August 2008 Archive

Peter Saul –Incoming at PAFA, read Holland Carter on the show

Peter Saul, Self-Portrait as a Woman, 2006, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 102″, seen at Leo Koenig Gallery, Chelsea in 2006. The traveling Peter Saul retrospective opens at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Oct. 18 to Jan. 4. Holland Cotter saw it at the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, CA (there til Sept. 21) and wrote a wonderful piece about it a few weeks back in the NY Times. Here’s the link in case you missed it. ART REVIEWProvocateur: The Peter Saul ManifestoBy HOLLAND COTTERPublished: August 16, 2008 Saul is a major American painter and an ... More » »

Oliver Herring’s TASK 2, coming to FLUXspace

Oliver Herring’s FluxTASK last year at FLUXspace. This is a shot from the blue room in the elevator. There was a video camera trained on the room and a live feed to a monitor downstairs where you saw the people merged with a background image previously taken on the streets of the neighborhood. The FLUX crew said the blue room was such a hit, it may be brought back. I’m totally focused on politics at the moment. As in, how about that Obama!!! But art is still going on in Philadelphia, politics or no politics. And so it was that ... More » »

More Phillyites in New York and elsewhere

We now know that we missed at least five Philly artists in our previous post about our town’s world class art invading the world (or at least places on the Eastern seaboard). We are hereby bringing these artists and venues to your attention so you can feel even better about Philadelphia’s solid and growing art scene and so you can go see this stuff in the real world. JUDITH SCHAECHTER Judith Schaechter,Seeing is BelievingStained Glass installation120 x 120 inchesMuseum of Arts and Design Judith Schaechter — stained glass artist extraordinaire and all around art whizz kid (see our previous post ... More » »

Quebec Triennial–Pow! It’s great

Like a shot across the bow, the inaugural exhibit of the Quebec Triennial enters the arena a fully-formed, buff and beautiful thing. The regional roundup, with 135 works by 38 artists takes the pulse of the young art scene in the Frenchie region north of the border and delivers some delicious and deliciously weird and memorable art. This curated show could turn out to be the northland’s equivalent of the Whitney Biennial — a must see, must-be-in show. If it’s not on your radar yet it will be.

Good news from Afghanistan

Fragment of a bowl depicting bearded bulls, Tepe Fullol, gold (2200-1900 B.C.) National Museum, Kabul, photo © Thierry Ollivier/Musée Guimet. This was part of a burial cache accidentally discovered by farmers in 1966. The motif comes from Mesopotamia, confirming an ancient trade route. For most of us the name Afghanistan brings thoughts primarily of war. My associations prior to the past three decades’ conflicts were twofold: that most of the world’s lapis lazuli has always come from Afghanistan (in addition to its use in jewelry and precious objects the stone was finely ground to produce ultramarine, the most stable, beautiful ... More » »

Liberta is everywhere

People have this idea that Roberta and I are everywhere. But after I saw this sign in a window in Saratoga Springs a couple of weeks ago, I began to think that maybe it’s true. Can it be that this Frankie Flores guy heard about the Libertas (see our last round of Liberta Awards here)?Flores offers genre racehorse paintings (it’s Saratoga Springs, afterall), and though I can’t imagine why you would check these particular ones out or sit through the introductory web flash dance of celeb photos, here’s the link to the website in the photo, Frankie Flores Fine Art. ... More » »

Blick vs. Eakins

Now that we at artblog told you about the bargains at the new art supply store in town–Blick Art Supply (see post)–we will also share with you why some people are angry with the place. It seems the building that Blick has occupied has Thomas Eakins’ old studio at the top, and in moving in, Blick removed a plaque explaining this–according to a post signed CA Conrad at PhillySound blog. The post is one of those wonderful bloggy expressions of outrage at the insensitive yahoo world of business in a constantly changing world. It’s also still another chapter in the ... More » »

Lee Arnold’s Digital Landscapes of the Soul

Lee Arnold‘s an artist whose digital animation I’ve had a great time getting introduced to. Over the last two years the artist, who was teaching at Drexel University, was in group shows at Drexel University (twice), Vox Populi, Painted Bride and Fleisher-Ollman and each piece of Arnold’s was a kind of take on the landscape, internalized and remade in a new, melancholy and poetic way. Kind of like Jeremy Blake‘s moody distortions only quieter. Alpinia, a work I first saw in 2006 at Drexel’s show Inter-Logic, is a work the appears on its surface to be abstract—nothing but a landscape ... More » »

High tech latte to tacos, Lee Arnold’s report from SIGGRAPH

POST BY LEE ARNOLD “I’m not slacking off, my code’s compiling” (t-shirt slogan worn by conference attendee) I attended the SIGGRAPH** computer-graphics conference this year (in Los Angeles, Aug 11-15) as one of the jurors of the art gallery. Olesksiy Pikalo/ Latte Art Printer (OnLatte, Inc., Cambridge, MA). Looking forward to sampling what was on offer, I started the morning with a cappuccino with computer-generated latte art. The images were created by Olesksiy Pikalo using carmalized sugar and his modified printer. Olesksiy Pikalo/ Latte Art Printer (OnLatte, Inc., Cambridge, MA). After waking up with a double espresso I moved on ... More » »

Art supplies alert!!!!!

Need some art supplies? There’s a 30-percent-off coupon for one non-sale item (time to buy that expensive one thing) in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, Section B, page 7, for the new art supply store in town, Blick Art Materials, which is having a grand opening sale through Sept. 7. There are prizes listed in the ad besides the coupon–all most appealing if you ask me. The store is at 1330 Chestnut Street, lower level.