May 2009 Archive

Relationships R Us in the Fleisher Challenge 3

Fleisher Art Memorial ends its season of Challenge exhibits with works that range from whimsical to nostalgic to earnestly activist.   The Challenge shows have always been three emerging artist solo shows in one but if you work at it you can see a common thread running through the works.  In this show, it’s all about relationships.

Joseph Hu and Mauro Zamora: Forest Reverie at Vox

Joseph Hu and Mauro Zamora team up this month at Vox Populi to present an installation that suggests the possibilities and limits of daydreaming in nature.

Trenton Avenue Arts Festival

Fine Art made its way into the Kensington community last Saturday at the Trenton Avenue Arts Fest. The weather was indecisive, the hand-crafted goods and local music were abundant, and two Kensington-area Artist Communities were on the scene: Little Berlin and FLUXspace. Both groups put together installations for the festival, and found their own unique way to engage the community through their creative act. FLUXspace set-up turf right near the southern sound-stage, with a patch of grass boasting their brand to recline on while taking-in some tunes. They also had quite a pile of art supplies and were encouraging youngsters ... More » »

Weekly Update-My Dog Speaks at Seraphin Gallery

 This week’s Weekly has my review of My Dog Speaks.  Below is my copy with some pictures. Through the years artists have devoted gallons of paint and tons of plaster, clay and metal to the depiction of animals — beloved cats and dogs and heroic wild beasts.  If an animal-loving artist makes a self-portrait, chances are a beloved pet will appear in the work.  “My Dog Speaks” at Seraphin Gallery is a 13-artist group hug of the beasts of the earth. 

An insider’s look at the SNAG conference by Susan Myers

Three years in the planning,  the 2009 Society of North American Goldsmiths’ (SNAG) Philadelphia Conference opens today and runs through Saturday, May 23, with 22 exhibitions focused on the field of metalsmithing along with usual lectures, vendors, and organized discussions typical of  conferences. The three person SNAG Exhibitions Committee (where I spent my volunteer hours for the last two years) organized the exhibition smorgasbord with shows at Tyler School of Art, the Art Alliance, Philadelphia International airport and elsewhere.   SNAG is a membership organization of studio artists, educators, students and others working in all metals, alternative materials, and all aspects of ... More » »

The blues report

This is our first really long car trip since we took the kids to the Southwestern U.S. I always have loved place names, the more unfamiliar the better, and the Maryland panhandle and West Virginia and Kentucky are a place name lover’s dream. We drove past the Youghioheny River, Menongelia County and Salt Lick on our way to Lexington for Ben’s graduation from the University of Kentucky medical school.

Bold As Love; Adam Parker Smith’s Broadway Windows in New York

Part of the tension in Adam Parker Smith‘s work has come from the contrast of the scale and seriousness of his installations and the mannekins which populate them; his stuffed figures are soft and almost cuddly in their association with dolls, despite their nudity, frank genetalia and bodily blemishes.

Polling day treasure hunt-Find Rob Matthews drawing on telephone pole

At around 8 pm last night I got an email from Rob Matthews alerting me to a new project of his–a street giveaway of two drawings from 2003. The artist had stapled the works (inside plastic envelopes for safe keeping) to telephone poles in his Northern Liberties neighborhood. Wow– a treasure hunt for a free Rob Matthews drawing!

New video on code of best practices for online video appropriations

Thanks to Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing for information on the new ”Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video” written by an academic consortium out of American University’s Center for Social Media and the AU Law School and Stanford Law.  This great seven-minute video explains the circumstances that allow appropriations of copyrighted material.  My quick view of the video pulled up some of the fair use conditions:   don’t use too much material (ie, appropriate amounts) use for critique use for giving context use for launching discussion use for mashups always give credit to sources

Monday–MoMA’s Lunchtime Pecha Kucha features Randall Sellers

One of artblog’s favorite artists, Randall Sellers, he of the magical teensy-kingdom drawings who was discovered by Shelley Spector at the Bean Cafe on South Street, is participating in a slide slam at MoMA today at 12:30 pm.  The slide lecture includes 6 artists whose work is in the Judith Rothschild Foundation Collection show at the museum now through Jan. 4.  In an email, Randall said that  one of the drawings he’s going to show in his slide presentation (20 slides, 20 seconds each) is a pre-swine flu outbreak work that’s about pandemic bird flu!