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 ...

Office Hours – Zoe Strauss at the PMA

By diana jih

“What the hell?” sums up Zoe Strauss’s rationale for choosing one of three paintings from the archives of the Philadelphia Museum of Art to hang in her temporary office at the museum. This could easily also be the reaction of unsuspecting passers by to one of Strauss’s billboard photos. Countless people must ...

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

By roberta

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 ...

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Erin Riley next week on artblog radio

By libby

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 ...

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Henry Ossawa Tanner at PAFA: Faith in Blues

By andrea kirsh

The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts  (PAFA) is celebrating one of its most illustrious alumni with Henry Ossawa Tanner; Modern Spirit (through April 15, 2012) and it is greatly to be welcomed. While Tanner is well represented in PAFA’s collection and that of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA, which organized a ...

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New media art – White Hot Gold at Murray State

By roberta

[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. ...

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