February 2009 Archive

Maira Kalman meets Abe Lincoln at the Rosenbach

Maira Kalman went to the Rosenbach Museum and Library, and there began her love affair with Abraham Lincoln. Check out her wonderful response to Lincoln, drawings and all, in the New York Times. Maira Kalman records how she fell in love with Abe Lincoln

Jacob Hellman among the ruins in Amman, Jordan

email from Jacob (writing in reference to his Feb. 25 post Pilgrimage to D.C.: thanks for the posiivity, and excuse the spelling errors. i’m still travelling in israel (jordan, actually, at the moment) and have been carrying with me for 3 weeks the scribbled papers on which i took notes from that performance the night before i left, opening nite feb.2nd. it’s been weighing on me, and i finally sat down in a internet cafe and typed it. guy knocked the power out mid-session, so i was impatient at the end and hit ‘publish’…

Dirt on Delight at the ICA

[This is part 2 of a 2 part article that first appeared in the March issue of Ceramics Monthly. Click on the Dirt on Delight tag at the bottom of the post to find part 1.] Not everything in the exhibit is explicitly about body and bodily functions. Numerous pieces revel in clay’s historic use as a decorative medium. Jeffry Mitchell, Pickle Jar, 2005, glazed ceramic, 15.5 x 13 x 13 inches, collection Ben and Aileen Krohn

Dirt on Delight at the ICA, for Ceramics Monthly, part 1

[My review of the clay exhibit Dirt on Delight at the ICA was written for Ceramics Monthly, and appears in the March 2009 issue. This is part one of two parts. Roberta also wrote a Weekly Update on the show]. The bitter cold didn’t deter the more than 600 people who attended the opening of a major clay exhibit at the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art. The exhibit, “Dirt on Delight: Impulses that Form Clay” is worth braving the elements–a chance to view a stunning variety of contemporary clay sculptures and some earlier clay sculpture that influenced the more recent ... More » »

Breaking news–West Prize to Dufalas!!!!

From Claire Iltis at Fleisher-Ollman: Hi Libby and Roberta, I don’t know if you’ve heard this already, but last night The Dufala Brothers were awarded the West Prize Grand Prize! Steven and Billy Blaise Dufala, Ice Cream Tank Truck,, now part of the West Collection. You saw it first at Space 1026.

An Outsider on the Inside at Riverside Correctional Facility, part 2

Post by Ann Northrup [This is part two of a two-part post that began Monday, Feb. 23 about artist Ann Northrup's experience teaching art to prisoners and creating a mural with them at Riverside Correctional Facility]. The 16-week class I taught [at Riverside Correctional Facility] was similar to the drawing class I teach at Philadelphia University, though it had a mural-painting aspect also. We began with copies from master drawings and photos. This was a major hit with inmates, not least because it involved homework, thus providing something absorbing to do in off-hours. They began demanding more and more homework, ... More » »

Pilgrimage to D.C.

Watch it if you take the 5pm Chinatown bus to D.C.; it will not get you there quite on time for the curtain call of Hell Meets Henry Halfway. You also might read up on Polish dissident Gombrowicz. His texts were the conceptual bedrock for the two most forceful performacnes at the 2006 and 2007 Fringe Festivals (performed by Dada von Bzudulow Theater). Philly all-stars Pig Iron Theater Company also fed on Gombrowicz while they developed this piece, which won an Obie in 2004 and is being revived through March 1st at the Wooly Mammoth Theater in D.C.

Cutbacks at PMA

On a local (and more downbeat note), here’s a front pager from the Philadelphia Inquirer today about cutbacks at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Bloggers get grants after all! Warhol/Creative Capital arts writers 2008

Congratulations Paddy Johnson (Art Fag City) and Anjali Srinivasan and Yuka Otani (Post-Glass Artists: Glass Guerillas)! First art bloggers to win the Warhol/Creative Capital grant for arts writers.  Also in the list of the 2008 winners (just announced), two Philly peeps: Judith Stein for her book, The Eye of the Sixties: A Biography of Richard Bellamy and Jonathan Katz, for his book Art, Eros and the Sixties.  Other notable grantees include Peter Plagens for an article on Bruce Nauman‘s inclusion in the 2009 Venice Biennale (curated by PMA’s Carlos Basualdo and Michael Taylor) and Joseph Grigely, (artist in the recent ... More » »

Weekly Update – Peter Weibel’s words and video at Slought

This week’s Weekly has my review of Peter Weibel: Rewriter at Slought. Below is the copy with some pictures. Austrian artist Peter Weibel’s video and text art from the 1960s and ’70s, now on view at the Slought Foundation, fits perfectly in today’s concept-driven and media-obsessed art world. The work’s refusal to be beautiful shocked audiences back when most thought art was a pretty painting or figurative sculpture. But today, Weibel’s work—with its playful approach to subject and its smart wordsmithing—prefigures much contemporary art. Vulcanology of Emotions 1971 Throughout the large show, Weibel’s works have an undeniable charm. Soliloquy (1973), ... More » »