August 2007 Archive

Report from Ireland–Malani and Freud

Post by Andrea Kirsh Nalini Malani, Talking About Akka, (detail), 2007, Tryptich, 183 cm x100 cm each, overall size 185 X 300 cm, Acrylic and enamel reversepainting on acrylic sheet, Courtesy of the artist The Irish Museum of Modern Art has several interesting exhibitions at the moment and I went to see two of them: surveys of Nalini Malani and Lucian Freud. Access to IMMA’s primary galleries is via a glass staircase which opens onto what is usually a light-filled landing; but for now all that is changed and one enters a different world, a darkened space with red walls. ... More » »

Waiting for FEMA

Creative Time, that fabulous outfit that has put on a parade of amazing installations and performances in New York City for 33 years, is going national with a performance in New Orleans of Waiting for Godot, featuring artist Paul Chan and the Classical Theatre of Harlem! Someone had to find another way to say it, and Creative Time is doing it! Just got this information from Brent Burket, here.

Look! at the Book of War in the peace of the PMA

Click To Play We love the Indian miniatures we’ve been seeing in Gallery 227 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, so when we saw the gallery now had The Book of War: The Free Library of Philadelphia’s Mughal Razmnama Folios, we had to pay a visit. The 25 book pages on display are elaborately illustrated folios are from a single Mughal manuscript, the Razmnama (literally, “Book of War”), dated to 1598–99. While we were there, PMA Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art Darielle Mason showed up and explained to us (and to you too if you watch this episode) just ... More » »

Weekly Update – The Great Society at Klein Art Gallery

This week’s Weekly has my review of The Great Society at Klein Art Gallery. Below is the copy with a picture and more at flickr (I’ll put more in the post later). Here’s Libby’s flickr setIrony Rich“The Great Society” invites you to drop out. Newsreader in the faux news program in Joulia Strauss’s video in the Great Society. “The Great Society” at Klein Art Gallery is a dirge in eight-part harmony about our not-so-great society. Even if you don’t know the show’s historical reference (Lyndon Johnson’s optimistic social program of the 1960s), you’ll grasp its irony. Guest curator Daniel Fuller’s ... More » »

Prescriptions and ideals: Timothy Gierschick at the Green Line Powelton

Timothy Gierschick, Remission 1 & 2; latex and enamel on collaged prescriptions on panel Local artist Timothy Gierschick’s small (and one not so small) paintings and collages on panel glow with sweetness and yummy colors over at the Green Line/Powelton Village. Gierschick has been developing a sort of iconographic language of logo-like, elusive shapes over time–shapes that come close to but avoid universal icons like hearts and teardrops. They kind of remind me of Richard Tuttle–letters to some unknown alphabet–and the runic marks of Warren Rohrer across a field. This time, Gierschick puts his arcane vocabulary to especially good use. ... More » »

Art&Auction hearts Philadelphia

Art and Auction magazine, July 2007. Click it to see it big then click all sizes to read it. Last summer I wrote an article about Philadelphia’s art scene for Art Review magazine. It had pages and pages of fantastic images by Noah Shelley of our town’s art scene leaders. Here’s the pictures…and if you look at them big enough you can read the text, too. Of course I painted Philly’s art scene as the best thing this side of the Atlantic…because it is, dammit! In case you missed it here’s the link to the pdf version to download. Here. ... More » »

Money for public art!!

Thought this one was worth passing on since there’s a fair amount of money involved! Call to Artists – Public Art Project at Venice Island Recreation Center The City of Philadelphia’s Department of Public Property, Public Art Division, in conjunction with the Philadelphia Water Department, announces a competition for the commissioning of site specific artwork for the Manayunk CSO Basin at the Venice Island Recreation Center. A total budget of up to $275,000 has been allocated for this Percent for Art project. The competition is open to artists or collaborative teams who reside in the U.S. Prior experience in public ... More » »

Jaime Treadwell at Cerulean

Jaime Treadwell, The End Neo-Pink, Jaime Treadwell’s one-man show at Cerulean Arts Gallery, combines off-the-hook oil painting technique with a post-Apocalyptic world in cotton candy pink. The lipsticky desolate landscapes with overturned vehicles and used-car-lot pennants or blobs of falling oobleck are sad and interesting. They have a sense of Mad Max finding his way through what’s left and making the best of things. Jaime Treadwell, Alone II The peopled images are another story, even though they are peopling the same sort of milieu. There’s something unnatural about them. The perfect, but hard-eyed children with their camouflage vests and antenna-topped ... More » »

Cream Puff for you–Wisconsin State Fair post!

Sky glider above Main Street, Wisconsin State Fair. Cate, Stella and I started our trip to the Wisconsin State Fair in a non-standard way — we took the Milwaukee city bus (actually two buses, the 30 and the 18 — still free transfers in Milwaukee unlike in Philadelphia where they cost 60 cents and where the courts had to overturn SEPTA’s discontinuation of them altogether!). Anyway, the city bus is non-standard since this is the midwest and car culture is all pervasive. It is understood that most everyone will come to the fair in a car. The bus dropped us ... More » »

Hot time: A weekend in NYC

Post by Andrea Kirsh Verner Panton, 1970/2000, Phantasy Landscape Visiona II, (View 2), Wood, foam rubber and woolen fabric , 314 15/16 x 236 1/4 x 94 1/2in. (800 x 600 x 240cm), Vitra Design Museum, © Panton Design, Basel I love New York City on a summer weekend when everyone who can has left for the beach or the country; it’s calmer than at other times. I headed for the Whitney where I approached “Summer of Love; Celebrating Art of the Psychedelic Era” with curiosity but also trepidation; after all, seeing one’s adolescence recast as history is sobering. The ... More » »