Philadelphia Knight Arts Challenge Year 2
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is opening up their second year of applications for the Philadelphia Knight Arts Challenge. They are investing $9 million over three years in ideas that engage and enrich Philadelphia arts and culture. In the first year, 36 ideas were awarded a total of $2.7 million… including artblog’s own Art Safaris! Applications for the Knight Arts Challenge will be accepted from October 3 – 31, 2011. Be sure to visit the Knight Arts website on October 3 to find out how to submit your idea!

LOOK! Lancaster Avenue  installations

Joe Boruchow

You may remember us telling you about the competition to put art in the windows on Lancaster Ave, well here are the selections: Agatston Urban Nutrition Initiative (UNI) and Positive Minds, Claire Marcus, Erin Murray, Jesse Kudler, Russell Mahoney and Emil Crystal, Nicole Herbert, Kay Healy and George Apotsos, Paul Schultz, Valerie Huhn and Karen Smith, Melissa J. Frost, Trevor Reese, Ava Blitz, Derrick Wesley McNew, Joe Boruchow, and Jack Sloss. More than 200 artists competed for window space as part of LOOK! on Lancaster Avenue.

PAFA’s modern art curator holds Surrealism lecture at LaSalle

Dorothea Tanning, "The Temptation of St. Anthony", 1945.

Robert Cozzolino, PAFA‘s senior curator, will speak at LaSalle University about the relationship between surrealist art and 20th century film. The lecture is on October 13 at 3:30 pm and there will be a screening of the film “The Private Affairs of Bel Ami” afterward.

artblog’s Libby and Roberta receive The Photo Review Award 2011
Libby and Roberta have been recognized by The Photo Review for their services to the photography and art communities in the Philadelphia region. The 22nd annual award will be will be presented at a reception from 3 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, October 22, 2011, at Freeman’s Auctioneers, 1808 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. All are welcome!

Philly Live Arts/Fringe Fest and The Reinvestment Fund grant recipients
The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe along with The Reinvestment Fund have been awarded a total of $600,000 in grants via ArtPlace which aims to revitalize America’s cities and towns. ArtPlace awarded Live Arts/Philly Fringe $350,00 for a new permanent contemporary performing arts center. The Reinvestment Fund received $250,000 to create a Creative Assets Mapping Database for the city.

New logo for the Barnes Foundation?

The Barnes Foundation, being in major flux, has also just updated its logo to a series of hard-edged, fragmented boxes. This is certainly a big adjustment in the face of the new building which is set to open by May. What do you think of it?

Museum News: Michener and PMA
The longtime director of the Michener Museum in Doylestown, Bruce Katsiff, has announced his plans to step down. Meanwhile, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, they have just announced the appointment of Hiromi Kinoshita as their new Associate Curator of Chinese Art. Kinoshita is currently Assistant Curator of Chinese Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Red Hook on Knight Arts
Recently, I stopped by Red Hook Coffee and Tea in South Philly, and then did a little write-up about their show for Knight Arts. Colored canvases and coffee – can’t get much better than that!

Williams-Sonoma Marvel Comics cookies

The big home wares retailer Williams-Sonoma has a new series of Marvel Comics cookie cutters.  We just wanted to run the picture.  We know artists don’t need a commercial cookie cutter to make arty cookies.

IDEA Store at (e)merge art fair in D.C.
Back in 2009 we told you about the Free Store in lower Manhattan, where you could get stuff for free. Now the same two artists – Athena Robles and Anna Stein – are back with the IDEA Store at the (e)merge art fair in Washington D.C. The concept is the sale and exchange of ideas (although it’s only a penny for your thoughts). The fair runs from September 22 – 25.

Vivant Art Collection talks
Vivant Art Collection holds its next Black and Jewish Conversation Series talk on October 11. The last talk was at Congregation Rodeph Shalom, but the October 11 conversation will take place at the gallery.

Sculpture Saturdays for kids
The Fairmount Park Art Association will be hosting free family art events along Kelly Drive as part of Sculpture Saturdays. There will be workshops, outdoor sculpture guides and art kits, iPod tours, and live music. The next events will be on September 24 and October 15 & 22 from 10 am – 2 pm between Boathouse Row and the Girard Avenue bridge.

Peter Crimmins rides for MS

WHYY journalist Peter Crimmins (he’s also artblog‘s podcast recordist/editor) will be biking 100 miles from Cherry Hill, NJ to Ocean City as part of a ride to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis research. You can follow the progress on NewsWorks.org or at his Twitter feed @petercrimmins.

African Diaspora in Philly show

Frito Bastien

There’s a new show of folk art by four local black artists including Rashie Abdul Samad and Sharif Abdur-Rahim (African Cultural Arts Forum), Frito Bastien, and Isaac Maefield at the Philadelphia Folklore project. The exhibit runs from September 17 – December 17 at the PFP, 735 S. 50th Street, in West Philadelphia.

Opportunities

Mono No Aware – international film project founded by former Philly artist Steve Cossman – has a call for submissions in film or altered light projections. Visit the website for details. Deadline is November 9 and there is no entry fee.

myGallerist is a new Philly-based website and app, which aims to bring artists, gallerists, curators and collectors together. The idea is to put a portfolio in every artist’s pocket and allow them to present their work via mobile technology. An artist membership costs $25 (a $15 sign-up fee and a $10 annual access fee).

Bartol hosts a marketing workshop for teaching artists putting together artist statements on October 17 from 9:30 am – 12 pm and there are only ten spots so sign up quick.

Artist News

Former artblog writer and installation artist Colette Copeland is now in Plano, Texas and has just started contributing to Glasstire.

Tim Gough on Tweets from Beyond the Grave

Tim Gough has been busy with illustrations for publications including Wired, the New York Times, and Harvard Business Review.

"Josh in Prayer" by Eoin Burke and Jim Dessicino

UArts graduate Eoin Burke and Jim Dessicino have made a sculpture of a regular human being (not a saint) that’s on display in St. John’s Episcopal in New Haven, CT.

Candy Depew’s Candy Coated Center organized “Printed Matters” – student prints made in her educational program – which will be on display in the Comcast Center from September 28 – October 1 with a closing reception on October 1 from 12 – 3 pm.

Steven Earl Weber has a solo show entitled “Comfort and Security” at New York’s Hunter College in the Thomas Hunter Project Room. The show will run from October 2 – 22 with a reception on October 7 from 6 – 8 pm.

Bo Bartlett will have paintings in PAFA’s USArtists show at Sommerville Manning Gallery’s booth.  Man Bartlett (Bo’s son)  just did a performance in New York that was featured on ArtInfo’s top picks page.  Libby and Roberta did a podcast interview with Man last summer.

Myra Memlitsch-Gray, Chafing Dish, 2002-03, copper, found object

The five artists in the show wrestle with decoration and/or the domesticity, but it’s the works that struggle with the failure of  decoration to stave off the facts of life and death that are the most inspired.

Myra Memlitsch-Gray, Escargot, 2007, copper, found object

Myra Mimlitsch-Gray’s excellent metal sculptures begin with found, fancy metal utensils and servers that she transforms to suggest a threat that no amount of housekeeping or propriety can overcome. Escargot cups hang like testicles, and a chafing dish overflows with an invasive tongue. Mimlitsch-Gray (New Paltz, NY) showed a year ago at Wexler Gallery, but I don’t remember the frisson of danger that’s in the works here, the sense of skeletons in the closet and dust swept under the rug.

Katherine Kaminski, Floral Study, 2009, Sugar, faux flowers, vintage glass vase, table, buck antler, deer hoof

I swore never again to write about art work with dying deer symbolic of a lost environmental paradise, but Katherine Kaminski (Peoria) convinced me with her kitsch-inspired sculptures of sugar-coated funerary arrangements. A deer heart sculpture under a bell jar embedded in a sugary Victorian bouquet is shocking. In the drawings, the deer and the dear little girls take on each other’s identities and the scenarios contain surreal elements. That these drawings, which would be right at home in Art Star, overcome their kitsch conventions–skulls, hearts and flowers, not to mention deer–is a credit to Kaminski.

Candy Depew, stilled life, detail, 2010, porcelain, vinyl, crystals, found objects

While Philadelphia artist Candy Depew has always suggested the fragility of life and the body with her decorated porcelain skulls and delicate gestural decorations, here she takes on depth, confronting death and the ways, honest and dishonest, that people memorialize others.  Her Stilled Life installation is a bicycle- and skateboard-crash, with decorative pools of blood scattered at the crash site. Behind the remnants of the crash is an artful version of the stuffed-animal stelae that grow into dismal, rain-soaked mounds on our city streets. Depew captures at once the grief, the failure of these gestures to overcome it, and the cultural phenomenon that has made this outpouring fashionable. The room itself evokes a darkened funeral parlor, decorated with Depew’s usual baubles, which call into question the whole urge to decorate our path to the grave.

Audrey Hasen Russell, White Stick Jar, 2008, crystal blown glass, glass jar, wood, acrylic rhinestones, acrylic paint, cinderblock

Less satisfying are Brooklyn artist Audrey Hasen Russell’s stacked, blown glass pileups, the potential to suggest domestic fragility undermined by a visual stinginess and tentativeness. Only her White Stick Jar with mysterious white objects inside, resting on a cinderblock partially painted white, made me stay to think.

Gae Savannah's domesticated warhead.

New York area artist Savannah Gae decorates a boy phallic missile and its explosion into domestic complacency, a nuclear tuffet. I got a Middle Eastern vibe from its architectural form. But it’s nearly lost in the room between two other pieces–girly cakes about 5 feet in diameter and 7 or 8 feet high–extreme dressing tables, piled high with boxes and crowned and draped like four-poster beds with fabric and cellophone. The hair clips and beads, the colors and glitz, suggest teenage girls unaware of the ephemeral nature of their beauty as they play at reinventing themselves with makeup and fashion. But like the girls, these pieces feel as if they are incomplete, even with their layers of gewgaws and spectacle.

Marianne Bernstein's Welcome House in Love Park

Philadelphia Chief Cultural Office nailed it in his new blog with the unwebby name Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy.

“This is exactly the sort of project I would like to see much more of throughout the City. It is art that is temporary, of the highest quality, wakes people up and confronts/engages/delights them in the course of their daily routine. Last night’s celebration of Design Philadelphia was also remarkable – a party whose participants ran the gamut from hipsters to the homeless. Minima, the gallery in Old City which specializes in contemporary furniture design, was able to arrange for the installation of an array of very sleek white outdoor furniture in the park, so for the run of this installation the park will each become Philadelphia’s newest open air lounge.”

Bernstein in Love Park

Overcoming any number of bureaucratic snafus, Bernstein has populated the Welcome House with two artists every day it’s open for a total of 20 artist participants. The days I stopped by, I saw work from the Semilla Arts Initiative peeps Betsy Casanas and Pedro Ospina as well as work by Candy Depew and Eugenie Perret.  The interactions between artists and the people who have been dropping by the Welcome House goes beyond the limits of studio visits. It’s public and it’s humanizing for the park and the participants.

Candy Depew interacts with Love Park users.

Bernstein herself at one point helped out one of the homeless people as he was having a seizure. Since then, that group has also been demystified as they shower Bernstein with their attention and curiosity and respect.

Here’s the schedule of who’s left.

Semilla Arts Initiative with interactive drawing and a charcoal portraits, while klip collective tapes.

The art activities I saw were interactive or welcoming in some way.  Semilla artists created giant charcoal drawings of people hanging in the park. They also invited people to work on another drawing project. Depew and  Perret in a serendipitous pairing, turned the house itself into a homy space. Perret, whose Minima is behind the furniture Steuer mentioned, knit cozies for furniture inside the Welcome House, while Depew cut out elaborate window decorations. Depew ruefully called the little box a fishbowl, but the glass walls were demystifying to those who have never looked inside an artist’s studio.

Eugenie Perret through the glass wall, with her furniture cozies, and Depew's cutouts on the glass walls

By night, another sort of cozy envelops the closed box. klip collective, which videotapes by day, edits and then projects the daytime activities (with a one-day delay for editing time) on the cozy by night, seemingly peopling the park and making it more welcoming. The box itself was designed by Interface Studio Architects.

Bernstein, the brains behind the project, also engaged everyone who could possibly help, from Design Philadelphia to the First Person Festival. And none of it would have happened if Fairmount Park’s jefes had put the kibosh on it (they did waver, but ultimately rolled out the welcome wagon–for a fee). Much to Bernstein’s surprise, someone in the city circulated an email about the Welcome House to city employees. That day, lunch time included a welcome bonanza of city workers visiting the park.

To see Love Park repopulated (it used to be a busy place!) is practically miraculous. Good for everyone!!!

The huge, 29-artist exhibit attracted 500 people to Saturday’s opening at the Ice Box at the Crane Arts Center. There is a second opening tonight, at The Crane’s Second Thursday, 6-9 p.m.  that will include some more performances. So it would be a good time to go if you missed the opening, since performance was a key part of so many of the pieces.

Much of the show was about the body, fashion and performance. Here's Gregory Labold hitting all three notes!

Juried by Sarina Basta, a curator at SculptureCenter in Long Island City, N.Y., the show is exuberant and full of unexpected takes on what it means to be human and what it means to be categorized as sculpture, with a sharp emphasis on art about the body and fashion. It’s an exhibit that would be comfortable anywhere in the contemporary art world.

Basta also chose the prize winners:

1. First prize $1,500 Josh Kerner, Chris Golas and Joseph DiGuiseppi for their piece “The Plebeians.”
2. 2nd Prize $1,000  Susanne Gieske for You Can’t Help Yourself
3. 3rd prize $500  Tim Belknap, The Future is now a Shade of Grey

The money comes from a grant from Temple University’s Alumni Association.

Taking first and second prize were artists associated with FLUXspace–

Joseph DiGiuseppe, Josh Kerner, Chris Golas, "The Plebeians," What ever it takes, we must make it to the top. Performance, 18 x 15 x 15 feet, 2009; Photo with Sir Question Mark and the Trusty Steed pushing up Prince Charming, with Mr. Art Shark holding the fort (photo by Marianne Bernstein)

“The Plebeians,” which won prize numero uno, casts its creators  DiGiuseppe, Kerner and Golas as three of four actors in an art fairy tale–an attempt to climb an 18-foot mountain installation set in front of a sky blue corner of the room. A shark guards the top of the mountain, a Botticelli reproduction hanging in the sky behind him–the mythical ogre guarding the treasure. He cooks and heaves waffles down and blows “snow” confetti down at Prince Charming, his Trusty Steed, and Sir Question Mark who are trying to climb art’s heady heights to steal the treasure. The piece has a loveable storybook and DIY affect, and is of course in part about the artists’ personal ambitions, but it invites broader readings. The go-for-broke scale plus the energy and charm of the Perils of Pauline performance make this piece a big surprise as well as a good-natured challenge to the institutions of the past.

Susanna Gieske, You Can't Help Yourself. The family here is eating in the middle of the exhibition.

Numero dos went to FLUX’s program coordinator, Susanna Gieske, for her dining-in-the-gallery piece, You Can’t Help Yourself.  This performance piece–an enormous table and chairs set in the center of the enormous Ice Box space, decked out with settings and a full meal–also dominated the room. This amazing reimagining of the role  of the gallery space also challenges the family. The title is an ambiguous accusation or perhaps an ambiguous anti-invitation. The invitations were hand-written letters, a mix of passive-aggressive expressions of disappointment and love.

Susanne Gieske, detail of letter to one of her uncles, inviting him to dinner, part of her performance piece You Can't Help Yourself

The family was a little shocked that the gallery was where they would be eating, but once they got the picture, they gamely dug in!!! The individualized invitations hung on the back of each diner’s chair. This turning of the tables so that the audience becomes the performer, the personal becomes the public, is pretty amazing.

Tim Belknap, The Future is Now a Shade of Grey. Third prize at Victory.

Prize number 3 went to Belknap for his installation, The Future is Now a Shade of Grey. Belknap’s piece recycles his Fleisher Challenge exhibit last year bringing the narrative story of that installation forward.  Mr. Pineapple’s now-grafitti-scrawled truck has seen some battles.  It’s propped up on yoga balls and pulling (if it could pull) a small flatbed holding a severed hand.  When asked early in the evening about his options to win a prize, the artist (who also has ties to FLUXspace, having curated shows there) quipped that if we saw him later passed out from too much beer that meant he’d won, because the prizes were probably beer tickets!  

Laura Hricko, Interface(ing), performance using antique sewing patterns and hand-made garments, dimensions variable, 2007

The overwhelming focus of the show was bodies in motion, bodies in clothes, and bodies as symbols for survival. We saw Laura Hricko‘s models floating around the room in “antique” hand-made garments based on “antique”–ahem 1950s–sewing patterns posted on the wall. The body as shaped by clothes was a reminder of how fashion reflects the values of a culture.

Just for the record, we learned the juror didn’t know that Hricko was related to Ice Box co-founder Richard Hricko.

Gregory Labold, Mr. Green is Very Mean in This Scene, fabric, silscreen, Nikes, spray paint, plaster, 6 feet 6 inches, x 4 feet x 6 feet, 2008; next to Mr. Green stands Mr. Labold.

Gregory Labold arrived in costume– his own handmade suit and matching black-and-white stripes makeup–a blood borther to his sculpture “Mr. Green is Very Mean in This Scene.” Mr Green, or Moldman, is half Joker, half Ferengi. Labold stole the show from his own golem. And his little coloring zine, which we were happy to accept, invited readers to draw their own mold in the pictured petri dish. We laughed out loud.

Candy Depew, Ode, performance and mixed. Odalisque with swanky decor and blood on the floor.

Also wearing a home grown outfit was the young model in Candy Depew’s installation “Ode,” a very fashionable work, with a clothed odalisque nodding to Manet, Ingres and all other art historical ladies on couches surrounded by pillows and drapery.  The faux blood on the floor beside the couch is an oddly satisfying touch, reminding of how gansters have molls who often are fashionistas!

Ianthe Jackson, Purifyer, animation, life size projection 2007

Elsewhere, saving us from Labold’s Moldman and his killer mold is Ianthe Jackson’s terrific Purifyer, a stop action animation of people on an assembly-line conveyer belt undergoing some kind of irradiation or germ detection process. The conveyer belt looks like a bicycle chain kind of gizmo–all DIY herky-jerky–so when one of the people gets vaporized (not pure enough we suppose), it comes as a shock. Simple in concept and broad enough to apply in all kinds of ways, it’s political and it’s a throwback to early special effects in early sci-fi movies. The timing of the action as well as the style is serio-comic and retro.  (There’s a nice old-fashioned clanging bell that signals the entrance of another human taking a ride on the belt.)

Gene Hracho, Ride 'em. A helicopter made from scavenged kitchen utelsils and household stuff.

Gene Hracho’s endearingly-low tech helicopter, sited around the corner from Jackson’s conveyer belt video, is a great oversized toy that came together in a garage over the last three years, said Hracho’s parents who hovered proudly near their son’s creation (he was expected but not there yet when we talked with them).  

Hracho's use of the four-slice toaster is so unexpected and funny we laughed.

Aluminum jello molds, tin cans, cranks from egg beaters and, the piece de resistance, two, four-slice toasters, try to bridge the gap between kitchen and aerospace-engineering.  The labor of love is not for sale but Hracho pere has been encouraging his son to get in touch with helicopter manufacturers who might just like to display his ur-machine in their lobbies.  

Francine Gintoff, Cassius (left), Ayn (center) and Gort (right), acrylic on hand, approx. 7 inches each. Hand??? What an odd material!

In another take on body and fashion, Francine Gintoff’s hands sport tattoo-like portraits of an unlikely trio–Cassius Clay, Ayn Rand, and Gort (the robot from the film When the Earth Stood Still). We wondered if Gintoff was a student of Susan Moore, whose paintings of tattooed people (real tattoos on real people) are showing at LaSalle College right now. Gintoff’s off-putting hands seem to be about skin and skin color and the future of humankind–we’ve got a dark brown hand for Cassius (aka Cassius Clay aka Muhammed Ali), a tan hand for Ayn, and a silver hand for Gort. All three subjects, not to mention tattoos, can be interpreted as threats by some, but the hands are not in threatening poses.

Sarah O'Donnell, Untitled video installation. The tvs are on their sides and "sitting" in seats.

Faces and extreme attitudinalality are Sarah O’Donnell’s m-o in her untitled video installation with televisions “seated” on theatre chairs, each one showing an arms-crossed young person staring blankly ahead.  A movie theatre audience is suggested but the blank stares and crossed arms also call to mind a room of high schoolers being lectured or individual teenagers receiving some bad news from mom.  Like Andy Warhol’s screen tests, these static vignettes focused on faces are slow-cooked and pretty great. 

Roxana Perez-Mendez, New Espacio, multi-media

And speaking of sci-fi and clothes making the woman, Roxana Perez-Mendez’s New Espacio, a video of herself as the first Puerto Rican space walker, seemed to reach a wonderful new level of visual immateriality and unmoored floatiness in its presentation. The floaty version reflected off a visible video screen–which explained how she created the more immaterial version and somehow doubled the pleasure.

Austin Lee, Impulse Artwork, lowest of the low, a modest charmer.

Finally, Austin Lee’s minimalist Impulse Artwork, red and blue “worms” snaking through holes in the Icebox and Grey Area walls, should win the wallflower prize.  If you didn’t look closely you’d miss this piece sited far below eyelevel and dangling, modestly suggestive.  The piece’s charms lie in its subtle evocation of nature (worms), candy (licorice twists), people (girl and boy) and technology (that mass of electrical cords and cables that are lifelines to grids of electricity, fiber optics and other miracles of contemporary plugged-in-ness.)

The show is up to April 26, 2009.

entry to "Housing Project", Candy Depew's current installation at the Deisgn Center, Philadelphia University

The rest of the show offers the luxuriant comforts of printed pillows and fabrics, and rich jewel encrusted sculptures.  A diamond, fish, and swirl pattern of cut vinyl decorates the walls and is repeated on these printed fabrics and on the beautiful, old-fashioned looking dresses designed by Depew that are included here. 

Computer-cut vinyl wall mural and printed silk headboard, Detail, from the "Crystal Cave Bedroom," the first room in Depew's installation

In these belt-tightened times, these layered, repeating, and shiny decorations form a lush oasis.
 

Depew's dress (right)

A great thing about seeing shows at the Design Center is getting to see how an artist interacts with the Center’s amazing collection of textiles and costumes.  Depew’s solutions are enchanting. 

Depew's "Speak Easy Salon," the final room in the installation

In the final room, mannequins in Depew’s dresses are grouped in conversation with others wearing dresses from the collection.  The conversation among the “women” in this “speak-easy salon” is one about a contemporary artist taking on the history here.  Depew recreates the feel of historical garments with bustles, flounces, and capes.
 

Depew's "Opium Den cum Library," in the "Housing Project" installation at the Design Center

There’s a lot of softness in Depew’s installation: ball gowns, pillows, extra-long quilts, billowing fabrics, and arabesque swirls.  All of it softens the hard-edged aesthetic of this mid-century modern house that the Design Center calls home, and reinforces the allure of some suggested leisurely respite.  Here and there are sparkly, intricate, confectionary sculptures that catch your eye and draw you in.   
 

Miriam Schapiro and Sherry Brody, Dollhouse, 1972

My favorite room in the show is the Opium den, which immediately made me think of Miriam Schapiro’s Seraglio room from her Dollhouse, and also of Matisse’s exotic interiors.  The room is festooned with airy fabrics and hung all around with antique paisley shawls.  Depew’s shimmering pillows printed with the diamond and fish motif cover the floor, and a large, modern chaise lounge awaits an Odalisque.  Schapiro’s Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s countered Minimalism with elaborate, layered ornamentation.  In these spare and stripped-down times, Depew’s interiors may suggest something similar: a refuge of riches can be found in art, if not in real life. 
 
 

Henri Matisse, Odalisque in Red Trousers, c.1924

After seeing Depew’s “Housing Project” show at the Design Center I had the occasion to go to Park Towne Place apartments and was surprised to see the same, computer-cut vinyl fish and diamond wall murals in the lobby.  It turns out that Park Towne Place has installed the work of several local artists in their new lobby spaces. 

Libbie Soffer, Unmending, at Park Towne Place apartments

Curated by Jocelyn Firth and Rachel Zimmerman, the new lobbies now house the work of: Ian Baguskus, Candy Depew, Kate Kaman, Mark Khaisman, Craig Matthews, Leslie Mutchler, Leah Reynolds, Libbie Soffer, Shelley Spector, and Sarah Zwerling.  Usually, apartment building lobbies are decorated with predictable framed art.  But here, it’s a joy to see the work of local artists interacting with the marble, tile, and glass spaces.  The art here seems to enliven and rouse the lobbies, not just decorate them.   

Kate Kaman's sculpture, "Datura," hangs from the ceiling: Mark Khaisman's "Tape Pattern 9," is on the rear wall

The installations are not fully complete; Shelley Spector’s work will be installed in the spring, for example.  Zimmerman noted that having some new art on the Parkway “relates to both the museums and to the contemporary art scene of the city which is good for the large population of students who live in Park Towne Place.”  Luckily, most of the project was paid for before budget cuts at the apartments stopped the inclusion of a sculpture garden which was part of the original vision.  Sometime in May, the curators hope to organize an opening and a talk in order to engage residents and the public.  Stay tuned.

Not long ago Matt Singer, Curator of the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art emailed to ask me if I’d write an essay for a show he was putting together at the museum called “A Kiss for the Muzuzah.” The exhibit is all new commissioned works — each a Mezuzah — by a Philadelphia artist. Not all the artists are Jewish and together they represent a power team whose works I’ve long admired: Candy Depew, Jeanne Jaffe, Isaac Lin, Virgil Marti, Stuart Netsky, Norm Paris, Bruce Pollock, Isaac Resnikoff and Shelley Spector. My essay, one of several in a beautiful brochure published in conjunction with the show, deals with the Philadelphia-ness of Philadelphia artists and how right now Philadelphia is full of artist’s groups who gain strength from being together and sharing a group identity with their respective collective.

My brochure essay for the show, focusing on the idea of Philadelphia-ness and how great it is to be a Philadelphia artist. Image is a drawing by Isaac Resnikoff for his hand-carved wood Mezuzah which is based on one he made as a child in summer camp. As with all the images, click to make them bigger so you can read the text.

The show’s up now to Feb. 1 and the Mezuzot — which range from a boyish carved piece by Isaac Resnikoff to a cake icing curlicue special by Candy Depew — are like metaphorical self-portraits and they’re really great to look at. The surprise to me is how the artists — with the exception of Isaac Lin — didn’t stray far from the naturally-ocurring size of the Mezuzah in the real world of a house (ie small). Lin made his piece a monumental 10×9 ft, which somehow fits the psychic power inherent in these small signifiers of kinship and group identity.
Below are some images from the brochure along with some of the essay texts. (In addition to my short essay there are essays by Vivian B. Mann, of the Jewish Museum, New York, Rabbi Michael Holzman of Congregation Rodeph Shalom and Elisabeth R. Agro, of the PMA’s Crafts and Decorative Arts Department.)

A panel discussion at the show’s opening drew a big crowd and the artists each got to tell the story of coming to grips with creating their own version of the religious identifier. One after another artist was thrown back to reminiscences of childhood, a time when identity is forming and consciousness of who you are and what that means is heightened perhaps more than at any other time.

There’s a nice article about the show in Art Matters by Jennifer Zarro. And here’s my flickr set photos.

Jeanne Jaffe’s piece (bottom) and one of Candy Depew’s two pieces (top).

Isaac Lin’s piece, photographed here before it’s in its final state. The piece is 9×10 ft. and in its finished state has multiple layers of lines of color on top of this and a deep black void in the middle.

Bruce Pollock’s piece. Pollock works as a preparator/installer at the Museum but this is the first time he’d made a piece of art for them.

Norm Paris (top) drawing for his mezuzah, Stuart Netsky (right) and Virgil Marti (bottom). Paris’s piece, which looked like a bit of rubble torn from a bomb site, was hand made out of concrete and rebar.

Shelley Spector’s piece reminds me of her installation at Painted Bride a few years back, a show very much about feeling a part of her community and about her identity as a Jew. Spector suggested the theme of Mezuzah for the show.

Roberta’s photo of Jayson Scott Musson’s posters, with JT Kirkland and Jen Packer (well, half of her) on the left.

Libby’s photo of Thom Lessner and Nick Lenker’s works

Libby’s photo of Barbara Bullock and Candy Depew’s works.

Thought we’d share some pictures of Dig, the show of Philly artists we curated at H and F Fine Arts in Mt. Rainier, MD. The show looks great — we think! And we hope you can get there! More pictures on both Libby’s flickr and Roberta’s flickr sites. And check out JT Kirkland’s slide show at his blog, Thinking about Art.

If you want to know more about the show the curator’s essay we wrote is at the bottom of this post. And here’s our previous post.

DIG
Oct. 20-Nov. 26, 2007

Curator’s Statement

We’ve watched the Philadelphia art scene shift its focus radically over the last 10 years, from your grandfather’s academic realism to art that pushes buttons, asks questions and delivers a concept. That shift in the type of artists and what they make was brought on by a number of factors — the infusion of foundation dollars for artists and exhibits, the transformation of local art schools into top-tier institutions, the affordability of Philly and the un-affordability of nearby New York and Washington, the investment in new galleries, new peppy leadership at arts institutions and more.

So, here’s what’s happening in Philadelphia. A spontaneous erruption of artists is searching–digging in their histories, our histories, their own backyards. They are rooting around in the newspaper, the Internet, tv, the movies and video games. Philly’s artists are making art with surprising observations about our culture and us. This art is a message in a bottle, shouting out its S.O.S. Regardless of the message there’s an urgency here.

Not only has Philadelphia caught up with practices around the globe but it’s now a leader with must-see exhibits touted in major national publications. That new Philadelphia art scene is what brought fellow art blogger and Assistant Gallery Director of H&F Fine Arts, JT Kirkland, to invite us to curate an exhibit. We are publishers of roberta fallon and libby rosof’s artblog, named one of the best art blogs in the country by Art in America–and we know our home town’s art. This show of eight artists reflects what we’re excited about and what’s going on in our city.

Two of the artists point up the cultural affinities of Philadelphia and New Orleans–bergs known for their music and their gorgeous parades of civic-sanctioned wildness. NOLA native Candy Depew makes Mardi Gras-influenced bling-bling ceramics, including memento mori skulls. Barbara Bullock’s cut-paper homages–produced in response to Hurricane Katrina–celebrate the great city and its jazz scene. Bessie Smith, John Coltrane and Sun Ra, to name a few, all called Philadelphia home. And after Katrina, Philadelphia’s government opened its doors to many New Orleans evacuees.

Decor is hot right now. It’s the perfect way to package the darkest of meanings. Both Bullock and Depew use full-bore decoration to find something to celebrate. The ambiguity of their decorative motifs also link them to other artists like Chicago soundsuit artist Nick Cave, painter Julie Heffernan and Philadelphia’s own stained-glass artist Judith Schaechter.

Whitney Biennial (2006) standout, Zoe Strauss, is a long-time chronicler of the Mummers and of Philadelphia’s underbelly, in her raw street photographs. When Katrina hit, Strauss, immediately responded and went down to the Gulf Coast to volunteer, bringing back some photos of the Gulf Coast underbelly. Strauss’ celebrated works of people and decaying architecture put her in the tradition of edgy portraiture with Diane Arbus and Alec Soth and the street photography tradition with Walker Evans and Joel Meyerowitz.

Setting Philadelphia’s tradition of academic realism on its head, Nick Lenker’s clay sculptures merge fantasy and family. His giant tschotschkes are autobiographical and talk to the tradition of Red Grooms and Robert Arneson as well as fairy tale illustration. The figurative work by young painter Jen Packer, winner of Tyler School of Art’s prestigious Edith Weil Hecht Memorial Award for painting at graduation in 2007, delves into life history and high drama. Packer’s paintings echo the spaces in early Diebenkorn and Lenker’s clay and print works echo the space of video games. Both Lenker and Packer take inspiration from psychological conflict.

Self-taught artist Thom Lessner’s figures, flat as the boards they are made of, stand in contrast to the precious and contrived celebrity-fueled works of Elizabeth Peyton and Karen Kilimnik. Lessner’s fan worship is robust, personal and, like Warhol’s art, on the edge of parody and self-parody. And like the Velvet Underground, Lessner’s pop band, Sweatheart, is also part of his art practice. Another artist who blends music, art and writing is Jayson Musson and his Plastic Little rap band. His poster art, which includes faux autobiographical rants about values–gender identity, race, inequality, sexual politics–are the epitome of political incorrectness, yet bare a core of truth. His public persona is like Duchamp‘s Rrose Selavy, slippery and shocking.

Kip Deeds finds parallels between his own life story and American history. His scroll is a river that he paddles, imagining scenes and places in history where he’s never been. He assigns history new meanings, not just for himself but for us all. Like outsider artist Howard Finster, Deeds is a poet in his art, using words on banners as his own historical markers in the landscape.
Above all, humanism is the spirit that ties all the work together, a love of people and an embrace of differences. This is just a piece of Philadelphia’s art ferment in 2007. Many of the artists in this show are winners of top awards for their work. Bullock (1997), Depew(2002), Strauss (2005) are winners of prestigious $50,000 Pew Fellowships; Deeds (2005) and Depew(1999-2000) are Fleisher Challenge Award winners. Emerging artists Lessner, Lenker, Packer and Musson demonstrate gravitas and promise for the future in their work. We admire all the artists in this show for how they translate their thoughts into art.
–Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof, curators