Posts By libby

Leslie Friedman’s Tasty at Napoleon

Leslie Friedman’s ultra-Pop installation Tasty, at Napoleon, the micro gallery in the 319 N. 11th St. building, is fizzy with the delight of well-designed space and stealth content that improves with time. Friedman has hit a feminist note in her installation, in which three panels repeat a soda can’s thick emission dripping down to the open mouth of a conventionally beautiful woman. The pouring hand is manicured–the ladies are doing it to themselves. Friedman’s little exhibit is proof positive that UArts Curator Sid Sachs’ Seductive Subversion show of the year in 2010 came at the right time, when those ideas ...

Erin Riley next week on artblog radio

Erin M. Riley’s conceptual narratives seem easy to understand. But the moral tales have a way of posing thorny questions that linger in the mind. Her work is in a Space 1026 fiber exhibit of work by five artists in March 2012, part of Fiber Philadelphia, and she had a prestigious Fleisher Challenge this past fall.  Here’s a sample from next week’s podcast: Erin Riley 49-second sample

The agony and the ecstasy at Vox’s AUX

My first outing to AUX, the newish performance space at Vox Populi Gallery, last week was an extraordinary mix of pain and transcendence. The event, Rhythms of Time Sharing (RoTS), showcased several communications-technology-based performances, including work from artists based here, in the nation and across the pond. The event, presented by the London-based collective KIOSK, was a curatorial exploration of the current state of new media in art. The high point–using text messages–was an interactive performance by Brooklyn-based artists Joao Enxuto and Erica Love, who collaborate under the name the original copy. In their performance Talk to Me, they play ...

Grizzly’s first talk–Matt Giel and Alanna Lawley

Ten people can barely fit into Grizzly Grizzly under the best of circumstances. But this month, the space is seriously reduced by an installation of hanging scrolls forming a stagey backdrop with wings.

In New York–the Mormons, the Dubins and Maurizio Cattelan

What a relief to do an overnight in New York–it elevates the one-day marathon to a true vacation. This one included Renaissance portraits at the Met, Maurizio Cattelan at the Guggenheim, The Book of Mormon on Broadway and the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side. The Mormons and the Dubins Back in April, my son Alex had a birthday, but we came up short on a gift. Alex loves musicals, so Murray tracked down tickets to the Book of Mormon for Alex, Lindsey and us. The wait has been long, but worth it. As musicals go, The Book of ...

Highbrow, lowbrow, middlebrow and unibrow

If I notice a Louis Menand essay in the New Yorker, I always dig in. And it always rewards me. I should note that I have piles of old New Yorkers floating around the house–who can keep up? So the article I am enamored of at this moment, Browbeaten: Dwight Macdonald’s war on Midcult, was published Sept. 5, 2011.

Historic color photos

A link with amazing color photographs from the Library of Congress came to me this morning from Murray via his friend Joe Binder. The photos are of the WWII years, “some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations..”

Gotta read–more books for you

Photography is king, if the measure is to be found in Art in America’s annotated list of the top 12 books of the year. Of 12 books, five of them are photography books!! Not that I’m declaring painting dead. Just saying, photography is transcendent. Another sign of the times and the shifting impact of technology on art is MIT’s book reprinting a selection of posts from Ai Weiwei’s blog. At this Occupy and Arab Spring moment, the Chinese artist’s views seem more international and more widely relevant than ever! The list is by artist/critic Stephen Maine, who writes for artcritical.com ...

The late, great Twins Seven-Seven at Indigo

You can find and admire work by an internationally known and feted artist, Twins Seven-Seven, who died this past year, right inside the Crane, at Indigo Arts.

Americana reimagined in PAFA’s “here.”

America is still feeding off it’s old myths–the cowboy and the limitless landscape, the road-trip escape, the huckster medicine show, the American Dream, home sweet home, the decorous South, the heroic founding fathers, the grass-roots democracy.