Posts By admin

December Picks on Maps

Artblog’s picks for December are now up on maps & listings. See for yourself and pick for yourself. If you haven’t submitted yet, submit!

William Smith: Recent Work at Schmidt Dean Gallery

In his “Recent Work,” William Smith combines the human study of the natural world through words and diagrams from 18th century books and poetry with his own artistic interpretation of the natural world. Smith picks specific images and words from old books and printed reproductions and integrates them in unusual ways with oil paint and found materials. Smith’s efforts shine through the combination of reductive and additive processes that involve the application of paint, collaged layers of books and found objects, varnishes, and massive amount of etching. Smith creates intricate details of trees, vines, and water reflections. His process yields ... More » »

First Friday – April, 2007

Spring has sprung in Philadelphia – although the First Friday of April was rather chilly. After visiting some fifteen, twenty galleries in the span of four hours, here are some of my favorites. The highlight of First Friday down in Old City was, as Roberta and Libby pointed out in their post last week, Jackie Tileston‘s exhibit at Pentimenti, Everything, In Your Favor. Jackie Tileston before her painting “Analogy of Transit” Tileston’s exhibit was composed of 4 oils and 4 drawings, each embodying the same euphoric, spiritual feel. Tileston, a teacher at UPENN, grew up overseas, and has recently returned ... More » »

Smog city, here I come

Los Angeles smog line; I grabbed it off a travel agency web site. What were they thinking? Did they perchance think that was a natural sunset color or what? Even with the smog, even without the woodie and the surfboard, I still love LA. So we’ve got our sunglasses on our noses, and Murray and I are off to la la land to visit Susan and Steve. This means that I may not be posting until Tuesday. Sounds like it’ll be a quiet weekend on artblog, between Roberta’s trip and mine. All of you with openings, congratulations. Next week will ... More » »

TV Japan-style

When Marjorie Grigonis was in Japan, she took a bunch of images off the tv screen. Here’s one of them. It reminds me of PeeWee’s Playhouse, but even more manic and punched up. Here’s Marjorie’s Flickr set of tv photos. Some of the Japanese sets have saturated colors, some of the cartoon imagery looks a little unfamiliar, and some of the ways the camera moves in on faces is a little different, but the way things are going, in a few years American and Japanese TV will probably be indistinguishable.

Cool doesn’t look so hot at the art fairs

Two of Bruce Wilhelm’s low-tech-looking videos at ADA Gallery I was definitely stunned by art overload at the fairs last weekend. But here’s my biggest art thought on what’s going on. Videos and technology are in rebellion against high-tech. The chill is gone. On the other hand, paintings are increasingly high tech looking, thanks to the glisten of resins and other shiny media. In fact they’re so thick and object-like that they’re starting to look like sculpture. And sculpture hasn’t really come down on either side, with low-tech cardboard and carving and ceramics and high-tech resins and electronics. It was ... More » »

Two Philly blasts

Changing of the guard occurred hourly in Gabe Martinez’s big display piece at SCOPE Before I start blabbing about the other art fairs, I want to link to Roberta’s post, with its links to all of our pictures on Flickr. The highlight of our weekend was home-townie Gabe Martinez, who delivered a performance piece that broke my heart (presented by Samson Projects). The biggest surprise was the figure in the piece turned out to be a real human being. Well, two real human beings, taking turns, spelling one another from the torture of lying totally still on the cold, cold ... More » »

Big, bigger, biggest at Armory

Even Seydou Keita has pumped up the scale, at Sean Kelley. In this case, though, it looked great (sorry about the light reflections), the work retaining its gravitas amid all the glitzy art at the Armory. I seemed to be happier living in the art of the past in this show. I used to love Google…until yesterday, when I lost my gmail for five days and I therefore lost my usual path of access to the blog, which is also dependent on a gmail/google id. It started with Zoe receiving an email she got from my address that I didn’t ... More » »

Big Parties & Bright Colors at the first First Friday of 2007

In my First Friday wanderings down in Old City this January I noticed that a lot of the artwork seemed to be of a similar breed: large and colorful. I am talking neon, and wall-sized. This trend leads me to believe that, together, all of the artwork had the power to ward off the low temperatures and winter snows that should probably be plaguing the fair city at this time of year. Although it was a bit rainy, I was not the only person who was holding their coat, instead of wearing it. Timothy Bowen’s “Homeland” at Carbon14. The black ... More » »

November’s First Friday

Well! November’s First Friday was an exciting time to visit the galleries down in Old City (certainly better than the rainy First Friday of October) – lots of people out, lots of live music, and lots of awesome art. I went to some seven or eight galleries in total, and here will highlight six artists featured in four of these galleries whose art I found to be especially interesting. To start, it seemed that 2nd Street was the place to be on First Friday – and more specifically at Artist’s House. Viewers spilled out onto the street and waited in ... More » »