Posts By roberta

People’s Biennial – outsiders and insiders together in a good big show

THE WHITNEY Biennial in New York claims to take the pulse of the country’s art scene every two years, but the mother of all American art exhibits rarely digs deeper than New York or Los Angeles. For the radical “People’s Biennial” now at Haverford College, curators looked elsewhere. The exhibit eschews work from major art centers in favor of five regional outposts (including Philadelphia) chosen through a jury process open to all. Organized by artist Harrell Fletcher of Portland, Ore., and curator Jens Hoffmann of San Francisco, People’s Biennial originated when the two brought their idea for a nontraditional biennial to Independent ... More » »

Pina – Quirky, beautiful, poignant dance in a great movie

The 103 minutes of Pina rush by quickly, even for a non-dance aficionado. It's not just the 3D effects in Wim Wenders' tribute to the late dancer/choreographer Pina Bausch, although there are a couple 3D wows. What is captivating is the love. Love of the dancers for their late artistic director (who died in 2009, 5 days after being diagnosed with cancer); love of Wenders for his subject; and love of human beings by Pina, whose exquisitely choreographed dances telescope the joy, sorrow and need of one human for another ... More » »

New media art – White Hot Gold at Murray State

[I juried the new media exhibit at Murray State University Art Gallery, up now until Feb. 12. This is the foreword I wrote for the catalog.] What is new media art? It’s almost easier to say what isn’t: traditional painting, sculpture printmaking, photography — emphasis on tradition. New media art is experimental. It uses new technologies — digital technology, video, the Internet, video games, cell phones and computer programming. And while I don’t want to say “I know it when I see it,” there’s not a whole lot that holds the loose category together. Here are a few characteristics of ... More » »

Vox’s four January artists – Investigators of things great and small

[This post was scheduled to go up yesterday but couldn't because of our hosting outage. Hope you got to see the show-yesterday was its last day.] The four featured artists at Vox Populi this month present four discrete bodies of work in each of Vox’s four gallery spaces. If there is a commonality it’s that the artists all seem to be seekers, after some truth–psychological or cosmic. That, and they all have MFAs from high powered institutions (Yale, Columbia, VCU). Perhaps the most engaging, because of its accessible narrative edge and cartoonish style, is Guy Ben-Ari‘s mostly grizaille paintings. With ... More » »

Interview – Sarah Stolfa on making your own opportunity and printing for Zoe Strauss

For the Daily News article on the Philadelphia photography community I talked with a number of artists and others in that community. Here’s the first of several interviews I’ll put up in the next week or so. Others coming up are Martin McNamara, Stephen Perloff, Grisha Enikolopov, Al Wachlin, Jr and Harris Fogel.  Note: this post is a re-publish of one that was somehow vaporized in our recent blog transition. The day I talked with Sarah Stolfa of PPAC, their website had briefly crashed from all the traffic they were getting from Living Social, a coupon site, where they had ... More » »

The poignance of protest at Marginal Utility

No surprise that the show “Five Acts: Chronicles of Dissent” is mostly an audio/video show. With their roots in radio, tv and film, documentary-type media like audio and video (and photography and first person accounts, too) are the best way to chronicle humans acting out their anger and defiance on issues that concern them. Naeem Mohaiemen Live True Life or Die Trying, 2009
photographs with paired text (21 pairs)

Group hug – Togetherness in Philadelphia’s photo community

Stephen Perloff is plugged in to Philadelphia’s photo world via his esteemed quarterly publication, The Photo Review. A self-taught photographer with a graduate degree in history, he made himself invaluable to photographers and photo lovers, covering all aspects of photography in his journal and turning that publication into a virtual Philadelphia photo center — a place to read about exhibitions; read interviews with artists; and find the latest opportunities. Perloff launched the Photo Review in 1976, and he characterized that era in Philadelphia as a golden age for photography. As for the current photo scene, “We’re getting back to the ... More » »

Around the world at 319 N. 11th St., Part 1

I took a little ramble around the galleries of 319 N. 11th St. last Saturday. It was quiet and I almost had the place to myself. Dualities at Grizzly Grizzly

Art movies for holiday pleasures – Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Waste Land

If you missed them on the big screen like I did, you can still see these two recent art movies on DVD — from Netflix or from your library. Cave of Forgotten Dreams I heard the interview with Werner Herzog, director of Cave of Forgotten Dreams, on Fresh Air and it sounded like a fantastic documentary. The filmmaker and his crew get special access to the Chauvet Cave in Southern France, with wall drawings made some 32,000 years ago, that were just discovered in 1994. Herzog’s movie, shot in 3D, has lots of fantastic footage of the cave paintings and ... More » »

Next on artblog radio, Matt Kalasky, artist and editor of the Nicola Midnight St. Claire

Matt Kalasky graduated from Tyler with an MFA in sculpture in 2011.  We’ve seen his work in several emerging artist shows in Philadelphia including Vox VI in 2010 and the Bambi Biennial, also 2010, which we juried.  He was also in one of Rebekah Templeton’s emerging artist shows.  His art is influenced by science fiction and fantasy movies of the Star Wars/Star Trek variety. Matt is the editor in chief of the newly launched online arts publication The Nicola Midnight St. Claire.  One of his final projects in grad school was a multi-media performance called The Last Symposium, in which ... More » »