August 2009 Archive

Healthcare for artists? We don’t know

We saw this advertisement in the Weekly and went to the website which seems to offer health insurance to artists, nationwide including Philadelphia.  There’s even a facebook group — which looks brand new.  Anybody have any experience with this group?  We couldn’t find any link to Linc, a consortium of national and local funders who previously were on the artists’ healthcare bandwagon and petered out with a whimper and a brochure. We think this group (new to us) is legitimate.  Does anyone have any experience with them?

Artblog labs a-poppin’

Hello campers, we are here to announce exciting news. We are experimenting with a new lab section for projects such as a gallery map with listing information that we hope will be useful to you. We will have 6 maps of the city, five of them by neighborhoods and one will be our current picks.

Gossip girls

Heads up, here comes some gossip, via Dustin Metz who seems to be connected to everything these days. Philly Story 1 The New York Times covers Philly art in a story to run sometime this week. NYT photog was on the scene last week snapping at FLUXspace, the PMA, the Fabric Workshop, Mural Arts and elsewhere.  We don’t know who the writer is but look for the story soon.  We don’t know if this is a regional story or a travel story or an art story…

Delusional nature

The shore is one of those places where nature knocks you over the head with its scale and power. Even this year, with jumbo, rusty machines and pipes taking over a large chunk of Sea Isle City’s beach with an “environmental reclamation project” in high season, right in front of where some friends of ours were staying, the wonders of the ocean, the birds and the dunes still pack their punch.

Homelessness in a Discrete Living Simulation

Released in 2000, The Sims was the first computer game in its genre to engage players in the everyday activities of virtual people, or “Sims.” It is like a microcosmic version of SimCity (the urban planning/management computer game) but instead of a municipality you create and manage individual persons. The ultimate goal is to steer your Sim towards happiness via a rather traditional real-world route: hobbies, love (The Sims 3 is LGB marriage-inclusive), a family, a fulfilling career with accumulated skills, socialization, money, and good hygiene.

Weekly Update –Weather Reports at ANH/VHS

This week’s Weekly has my review of the SP Weather Station Weather Reports. Below is the copy with some pictures. If there is angst or hysteria about global warming in the group show “Weather Reports” it is hidden. Instead of melting ice caps and imperiled polar bears, the quiet, small works show of drawings, prints and video at AHN/VHS focuses on the daily weather data recorded at the artist-run SP Weather Station on a rooftop in Long Island City, Queens.

Dance of Two Spirits–Kent Monkman at Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts

Kent Monkman’s video installation Dance to the Berdashe begins in darkness. Four projection screens decorated with tassels and shaped like bear hides surround a central screen. A gloved hand appears drawing simple icons of different natives on the surrounding screens. The larger-than-life drawings become animated dancers and then come to life by overlay of human figures, bringing the viewer into a live filmed ritual.

Two Community Projects: Dread Scott in Philadelphia and Hassan Hajjaj in Cardiff

I ran into Dread Scott in New York, which is how I learned that he’d done a work for Philadelphia’s  Mural Arts Program.  Dread Scott and Mural Arts?  Scott describes himself as making revolutionary art to propel history forward.

Learning from the past–lecture on Philadelphia manufacturing

artblog contributor Jacob Hellman will be giving a lecture this Thursday about a project he’s been “mildly obsessed” about for the last two years, the history of Philadelphia as a manufacturing powerhouse.  Hellman, an artist and activist, discovered an 1859 book, Philadelphia and its Manufactures, and he’s been tracking down old factories and taking pictures of their ruination ever since.

Sunday night funny

We’ve told you about the Liberta confusion–people think I’m Libby and Libby’s me.  It happens in the mail, too.  I get mail addressed to Libby at my house and she gets stuff for me at hers.  We just laugh.  Last week the confusion gods were in fine form.  Here’s how two postcards came to Libby’s house (click image to see it bigger).  Hope it gives you a chuckle.