Mia Rosenthal "General Mills 8 Pack" Ink and gouache on mylar

This is not the first-ever artists-choose-artists exhibit, however the quantity — the idea of 5 choosing 5 — is different. The selections by Distort, Conor Fields, Ashley Flynn, Brooke Holloway and Mia Rosenthal (all previous exhibitors at the gallery) create five distinct groups free of set themes or guidelines, and yet somehow the whole is balanced and harmonious.

Sculptures, paintings, photography, video, mixed media and even stained-glass are on display.  Yet, despite each work’s unique style, there is cohesion throughout due to bright colors that unify and bring energy to the show.

Anthony Vega, "Reproduction/Milk and Honey (Shoes)" Giclee print

Anthony Vega’s Reproduction/Milk and Honey (Shoes), for example, with it bright oranges, dark reds and pinks, broadcasts  a palette that is echoed elsewhere.

Sarah Kate Burgess "Cup as Ring" Melamine plastic and mixed media

Sarah Kate Burgess’ Cup as Ring works are delicate and beautiful forms that speak to the redefining of everyday objects as something new — an underlying theme in other works as well–for example, Distort’s War, which parodies the “Tide” detergent logo, or Dustin Metz’s painting Still Life (not shown) which appropriates Warhol’s Marilyn as a still life object (her image is on the cover of a book in Metz’s still life).

Distort "War" Mixed media on spray can

Some other notable works are T.F. Dutchman’s work, Cooter, a stained glass light box depicting a man with his bike and Ashley Flynn’s sobering mixed media work, Dad in His Casket, whose colorful highlights and misleading perspective veil a mournful reality.

Ashley Flynn "Dad in His Casket" Mixed media on paper

The gallery staff did not know what the show would look like until the works arrived. That is a bold position for a gallery to willingly walk into. But, it worked!

Show on display till June 26th

Gallery Hours:
Thursday and Friday 4-7 p.m.
Saturday noon to 7 p.m.

Ben Will’s paintings and sculptures in “The Beast From the Belly of a Boeing” at the University City Arts League feel very familiar. The show is sparse, consisting of only four paintings and three sculptures. Collectively, the work taps into the unconscious and never coalesces into a narrative, although a story is implied.

Ben Will, hulking landscape creature with mists rising

Each painting depicts a floating, cloud-like mass in bright, acidic colors that casts a shadow beneath it. Like topographical maps, the paintings suggest another world. Mountain ranges, rivers, forests and wispy, drippy atmospheric areas of smoke or mist appear in these specimen-like works. The sculptures—made of toys, paint, tape and assembled flotsam—stand at attention like playground equipment awaiting children.

Ben Will, installation with sculpture looking like playground equipment

Ben Will, continental drift

Like Richard Tuttle’s sphinx-like toss-offs, Will’s works have the outer trappings of something slight. Unlike Tuttle, the paintings and sculptures are beautifully crafted and offer more than formalist readings. Will, who runs Rebekah Templeton Gallery with his wife Sarah Eberle, has produced a show where the pieces talk beautifully with each other in a language we don’t understand. The work toys with art history, science and science fiction, but it’s not devoid of emotion. They are deep portents, but of what, we don’t know.

Ashley Flynn, installation at Knapp Gallery

In extreme contrast to Will’s reductive show is Ashley Flynn’s “Expelled From Eden, ” her second solo show at Knapp Gallery. The show delivers a punch. There will be victims. Your eyes will hurt. Your senses may be offended. But Flynn doesn’t care.

Ashley Flynn, the use of the photo painted over pushes this to another level.

Her installation of figure drawings and paintings (done on paper, canvas and directly on the wall) is an explosion of rape, child abuse, self-abuse, suicide, family dysfunction and societal neglect of the poor and needy. The show wears its anger and emotion proudly. It’s as if the artist denies the last 50 years of art history and is channeling the art of protest and witnessing by Kathe Kollwitz, George Grosz and other activist artists. At a time when cool distance is the goal of most artists, Flynn’s moralizing liberal rampage puts her in league with today’s minority voices in the art world—street photographers Zoe Strauss and Alec Soth and grafitti artist Swoon, for example.

Ashley Flynn, one of a series of drawings t-pinned to the wall

Flynn’s standout moments come in her use of photographic imagery collaged onto the paintings. The artist, who graduates from Moore College of Art and Design this spring, photographs friends and strangers, then appropriates the face—or in some cases just the eyes—from a photo and inserts it into the painting. The results have a haunting immediacy that pushes the paintings into a different realm. It’s hard to imagine this work going anywhere else since it is at the extreme already. That said, a few ink drawings and a couple of the smaller discreet paintings on view show a less histrionic approach, and they seem a way forward.

“The Beast From the Belly of a Boeing” Through Feb. 7. University City Arts League, 4226 Spruce St. 215.382.7811.
“Expelled From Eden” Through Jan. 31. Knapp Gallery, 162 N. Third St. 267.455.0279.

Liberta takes a meeting with Barack Obama.

In other news, Pew changed its M-O for how artists can apply for fellowships.  Much unhappiness was expressed on facebook and in our comments among some disgruntled artists. But keep your eyes on the prize — the Pew money is still there.  On the other hand, PA Council on the Arts canned its grants to artists program due to PA budget cuts — recession era blues.

A Junto at P’unk Ave about art criticism is still stirring up some energy.  Even artblog got a few theoretical posts (more to come in 2010!).

First Friday at 319A N. 11th St. Music in the hallway, 4th floor

In architecture news, 319A N. 11th St. became the new First Friday destination with nine galleries now and room for more!  Gotta love it.  And Philly continues to get respect outside the city limits. Alternatives FluxSpace and Vox Populi in the red-hot X-Initiatives festival in Chelsea; the PMA gets the Golden Lion for Bruce Nauman at the Venice Biennale; and NY Times writers are all over what’s happening here.

The Libertas

Jayson Musson has fun with Obama, in his show at the Last Drop

Fun with your presidents award — Tie!!!
Jayson Musson for his Obama-has-superpowers show at Last Drop Coffee Shop and Maira Kalman for her I-love-Abe-Lincoln project at Rosenbach Museum.

Supersize award
books so weighty they beg to be put down — Cezanne and Beyond catalog (9 lb.) and Shape of Things to Come (10 lb.)

Inexplicable Omission Award
New Museum for not including Kalup Linzy in Younger than Jesus

Austin Lee portrait of Shaun Baer, from the My Face in Your Space show at Nexus

Risky Business award
–Nick Cassway gets out of his comfort zone and networks to create some excellent projects at Nexus — Nexus Radio, My Face in Your Space (props to Austin Lee and if you missed this show eat your heart out) and Supergirl — still time to catch this good one.
–Runner-up–Michael Kalmbach takes a chance on Willmington and transforms its art scene (post coming soon)

Best show we had no expectations for
ICA’s Dance With Camera

James Johnson, solid gold on the wall at Arcadia U's Works on Paper show

Ahead of the Curve Gold Award
We saw a lot of gold in Miami but we saw James Johnson‘s solid gold art manifesto first (Arcadia Works on Paper show).

Best Double Bill Ever Award
MOMA for Pippilotti Rist and Marlene Dumas

The Not Marijuana Potted Plant Award
Chris Golas‘ chewing of dieffenbacchia leaves in his homey karaoke performance at Exclamation raised new awareness of that plant’s possibilities.

John Gibbons and Isobel Sollenberger, from their solo show at Rebekkah Templeton earlier this year

Pew Wish List
Joe Boruchow (repeat) Chris Davison (repeat), Phil Jackson, Jennie Thwing (repeat), Sarah Stolfa, Martina Johnson-Allen, Bruce Wilhelm, Danielle Bursk, Gabriel Boyce and Preston Link, John Gibbons and Isobel Sollenberger

Dead Tree Media Award
Machete and New Asshole, two print publications on theory launched this year in Philadelphia. They’re occasional publications so they won’t kill that many trees.

Lance Winn and Simone Jones, Knock, Script by Hope Thompson. Made Possible by the Banff Art Center 2007

Fast Forward Award
Video break-throughs knock our socks off. Steve Coss‘ animated portrait paintings in Vox V and Lance Winn and Simone Jones, Script by Hope Thompson robotic projections on three walls and the floor at University of Delaware Gallery keep the viewer in motion to keep up with the scenario. The level of interactivity seemed new and excellent.

Meanwhile

Tim Gierschick, with a piece in his solo show at Tiger Strikes Asteroid

Gallery Openings
Little Berlin reinvents itself as an 8-person collective. Slingluff renames itself and relocates to E. Girard. Breadbox was Esther Klein Gallery and moved up the street. All these opened: Grizzly Grizzly, Marginal Utility, Philadelphia Photo Art Center, AHN/VHS, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Progressive Sharing, Mt. Airy Contemporary, 919 Gallery, 12 Gates…and this just in, Sweatshop in Port Richmond, Part-Time Studios in Frankford. We know there are more–put your name in the comments if we forgot you.

Gallery Closings
Bye Bye to Pifas

Ashley Flynn, installation at Knapp Gallery

Artists to watch
Ashley Flynn, Amir Lyles, Matt Savitsky

R.I.P.
Tom Chimes, Jeanne-Claude (Mrs. Christo), Andrew Wyeth, Philadelphia art critic R. B. Strauss.  Of course Michael Jackson died, too, a huge hole in the pop culture canopy.

A shout-out to our design and tech team
Kelani Edmondson, Beth Heinly, Howie Ross for design; Nick Paparone and Jamie Dillon for logo and branding.  We love you guys!

Also, a shout-out to artblog reviewers who make us look good
Stefan Zebrowski-Rubin, John Vick, Corey Armpriester, Kelani Edmondson, Judith Stein, Lauren Whearty, Elisa Ludwig, Sue Spaid, Brandon Joyce, Debra Miller, Matthew Rose, Michael Andre, Jacob Hellman, K-Fai Steele, Annette Monnier (who also writes the new blog one review a month), Max Mulhern, Jennifer Zarro

Next year’s a whole new ballgame.  See you then!  xo xo Liberta

Flynn is one of those artists whose impulse to make marks comes straight out of her fingertips and her soul and touches everything in sight. The gallery, to its credit under the direction of Knapp’s new gallerist Karl Slocum, allowed her to paint and draw on the walls and let her have at it. In fact, there was a two-week lull between the previous exhibit and the next, and lucky for Knapp, Slocum squeezed her in. Lucky for us too.

That means that much of this exhibit–the extensions of the paintings onto the walls, and the links between the drawings–is ephemeral, the paint, spray paint and charcoal along with the layering and interweaving of drawings and poems there for but three more days.

Flynn clearly has some major emotional obsessions driving her work. Odd families, animals and rapists are part of the circus of life among the humans. The result is X-rated and grotesque, with blow jobs, ejaculations, penetrations, birth, copulation and death. The energetic style has a little of George Grosz, a little DeKooning, just for starters..

The images burst at the seams, too explosive to behave inside the usual rectangle and on the single sheet of paper.  Some of the layers break the frame, others the surface. Flynn also writes poetry related to the narratives in the paintings and drawings.

I recognized the images from her senior thesis exhibit at Moore College. They reminded me of Judith Schaechter a little. In the show at Knapp, Flynn has taken everything to the next level. Next to it, the thesis work looks relatively academic and proper. But here she shows with panache that she is not safe and she is not predictable. In fact, she’s pretty wild!

Installation shot of Ashley Flynn's exhibit, Forgiven (It's Not Their Fault); some of the images on the rear wall are cut from her senior thesis.

This inaugural exhibit of Flynn’s post-college career is not to be missed. Alas, you have only until Sunday to get there.