September 2007 Archive

Something else we’re up to

Postcard (front and back) for Dig, with Zoe Strauss image, detail, I-95 (Philly’s Imprint Removed Sign), archival inkjet print, color photography and/or digital projection, dimensions variable, 2001-2007. Click image to read the words. Dig this!!! We’ve been asked by J.T. Kirkland, author of Thinking About Art, to curate a show of Philly artists. The show, which has an opening reception Sat., Oct. 20, 4-7 p.m., is at H & F Fine Arts in the Washington D.C. suburb of Mt. Rainier, MD. It’s a star studded cast, including Barbara Bullock, Kip Deeds, Candy Depew, Nick Lenker, Thom Lessner, Jayson Scott Musson, ... More » »

Mark Shetabi review at artnet

Gallerist Jenny Jaskey with Mark Shetabi’s Model II at Jenny Jaskey/Tower Gallery. Just a heads up that my review of Mark Shatabi‘s show Elevation at Jenny Jaskey/Tower Gallery is up at artnet. I’m reprinting the copy below in case you missed it. Check it out at artnet for all the pictures. CONCRETE COLISEUM Mark Shetabi, “Elevation,” Sept. 13-Oct. 26, 2007, at Jenny Jaskey/Tower Gallery, 969 N. Second Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 19123 Philadelphia artist Mark Shetabi’s new exhibition is as enigmatic as grand-master-level Sudoku. Titled “Elevation” and including both paintings and sculptures, Shetabi’s show focuses on a contemporary architectural icon, the ... More » »

Pittsburgh, ho!

Hello out there, I’m off to Pittsburgh to see Stella. See you next week! What’s up with this Philly rain? I thought it was supposed to be sunny today!!!????!!!

Candida Hofer in Philadelphia

Hofer between her assistants Victoria Lelandais Gandit (grey top to left of Hofer) and Alex Janta (on the right of Hofer, with black sweater), taken at Slought Foundation. Christine McMonagle is on the far left. Candida Hofer, the internationally known German artist acclaimed for her enormous photographs of architectural spaces, is here in Philadelphia until the 27th. What she’s doing here, how her visit came about and what she had to say to a class of art history students at the University of Pennsylvania are what this post is about.Why she’s here Hofer is in town for 10 days to ... More » »

Weekly Update – ICA’s shows, noisy and still

This week’s Weekly has my review of the ICA shows Ensemble and Between Us. Below is the copy with some pictures. More photos at flickr. Bring the Noise“Ensemble” rattles and hums while Eileen Neff’s photos are still as death. Enter Ensemble at ICA through Mineko Grimmer’s Bamboo Forest 1995/2007, a sonic curtain. “Ensemble” at the Institute of Contemporary Art is louder than a roomful of noisy 2-year-olds unwrapping drums and rattles at Christmas. The group show of 32 clacking, clicking and thumping audio art pieces was organized by guest curator Christian Marclay, an artist whose own work involves complex sonic ... More » »

Print crazy–Philadelphia rolls the presses

Ben Franklin demonstrates his printing press Philagrafika is unveiling its new annual portfolio next week (5-6 p.m., Sept. 20th, 728 South Broad Street), and as I mentioned the other day, Shelley Spector has created a print portfolio with a somewhat different angle (post here). I asked Philagrafika Executive Director Teresa Jaynes if the organization was feeling the heat of competition, but Jaynes answered that Philadelphia’s hunger for prints is healthy and growing. A sure sign of that is that four new print shops have opened their doors in Philadelphia, in the past couple of years, bringing the number of fine ... More » »

Shadow World at Kelly Writers House tomorrow

Click To Play David Kessler, who does the magic on our video series Look! It’s Libby and Roberta is having a screening of his heartbreaking Shadow World videos tomorrow night, Tuesday, Sept. 18 at Kelly Writers House. Shadow World, which documents people who live or work or hang out in Kensington under the El, is riveting when seen small on the internet. The short pieces (a ten-minute clip showing several episodes will screen) will be very powerful when projected large. The series tells much about a part of the city and its inhabitants most people never see. Shadow World is ... More » »

Two reasons I loved New York last week–Joyce Kozloff, Gordon Moore

Joyce Kozloff, Helium on the Moon, 2007, acrylic, colored pencil and collage on canvas, 60 inches I was wowed by two very different artists last week in New York–Joyce Kozloff uptown at DC Moore and Gordon Moore in Chelsea. Yet two more different painters would be hard to find. Joyce Kozloff Joyce Kozloff, Helium on the Moon, detail Roberta and I have been great admirers of Kozloff’s work since we first came across it by accident at DC Moore Gallery several years ago–pre-blog, which means prior to 2003. Kozloff small, heavily detailed maps, based on real ones plus a lot ... More » »

Annals of dealing–Shelleyware

Matt Fisher, Ghost Rider Imagine my pleasure in seeing former Spector Gallery gal, Shelley Spector, in Philadelphia Magazine. There she is, the feature creature in the Good Life section, which (like most of the magazine) pitches consumer goods. She looks great, but not at all like her bouncy, energetic herself (although there’s a more characteristic little image in the table of contents). The photo is a marketing image, by gum, Spector in a black preppy top, representing the new Spector Projects. She looks poised and posed to sell you her art products in your own livingroom–or someone else’s. It’s the ... More » »

Artnet gets video

Artnet TV by Nicole DavisMusic by Jordan GallandVol. 1, No. 1Nest by Dash Snow and Dan ColenJuly 25-Aug. 18, 2006Deitch Projects76 Grand Street, New York, N.Y. 10012 I was talking with artnet‘s Walter Robinson yesterday and while catching up on this and that I mentioned that Libby and I were doing videos on artblog now and that people seemed to love them (you do, don’t you?). Robinson said “We’re putting up our first video today.” I wondered if he was going to be the one in front of the camera and he said no and mentioned how he’d actually done ... More » »