July 2010 Archive

Book Reviews: ‘Vox Populi; We’re working on it’ and ‘Communities of Sense; Rethinking aesthetics and politics’

Vox Populi; We’re working on it, Andrew Suggs, ed. (Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia) ISBN 978-0-615-31338-2 The art scene in Philadelphia is marked by an expanding community of artists, artists’ collectives and artist-run organizations, galleries, publications and events. Word gets out, but proper documentation is important for an accurate picture and for the future. In a publication recording its 21-year history, Vox Populi Gallery has provided a record of its own history as well as that of the other artists’ organizations established in Philadelphia since the founding of Painted Bride in 1969.

Extreme Painting at Joyce Yahouda

Extreme Painting has taken over Montreal. Sixteen galleries across the city have adopted the theme for the summer of 2010. While Division, Orange and Donald Browne galleries (among others) have opted for monumental proportions and excessive applications of paint, guest curator Nicolas Mavrikakis at Joyce Yahouda gallery has chosen a different route. Highlighting the work of an edgier collection of artists, Mavrikakis looks at the gesture of painting and its position in the twenty-first century. Are we indeed in an age of post-painting? Or, will painting live on as an eternal tradition?

Suspect Device at Extra Extra

The idea of infinite functionality is so pervasive in our culture that we are no longer satisfied with objects that only do one thing well. A phone must also be a camera and a stereo and a mail carrier. This battle between functionality and design is on display at Extra Extra in a four-person show organized by Ingrid Burrington. Burrington, who is also in the show, collected videos, installations, and sculptures that imply a functionality that turns out to be a somewhat goofy deception. 

Deconstructive Construction: Matthew Craven at Grizzly Grizzly

Since American history is a required subject in high school, most of us are at least vaguely familiar with the narrative told in standard American history textbooks. We would probably also recognize the iconic images of battles, generals, and presidents used to illustrate this narrative. In his show “Future Myths” at Grizzly Grizzly, Matthew Craven has appropriated these textbook images to form collages that question, rather than confirm, the patterns we were taught to see in American history.

Let’s Go Enjoy Nature at Seraphin

The title of the exhibit Let’s Go Enjoy Nature! is pretty funny. There’s nothing natural about standing in a gallery looking at art–an imitation of life. But art is the sincerest form of flattery. And speaking of the joys of what’s unnatural, air conditioning in this beastly weather is just the ticket.

Letter from Paris: White On White

The white monochrome painting, once a joke –”cow in a snowstorm” – at other times a beacon heralding modernism (Malevich’s White on White, 1918) has carved out a serious place in the canon of aesthetics. Nearly every art movement over the last 150 years, if only a shake or a jitter, has paused long enough to produce an all-over, single-color performance. There are thousands of monochrome works dotting the history of art, pointing to a kind of serial of reduction-minded dramas. Stripped down, these works, bold in their simplicity, end up being complex philosophical constructions gesturing to a manifest aesthetic destiny.

Art in the air no pie in the sky

In case you’re wondering how the new tech-art consortium Breadboard (out of the University City Science Center and affiliated with Esther Klein Gallery) is doing, we have to say…well!  Breadboard just partnered with PECO to get art up on the PECO signboard atop their building at 23rd and Market.  No kidding, art in the sky.  LED art.  Could be cool.  And it’s ongoing–as in each month you have a new shot at getting your art up there.

Weekly Update – Noisy satisfying Vox VI

Vox Populi’s sixth annual emerging-artist roundup is a musclebound, unruly show. With 33 artists (almost half from the Philadelphia region) and close to 70 works, jurors William Powhida and Jennifer Dalton chose a noisy exhibit, literally and figuratively. It’s great, don’t miss it.

Kevin Baker, Tom Costa & Austin Eddy at Jolie Laide

Jolie Laide, a new gallery near City Hall on Juniper Street, opened the doors to their first show with the brightly-colored, funny and melancholy works of Kevin Baker, Tom Costa, and Austin Eddy—the decorative, the decayed, and the domestic. The large new space is bright and welcoming with exposed brick and open space in the front room and italian plaster walls in the rear gallery. It provides an interesting architectural background for the current show which features both architecture and interiors. Although Jolie Laide already represents local artist Jordan Griska, their debut show highlights experienced, but little-known artists that are new to the Philadelphia art scene.

Social justice through photography

Harvey Finkle is a documentary still photographer who has focused on social, economic, political and cultural issues for decades. He mostly works in and around Philadelphia, but has also produced several bodies of work abroad. His affecting retrospective at Painted Bride, “Justice Behind the Lens: The Legacy of Harvey Finkle,” – on through August 13 – fills the main gallery and adjacent room with black and white photographs spanning the last 30 plus years.