April 2011 Archive

West Prize winner rides for cows

When the West Collection decided to change up the West Prize and give the $25,000 purse to a project and not just to an artist, they truly changed the nature of the prize.  The winner of the grand prize, Billie Grace Lynn, was announced at the West Collection earlier this evening (Thursday, April 21). She will be using her prize money to fund a project to educate people about cruelty to farm animals.  Her piece,  ”Mad Cow Motorcycle”, 2008, a motorcycle made of a cow skeleton that the artist rides as part of her educational performances, is already being used for ... More » »

Exhibitions Currently in in D.C.

I was in D.C. once again for Arts Advocacy Day and, unfortunately for those of us in the arts business, it was the least pressing issue on the hill. I saw some very good exhibitions during my time there, however. In the tower of the National Gallery of Art‘s East Building, is a small exhibition of Nam June Paik’s work – and it should be smaller still, because One Candle, Candle Projection (1988–2000) is worth the ascent all by itself, even if the climb has to be done entirely by foot (although there is an elevator; a very slow one).

Weekly Update – Elisabeth Nickles’ chicken of the sea and other delicious public art treats at Philly International and Septa

Known for her mournful, ancient-looking glass and bronze sculptures of animals and birds, Elisabeth Nickles’ new work at PHL is a big surprise—the pieces are bright-colored paper sculptures that capture the spirit of a tropical snorkeling adventure. The rosy, sandy, seaweed- and creature-filled world in four large Plexiglas museum cases perfectly captures what Nickles calls “the essence of the sea.”

Smells Like Paint at Grizzly Grizzly or Get ‘Em While They’re Hot!

By Dennis D’Alesandro When I walked into the Laura Moriarty and Josh Weiss show at Grizzly Grizzly last week, I was almost knocked to the ground by the gloriously strong and chemically sweet odor of paint and painting mediums that was lingering in the air. Like most painters, I love the smell of paint, so it was a very welcoming scent that gave me instant satisfaction with the show before I even looked at the pieces. Then, when I looked at the pieces and smelled the pieces while I looked at them, I felt like a kid in a candy ... More » »

Interview: Adam Harvey and The Anti-Face

Surveillance will find you, and artist Adam Harvey’s CV Dazzle is the antidote, providing a kind of camouflage with makeup and hair–makeup and hair specifically used to protect against automated face detection and recognition systems. The term Dazzle refers to the  type of camouflage paint design used on military ships during War World I, created by British artist Norman Wilkinson who coined the term “dazzle  painting”; CV refers to computer vision (the eye). Look! It’s a bird; it’s a plane, no- it’s a satellite archiving the bone structure of your face. Never fear- CV Dazzle is here to save the ... More » »

Michael Konrad reinvents a broken society, on artblog radio

Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts sponsors this episode. Artist Michael Konrad is a bit of a pessimist, using a semi-permanent material–plastic bags–to explore the end of a great civilization. Konrad’s mournful installation was in the January 2011 Wind Challenge 2. His meticulously handcrafted mummy style sleeping bag and an American flag, his use of letters that lose their words, and words that lose their sentences, become artifacts of the city in post-industrial collapse. More than that, they become strategies for reinventing life. Konrad himself moved here with his young family from New York, taught himself to sew and iron, ... More » »

Material Concerns at LGTripp

In Jon Manteau’s third solo exhibition at LGTripp Gallery, To a Hammer, Everything Looks Like a Nail, on view through May 6, the artist explores mark-making using unconventional application techniques. In the front window, a video shows the artist creating the exhibition’s largest work, “Gumtrees and Ghosts.” Through this video, the artist’s work process is revealed.

Love Letter From Paris: 100 Bricks For Madagascar

The most famous bricks are perhaps the ones thrown by Ignatz, George Herriman’s irreverent mouse, at Krazy Kat, his love object. Issued from a seemingly endless pile and zipped through the air, these weighty missives rarely missed their target – Krazy’s Kat’s head – and exploded into floating hearts. Launched in cartoon world, the brick is a metaphor, of course, for ideas. So it was with delicious irony that I attended and immensely enjoyed 100 Briques Pour Madagascar, an artist benefit auction at Artcurial where very well-heeled French art collectors threw money at bricks.

Charleston report

Charleston is a city of contradictions, some of them superficial–like the old-fashioned paper fan next to the HDTV in our guest room. Some of the contradictions date from pre-Civil War and run disturbingly deep–like the independent tour guide who gave me his business card imprinted with a Confederate Flag.

No Way In–Richard Harrod at Marginal Utility

Richard Harrod’s latest installation A Larger Refrigerator (Marginal Utility, 1 April-28 May 2011) puts a chill on familiar interior views. The artist’s depictions of mundane spaces  use a variety of tricks thwart our entry and monkey with the norms of representation. A well-known figure in the Philadelphia art scene and a widely-exhibited artist, Harrod was a recipient of the Pew Fellowship (1997) and has shown internationally. Previous work by the artist presented cobbled-together worlds in similarly disconcerting fashion.