World Won’t End But Ours Will is about the earth going to hell in a handbasket. I feel tremendous guilt for getting up there all by myself in my car, even though it is a Prius. The toxic tarte For all its gloom and doom, the exhibit has a jaunty air. The tone was well represented by one of ... More » »

Bicultural man–Odili Donald Odita talks at UArts

Odili Donald Odita in a beautiful bright pink shirt Never trust what an artist says about his own work. Well, trust them only some of the time.I’m referring to this year’s Venice Biennale American pick Odili Donald Odita. He gave a talk Wednesday at University of the Arts, part of the Food for Thought lecture series organized by the Summer MFA program. The talk was great, and the talk was puzzling. Give Me Shelter, 2007, at the Venice Biennale; acrylic latex wall paint and colored pigment on wall. Odita, who was born in Nigeria, grew up in middle-class-suburban Ohio. His ... More » »

Long Island ice tea

Elizabeth Zans, Hubris There’s a cool cocktail of an exhibit, Me, Out of You, opening tomorrow in Long Island City, curated by René Smith at Subdivision Gallery & Boutique. Smith’s work came to our attention at the Young Art Alliace show at the Philadelphia Art Alliance in 2005 (post here, and then, when Smith had a show in Brooklyn, Brent Burket covered it for us here. Included in the show is Philadelphia artist Rubens Ghenov, as well as work by Smith and a host of others: Brendan CarrollLeidy ChurchmanAnn FlahertyAndrea MoreauRachael WrenMika YokoboriElizabeth Zans Here’s a Flickr set with images ... More » »

Amy Walsh and Blaine Siegel’s Kaiserpanorama at Freeman’s

Amy Walsh and Blaine Siegel, Kaiserpanorama detail. Before cinema and cinerama and I-Max and panorama cameras, there was the Kaiserpanorama, a sort of multi-peephole device with a stereoscopic slide show. It’s sort of the opposite of painting panoramas, in which the person stands in the middle of a circular landscape, and can scan around, thereby taking in the impression of the space. Locally, there’s one out at the Gettysburg battlefield visitor’s center, depicting the battle. On the other hand, the Kaiserpanorama is a look inside and is closer to a television in concept. a kaiserpanorama It’s this tradition of panorama, ... More » »

Abington: Inside and Out

Detail of Annette Monnier’s piece in Handmaking at Abington Art Center. Just a very quick note to alert you to the last few days of The HandMaking at Abington Art Center. The show, up through July 28, is devoted to art that breaks of the barrier between high and low and gleefully embraces JoAnne Fabrics and AC Moore as well as Pearl Paint’s finest. Great show. Libby told you about it here. And while I was out there I got to walk through the sculpture garden and woods with Curator Amy Lipton who showed me the new works in Inside/Outside: ... More » »