Marvels and Monsters: Unmasking Asian Images in U.S. Comics showcases what is possibly the world’s largest and only collection of Asian portrayals in comic books. Gathered by science fiction author and cultural studies scholar William F. Wu and curated by journalist Jeff Yang (who also co-curated this exhibition with D. Daniel Kim), the collection is housed in the NYU Fales Library & Special Collections and was donated with the help of the A/P/A Institute. Spanning the years 1942 to 1986, the Wu collection highlights the trajectory of xenophobic stereotypes of Asians into the mainstream American culture via comic books, once one of the most widespread forms of entertainment and cultural influence on young minds.  Marvels and Monsters was shown at the Fales Library in 2011.

Detail, "The Temptress."

With the end of America’s Asian wars and the rise of Asian immigration into the country, the ugly typecasting of Asians in comics waned. But many of the images calcified into ideas that continue to surface from time to time. Some, like “The Kamikaze,” were more intrinsically tied to World War II, but others, like “The Temptress,” are all too familiar to anyone who’s watched a Tarantino film.

Detail, "The Manipulator."

This is an exhibition that thrives on both reaction and nuance.  As starkly derogatory as most of the images are, the curators took care to include positive portrayals such as Wing (the DC Comics sidekick and valet to the Crimson Avenger notable for a characterization of bravery and social conscience).

Both a large section of the exhibition and the talk I attended by curator Yang focused heavily on positive changes in the comics industry and the ability of artists to not only dismantle negative stereotypes, but play with them for their own purposes. The talk included a review of the history of Asians working in the comics industry in which Yang tied the rise of a fresh young cadre of Asian-American artists to the emergence of comics as a positive cultural force.

Talk by curators D. Daniel Kim and Jeff Yang.

The exhibition is heavily interactive; in addition to life-size cutouts and a “Shades of Yellow” display that shows the garish Pantone colors used for Asian skin tones in comics, there is a “talk-back” wall and a book cart stocked with the work of recent Asian-American creators. People’s feedback ranged from disgust at the bigotry that was once par for the course in comics to beaming acknowledgment of how far we have come vis-à-vis tolerance. Looking at the crowd around me at the talk, I saw that the mood seemed balanced between bemusement and shock. I was unfamiliar with several of the archetypes, and with comics in general, but recognized that many of the depicted stereotypes have inundated mainstream movies, books and TV shows. It is impossible to leave the show without some sort of new awareness.

Life-size cutouts.

Combining visual arts practice with storytelling, the exhibit allows people to literally step back and take in what is admittedly only a sample of Wu’s collection, but is still considerable in scope. Larry Hama, a veteran comics artist and one of the many sources cited in the text accompanying the displays, describes the comics industry as a remarkably accepting community — the creators are known for their trailblazing in breaking ethnic and racial stereotypes, and there is ample room for creators such as Jim Cheung (best known for his work on the Marvel series New Avengers and the Crossgen series Scion) to flourish and influence up-and coming artists. The challenge is to reconcile his account of the comics industry with the images of ignorance and fear that were once ubiquitous.

And check out the programs scheduled around the exhibition on the AAI website, including these two:
Round Table Panel Discussion: Thursday Mar 1, 6-8pm (FREE)
Family Style Open Mic featuring Larry Hama, Friday Feb. 17, 7:30-9:30pm Admission: $5-10 Sliding Scale

Vincent Van Gogh ‘Vineyards with a View of Auvers’ 64 x 80 cm, St. Louis Art Museum

The paintings were produced during a time of changing visual culture, itself the product of increased trade and new technologies. Van Gogh responded, in particular, to three issues that engaged many artists of his day: an increased understanding of the science of vision, and color in particular; the opening of Japan, and the resulting circulation of Japanese prints; and the development of photography. The exhibition situates Van Gogh very clearly within this matrix by including a selection of Japanese prints he was know to have owned, and a group of photographs of trees and flowers, by mid 19th century photographers who are not well-known beyond specialists.

Vincent Van Gogh ‘Undergrowth’ 49 x 64 cm, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Van Gogh Up Close demonstrates three aspects of the artist’s practice that will interest serious students of painting. The first is that, despite creating the appearance of spontaneity, by the time he started painting Van Gogh had an extremely clear image of each composition, down to all the details; this is indicated by the very, very few instances of compositional changes that are found in his work. I found only one obvious pentimento (a change made during painting), revealed by heavily textured brush-strokes in one direction which are covered by brush-strokes in another.  It appears in Iris (Ottawa, below) in the area at the top, between the stalks, and it is not absolutely clear what the original idea was (as it is an another painting of irises owned by the Getty, where Van Gogh painted a stalk and afterwards painted an open bloom on top of it).

Vincent Van Gogh ‘Iris’ 62.2 x 48.3 cm, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

The second aspect of Van Gogh’s technique which is clearly revealed throughout the exhibition is that almost all the paintings were created over multiple campaigns of work, again, despite their spontaneous, pleine-air look. While Van Gogh worked with wet-in-wet paint in many instances, he almost always returned to the paintings after the initial layer of thick and textured paint had dried (which may have taken weeks). Frequently he added outlines of very dark blue (or occasionally a brick red) to tighten up the forms, as well as making other additions over paint that had dried.

Vincent Van Gogh ‘Ears of Wheat’ 64.5 x 48.5 cm, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

The third intriguing aspect of Van Gogh’s work is evident in only a few paintings which, rather startlingly, have no discernible focal point. They are the sort of all-over painting we associate with Abstract Expressionism; Pollock avant la lettre. Examples are Ears of Wheat, several paintings of undergrowth (both above; the exhibition contains a variant of Undergrowth, also from the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam), Acacias in Flower (Stockholm) and Dandelions (Winterthur). While the exhibition is organized around paintings which emphasize a close view, either zooming in on details or distant views in which there is equal focus on fore, middle, and backgrounds, that is not equivalent to these more radical, all-over compositions.  Most of the close up compositions delineate forms by color, if not by increased clarity of focus, so that, while rejecting conventional devices to indicate recession, they still retain fore and back-grounds. The subjects of the all-over paintings exist in an undifferentiated space.

Vincent Van Gogh ‘Rain’ 73.3 x 92,4 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art

Two of my all-time very favorite paintings are included in the curators’ list of close-ups: Rain (PMA), and the larger version of Undergrowth (above, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam).  I have tried to understand why they have such a hold on my imagination, when I wouldn’t usually describe Van Gogh as one of my favorite painters. I think it’s because both are attempts to represent atmosphere, rather than objects. In one case it is the sense of rain that activates ambient space, in the other it’s the play of light in a mostly dark and visually indistinct area beneath the woods.  In these works Van Gogh paints the un-seeable, and in doing so evokes the other senses through which we perceive such phenomena: touch and sound. These paintings of no-things make us aware of the complexity of our perceptions.

One response to the exhibition surprises me, since the PMA usually installs work so beautifully that their efforts don’t show. I never thought I would complain of too much light on artworks (as a viewer, that is; as a curator I know better), yet a number of the paintings are so brightly lit that at first glance, the light bounces off the impasto, which becomes more prominent than the composition; I found it distracting. But this is a small quibble concerning a revelatory exhibition.

It’s the pattern and decoration holiday. And while colors are dictated (purple, green and gold are the Mardi Gras colors), there’s plenty of variation.

Excess is the watchword. In the Catholic scheme of things, it’s the big binge before the purge of Lent.

People decorate their homes. They decorate their bikes. Street performers dress up as statues on Royal St. Call them photo opportunists. Take a picture and they want a tip. On Mardi Gras day itself, everyone dresses up and parades in the streets just for the sheer exhibitionistic fun of it.

For weeks, there are parades. Towards the end, two and three or more a day, with floats and riders and movie stars and marching bands.

And then there’s the loot. Millions of pounds of plastic beads thown from the floats. I never realized what a job gathering beads was. Going to a parade was like going to work. Gotta go out there and get some more beads. If you’re a pack rat with a touch of the obsessive, you might want to avoid this whole thing.

Speaking of work, my friend Chuck, who works at the Historic New Orleans Collection, took us on a quick tour of the place. Behind the scenes, in the preparator’s room, we ran into Scott Ratteree who was unwrapping some of the old Mardi Gras memorabilia in preparation for display at the restaurant Antoine’s, official watering hole of the Krewe of Rex (King of Carnival).

Anyway, I thought you might like a little color this morning. And even though these pictures don’t tell half the story, you can tell that as holidays go, Mardi Gras has got more beauty and sensuous moments than you can shake a stick…er, scepter at.”

**lagniappe – (lan-YAP) – Used primarily in southern Louisiana and southeast Texas, the word lagniappe refers to an “unexpected something extra.” It could be an additional doughnut (as in “baker’s dozen”), a free “one for the road” drink, and an unanticipated tip for someone who provides a special service or possibly a complimentary dessert for a regular customer. Creole term for something extra.

Philadelphia and Cleveland have a lot in common in part because they each are eclipsed by a nearby major, international metropolitan area–New York and Chicago respectively. When our host (we were in Cleveland at the beginning of February) heard I admired Cleveland, she seemed truly thrilled. So for natives of both cities there’s a diffidence, a disbelief that someone would recognize the charms of the adored, much maligned hometown.

Therefore, well may you ask with some humor, what were you doing in Cleveland?

We flew into a blizzard in Cleveland.

I might reply with equal humor that we were kicking off Murray and Dan’s national tour to promote their book. So far the tour consists of Cleveland, with Charleston next! But we still have hope that interest in the book, which seems to me like an important, grand-scale re-evaluation of civil rights history in our country, will keep on growing. All right, I’m the wife, so maybe I can’t be trusted, but trust me.

Initial C detail Excised for a Choral Book: Saint Anthony with Antonite Friars, about 1400-1440, Tempera and gold on vellum, Venice, Italy

I also could reply that I was super excited to be visiting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I also made it to the art museum where I found gorgeous Greek pottery and a Medieval illuminated manuscripts exhibition full gems. It set me thinking of armies of monks painting with chilly paws in freezing abbeys across Europe. And we braved some dispirited picketers who told us we were going to hell for attending a local production of Jerry Springer: The Opera. We should have redirected them to the tv show; the opera was a raunchy parody–with a hilarious Greek chorus “audience” of low-life hecklers.

The trip (end of February) seemed ill-fated at the start. Murray was so distracted by his brother’s unexpected death that he didn’t tip the redcap in Philly. So my bag missed the plane (at least that’s my version of the story explaining why my bag got lost in airplane hell). Yes, it was U.S. Airways. The bums.

Murray signing books after his talk at the Cleveland City Club

Then, while in the air, we learned a blizzard was expected to blow in overnight. It did.

We stayed with old friends of Dan and Cindy–Jan and David–not far from Lake Erie and woke up to the snow. Dan, Cindy and David, all used to work at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. We slip-slid our way by slushy highway to Murray and Dan’s speaking engagement at the Cleveland City Club. For getting us there safely Cindy deserves a pair of bronzed baby snow tires to hang from her rear view mirror. Miraculously, more than 30 of the expected 100 guests made it to the talk–for which Jan did the intro. If the event were in Philly it probably would have been canceled altogether. The Cleveland City Club, holds weekly talks that draw speakers of all stripes, from Bill Clinton to Julian Bond to Antonin Scalia. The post-talk Q&A session is notable for its vigor and seriousness.

The guys sold some books! And the talk was broadcast via radio and tv. So snow and Dan and Murray took Cleveland by storm!

John Rogers Cox, Gray and Gold, 1942, oil on canvas, one of the paintings I admired at the Cleveland Museum of Art

At the Cleveland Museum of Art, the new addition to the building is only partly done, so getting from one completed part of the museum to another is daunting right now. (Timothy Rub was expected to see the addition through to completion; instead, he bolted for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and yes, Cleveland is bitter). Imagine our surprise finding Moe Brooker in the collection among the Cleveland Prize winners–a prize that goes to artists with Cleveland connections. I guess we have to add Moe Brooker to the list of assets Philadelphia and Cleveland have in common.

In the lobby of the Rock Hall. Phish rode in to one of its shows on the hot dog.

But for me the big event–something that belongs to Cleveland and nowhere else–was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Thanks to a tv tape of his 1968 comeback I finally fell for Elvis. He was riveting, and charming as he joked around with his backup group. I have no recollection of his being either one–riveting or charming. What rock did I live under?

We barely missed Bruce Springsteen in person by a few hours! An exhibit From Asbury Park to the Promised Land: The Life and Music of Bruce Springsteen was in its last day. On our way out, the curator (another old friend of Dan and Dave) told us that Springsteen was going to stop in after the museum closed because his mom said that the exhibit had moved her to tears. While the exhibit didn’t move me to tears, it did offer a glimpse into Springsteen’s pre-Boss days, when he was an aspiring musician struggling to make it, his music not quite ripe but already reaching for something special and big. He was vulnerable and earnest–and sooo young. Vitrines held photos, and instruments and manuscripts of lyrics with lines crossed out and rewritten. He seemed so close, almost there in person. Uncanny.

Source for this young Springsteen image--thecitrusreport.com/2010/headlines/sunday-shuffle-bruce-springsteen-hungry-heart/

The rest of the Rock Hall is also chock-a-block with amazing material to hear and see (no pictures allowed upstairs in the museum, alas).

The day we were there, the theater was showing a U2 concert taped in Buenos Aires in a huge soccer stadium teeming with bodies. Better yet, the video was 3-D! The entire audience, for whom English is most likely a second language, seemed to know all the lyrics!

But my favorite exhibits delved into the music-historical past. I listened to recordings from Leadbelly and Jimmy Rogers to Johnny Cash and Patti Smith and thought about how the music evolved and and seemed to embrace every popular form that preceded it–cowboy music, swing, jazz, pop, bluegrass, you name it.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

I saw a Janis Joplin letter to her mom about finally getting a job with a band–like any other kid trying to get a toehold–and I saw her manuscripts of lyrics. I examined a note by Big Bill Broonzy to a pawn broker to redeem his watch for $15. I admired an Elmore James guitar from 1948–an old acoustic beater of an instrument jury-rigged for electric with an ordinary wire hanging off. James played with Sonny Boy Williamson and Robert Johnson. Just across the aisle, was a vitrine full of sleek Fender Stratocasters, including one from 1950 owned by Eldon Shamblin. How could two such different instruments be practically coeval, I wondered.

We spent more than a couple of hours there, but we could have tripled our time. If you have no other reason for going to Cleveland, the Rock Hall is reason enough. With exhibits that remind you of the times in your life when you heard each song, you can relive your personal Wildwood Days there. I could go back to Cleveland just for that–

Roberley Bell, Flower Blob # 880, 2009 (left) pigmented fiberglass and resin, artificial flowers, butterflies--Pentimenti Gallery

–or to visit the art in Philly’s airport.

Stanley Clockworks, 25 feet long, 300 beer bottles

Roberley Bell’s bubbly pop sculptures look exuberant in the gray airport Terminal A. And right nearby, a giant mechanized sculpture by Stanley Clockworks features beer bottles and turning wheels. The juxtaposition was pure Coney Island, with the mechanical wizardry of the Wonder Wheel and the Parachute Jump surrounded by the beachy, Salvador Dali’s Dream of Venus, and honky-tonk advertisements for midway games and geek shows.

Download audio file (maizahixsonpromo.mp3)
Right click to download 42 sec. Maiza Hixson clip

Maiza Hixson, posing in her apartment before speaking with us on Dec 17

Jennifer Bolande speaking at the ICA walk-through.

The exhibit of 40 works, curated by Nicholas Frank, is better than my experience at the artist’s walk-through suggested. But I went back again because I found myself thinking about Bolande (pronounced bo-LAND-dee) in relation to contemporary work I have been seeing around town. Bolande’s work on exhibit is from a 30-year period beginning in 1980.

Jennifer Bolande, Cascade, 1987, Duratrans, 144 x 36 inches, photo courtesy ICA

Matt Giel's endless seascape, plus a pin-up version with real t-pins and unexposed t-pin shapes on the print.

Alanna Lawley's installation of faux domestic spaces was like a stage-set.

Specifically, I was interested in returning because of the conversation in my head between Bolande’s photographic inquiries and those of Matt Giel and Alanna Lawley, who are questioning the flat photograph and what it represents. An installation in New York by Jon Kessler (Salon 94) that Roberta and I saw Tuesday went even further, using surveillance camera projections to confuse reality and unreality on video screens (more on that in another post).

A lot of Bolande’s work that I couldn’t quite navigate during the artist’s walk-through, particularly the photos, perked up nicely on my revisit. A series of photographed diptychs compare moonscapes, sponges (I think they were sponges) and microphones, pulling them enough out of context for the jokey comparisons to raise questions about how we understand what we see in a photo at the same time that they question who owns territory.

Jennifer Bolande, Movie Chair, 1984, Wooden chair, velvet seat, bronze, enamel pt, light stands, lights, pedestal (photo by Roberta)

Bolande spotlights a red velvet chair, emblazoned with the word MOVIE rolling across the back like DIRECTOR or like a movie credit, and made unsittable by two Paramount mountains on the seat, turning the set-up into the movie set, the movie screen, the movie theater and the movie itself . This was by far my favorite work of hers, filled with the love of the movies, and the how cinematic experience becomes a reality in our minds.

Jennifer Bolande, Appliance House, 1998-9, Duratrans photographs, in custom stainless steel lightboxes, 91 x 59 x 5 inches (that's Ingrid Schaffner off to the side, pointing)

Jennifer Bolande, Appliance House detail, showing as windows film rolls the artist took of appliance displays in store windows at night

In Appliance House, she uses photos of appliance storefronts filled with washing machines to suggest the windows of the iconic Modernist building Lever House, in a deft bit of socio-political commentary.

Jennifer Bolande, Milk Crown, 1987, Cast Porcelain, 7 inch diameter

The show is uneven, with obscure and glib bits.  On a whim I tried out the phone commentary, which is by Bolande herself. But the numbers on the wall took me to commentary that didn’t match the works I was looking out. Was this a joke? Probably an installation error. But much of the exhibit is witty and dense with ideas that paved the way for the current explorations into the nature of photographs and Pop culture images. I liked that. My main complaint is that so much of the work is chilly. When I look at the younger artists plowing similar territory, I see romance, disappointment, anger and fear. I prefer the emotional engagement.

The exhibit is up until March 11, 2012.

On top of the murals are nicely-framed, exquisitely-rendered paintings: Michael’s in gouache (a switch for him from his usual acrylics), have a Zen-geometrical quality, like twisting ribbons of highway or rainbow slices to dream on; and Tom’s are delicate, repetitive, calligraphic wonders that look like they were made by a paint-dipped butterfly who was trying to write a story about his life.

Tom Bubul, mural and works at Space 1026

Tom Bubul, small works

The murals are great and so are the small works.  The whole package is imbued with love of materials, love of hard work, and embrace of quietude and a meditative abstraction that is rooted so openly in the world that anybody can come to it and find something.

Michael W. Hall, Woodland Cemetery 18"x24", Arches watercolor paper

Michael W. Hall, mural and works, detail

Check Michael’s website for more images up close and for a lovely short “making of” video.  And check Tom’s website for images of works in progress.  Tom, who also is a writer/editor, co-edits, with poet Kate Schapira, the Literary Quarterly of the paper Mother’s News. He used to live in Philadelphia but decamped to Providence in 2008, which he likens to Philadelphia, only much smaller — a cheap place to live with lots of artists but not a lot of galleries — mostly, it’s a great place to make art.

And this just in: Tonight, Sat. Feb 18, Michael is hosting a film screening at Space 1026 of the 1992 documentary Hobo. See a clip from Hobo here Here’s why, in a note I got from the artist yesterday:

Much of my art has been inspired by the time ive spent around railroads.  Over the last decade, I’ve travelled around the country, sneaking rides on freight trains.  Some of my writings on this illegal means of travel have been published in the French book OUTSIDE THE BOX and in the railroad magazine FADED GLORY.  Knowing this, it’s easy to see the correlation between the complex twisting shapes i paint and the spider web of tracks that crisscross my world.
I invited the curators of Hobo Film Fest/Go By Rail to come to the gallery tomorrow to screen a little seen 1992 documentary, HOBO, which is considered by most to be the best film ever made on the subject.  It will be a 3 hour event, including short films.  Starts at 7pm. I’m requesting a donation of five dollars at the door, but no one will be turned away! …The curator of the film fest arrived yesterday, aboard a north bound freight from Richmond! .

Weegee, Line-Up for Night Court, ca. 1941. © Weegee/International Center of Photography.

Arthur Fellig (1899-1968) known as Weegee, came to New York as a boy of 11 in 1909 and settled into the Lower East Side, the launching pad for thousands of immigrants in the early 20th century. He took up photography in 1935 and set out on a career as a freelance news photographer for the New York tabloid circuit in the 1940′s. The two exhibitions in New York, Weegee: Naked City at the Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea and Weegee: Murder is My Business at the International Center of Photography tie two of his central themes together, murder and naked. For Weegee, a tabloid photographer working in one of the most shocking and raw eras in the city, naked represented both the bold look at the unvarnished reality of life as well as the underworld scenes of mayhem, crime and horror. Life brought out from the darkness in Weegee’s hard unedited pictures showed people caught in a harsh new urban setting. There is an odd sense to his work, in that, in his images you the viewer are looking at the viewers on the scene. He was fascinated by the immediate crime scene, but also by those drawn out for a late night murder. No crime scene TV in those days, just the real deal spilling out across the street corner. And Weegee was always up for a story.

In Weegee: Naked City, we enter the world of the 10¢ cream soda and 15¢ glass of beer, where a ham and bologna sandwich would set you back a full 25¢. In this harsh world of bare minimums, the photographer caught his subjects in the harshest of flash photography – working with a larger format camera, he caught enough detail to get the scene right as well as capturing the sweat, grease and grit of this working class world. Many of his images are shot at night, which re-enforces the sense of a nightmare dream scene. While there is a stark attachment to reality in these images, the times and people caught out in the street appear in a more natural, less self-conscious world. Emerging from the Depression and War years, there was a sense of survival and an appreciation of the struggle of daily life. In one of the images, he catches four little kids and a kitten sleeping on the fire escape on a hot summer night. In another image, he captures a group of kids pressing forward in a cluster to get a better look at something just outside of the frame. This image he titled “Their First Murder”. And in this world Weegee himself became a kind local personality. He felt so connected to the phrase Naked City that he used it as the title of the autobiography he wrote in the mid 1940′s.

Weegee, Anthony Esposito, Accused "Cop Killer," January 16, 1941. © Weegee/International Center of Photography

Weegee: Murder Is My Business, the exhibition at the ICP, takes its name from Weegee’s own popular exhibitions at the Photo League. While most of his work was intended to be sold to newspapers, he did have several exhibitions at the Photo League in 1941 in which he grouped images into broad themes like, “Sunday Tragedy”, “Society” or just “Murder”. He even “enhanced” some of the images for the show by adding red nail polish to bring out the gore.

The ICP exhibition chronicles the time from 1935 to 1946 when Weegee spent most of his time working at night following the fast-moving, often violent breaking news stories. Dead criminals‚ fires, gruesome accidents and other catastrophes were his usual subjects. But, beyond the crime scenes, he sought out photographs showing people hanging out of windows, peering over rooftops and standing in groups at the street corners, all watching. This became something of his signature style, his unique way of capturing the scene.

Weegee, At an East Side Murder, 1943. copyright Weegee/International Center of Photography.

The exhibition includes at least one installation – a dramatic recreation of Weegee’s room – with a small iron bed, camera equipment, a typewriter and images strewn about the bed. On one wall in this little “scene”, a framed check-stub hangs on the wall. It shows his pay as “$35 for 2 Murders” and Life magazine as the source of that largesse. The little room represents the life of someone committed to his work – there is no room for anything but work, and there seems to be no time or interest in amenities. At that time, he lived a life as hard as his subjects.

While both exhibits cover the same period, they show the broadness of his interest, and his willingness to push out into the reality of the hard times of real lives. Both shows are generous in the number of images shown with over 140 images at Kasher gallery alone. All the images were gelatin silver, and the Kasher exhibition also includes film and audio recordings – the voice of wee gee live!!!!! yipes! Both exhibits are worth a look and they clearly show how his work paved the way for so many photographers in the 50′s and 60′s who understood and embraced the boldness of Weegee’s naked style.

Weegee: Naked City
January 12 – February 25, 2012
Steven Kasher Gallery | 521 W. 23rd Street

Weegee: Murder Is My Business
runs through Sept. 2, 2012
The International Center of Photography | 1133 Avenue of the Americas

Slavs and Tartars, PrayWay, 2012. silk and wool carpet, MDF, steel, neon

artblog news
This week artblog visited The Ungovernables, the second triennial of emerging artists organized by the New Museum in New York. You can see some images from the show here and stay-tuned for the upcoming review. It’s back to NYC on the 27th for the press opening of the Whitney Biennial. And we just learned that artblog was featured on Generocity.org’s list of Philly Non-Profit blogs. The site dedicated to helping non-profits likes what we’re doing here at artblog and we’re glad!

In the Media
The local voice of young Philly culture, Cred Magazine, organized through the Village of Arts and Humanities, has been flying off the shelves from all of its 95 locations, according to the report they sent out. Released three time a year in January, May, and October, the magazine is expected to reach more than 30,000 Philadelphia residents.  Check out the sophisticated and photo-rich magazine online.  Cred is now accepting ads, in case you’re interested in supporting the cause.

Reimagining Urban Highways
The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University is hosting a lecture about the future of urban highways. After decades of neglect and a fast changing culture, how should the highways that fragment many large urban areas be utilized? This panel discussion will look at successful urban highway removal projects in Milwaukee, New Haven, and Providence and explore ways of mitigating highways in Philadelphia (I-95 anyone?) and the Bronx.

OLIN chosen to redesign the Met Museum’s plaza on 5th Ave.

Artist's rendering of the proposed renovations to the Met Museum's plaza.

Phildelphia-based landscape architecture and urban design firm OLIN was selected by the The Metropolitan Museum of Art to lead renovations of the four-block-long Fifth Avenue plaza – one of the most important public spaces in New York.  Olin is also in charge of the new Dilworth Plaza project here.

Print Center news
The Print Center received a challenge grant of $50,000 from philanthropist Gerry Lenfest.  The money will go far towards putting the non-profit on stable footing for the future. Also at  the Print Center, an upcoming artist discussion with Gabriel Martinez and Chad States on Feb. 23 at 6 PM sounds like a good one.

Opportunities

The Art Hackathon organized by Hive76 on March 10 and 11 sounds pretty great. Based on the Work of Art contest on Bravo, the Hackathon challenges artists or artist teams to create something with the recyclable materials provided — cardboard, glue, tape, spray paint, and more. Hive76 will dictate a theme for the projects and the cost of the two-day hackathon is $25, which covers materials — and food.

Mt. Airy has a pop-up space available for artists and artisans to rent for $150 per extended weekend. Here’s a description: The corner storefront space has big picture windows, warm natural pigment plaster walls, bamboo floors, and a sink. Ceilings 9 and 10’ high. The building is across the street from the original Weaver’s Way Coop and the pop-ups share space with the Moving Arts of Mt. Airy. Contact Pam Rogow at muze@erols.com or call 215 842-1040 for more information.

Artist News

In CAA News – Going to the CAA annual conference in Los Angeles?  Here’s a couple things to check out. Diedra Krieger brings her project about the heartbreak of rejection – Building Backbones – to the CAA Art Exchange. In the project, artists read out loud, in unison, their rejection letters from exhibitions, residencies, foundations, etc. To participate e-mail your rejection letter to rejectionrank@gmail.com. Also at the CAA meeting, Hana Iverson  and Drexel prof (and Breadboard‘s Dan Schimmel’s partner) Mimi Sheller co-curated an augmented reality art show along with LA based artist Jeremy Hight.  One of the projects in the show, Mechanics of Place, is a joint effort by Iverson and Sarah Drury, also a Philadelphia artist. More on all the cell phone projects here.

Chris Davison, "Weighs Options (Seated Boy)", 2011.

Chris Davison’s first solo show with Mark Moore Gallery in Los Angeles opens Feb. 25.

Katie Murken, "Half-listening".

Two Philly artists won the top prizes at William Paterson University‘s American Impressions 2012. Katie Murken took the grand prize and will receive a solo show in 2013. Ryan Parker received first prize. The show was curated by Elizabeth F. Spungen, executive director of the Print Center.

Douglas Witmer and his son examine Colette Fu's pop-up book Skates, Rollerskating Hall of Fame, Lincoln, NE, 2004. Archival inkjet

Both bodies of work focus on excess in an age and culture of plenty. But the lightbox transparencies, which are photocollages with a Where’s Waldo stuffed-to-the gills quality, have a thoroughly brash, Pop sensibility, their imagery lit up to sell.

Colette Fu, Waddle Pool, 2003, archival pigment backlit, transparencies

The pop-up books, although using some similar kinds of imagery and ideas, are the opposite of Pop. They are more Alice in Wonderland than Where’s Waldo, although equally stuffed to the gills. But the subject matter is more focused. In these a respect for the intimacy of what’s between the covers combines with the delight of how a book, on opening, offers so much more than just its material components of paper and words in ink.

Colette Fu, Waddle Pool, detail

The dichotomy is the difference between passively viewing a film or an ad, which is prepackaged to assault the senses and awaken desire, versus actively seeking an experience by opening the covers, walking around the object, and satisfying a desire that’s already there–curiosity. The pop-up books, which also are photo-based, are tempered by the hand crafting–the cutting, the engineering, the 3-D planning. The work, like predecessor Jennifer Bolande, up at the ICA now, combines pictures and sculpture with a Pop sensibility, but Fu, like so many contemporary artists working in the crossroads of photography and sculpture, takes the ideas in new, engaging directions.

Colette Fu, Skirt, Sephora, New York, NY, 2004, inchival inkjet

Fu expresses horror in Waddle Pool, a lightbox transparency of an overcrowded-swimming pool scene that features a liposuction vacuum device with a slot for quarters. The willing victims are subjected to an implied, self-administered invasive procedure as they loll around, like odalisques in a contemporary harem, preparing for their man.

In the pop-up book Skirt, Sephora, make-up tubes fall into the vortex formed by an inverted skirt printed with more makeup tubes. The skirt is a frilly blossom open for receiving This piece, too, implies a metaphorical self-rape, but the implements of insertion are familiar objects from the dressing table and purse. These pieces have feminist elements, but they are part of a more general horror of a culture that promotes excess and gluttony of various varieties and also of a culture that desires humans transformed to look unnatural.

Fu, who had a Fulbright in 2008 to photograph the ethnic minorities of her mother’s hometown in China, will show work in March at the Philadelphia Airport, Terminal D. She is currently one of the artists in the Breadboard-Mural Arts residency program at NextFab Studio, where she’s learning her way around high-tech fabrication equipment; think murals with 3-D elements in the offing. Her show at the UCAL is up through Feb. 27. It’s nice to see work of this high quality in a neighborhood art center.