Tag Archive "crane-arts-building"

Studio interview: a look through the glass of Bohyun Yoon

Bohyun Yoon has been taking photographs of the people of Philadelphia . One of them turned out to be my friend Wendy, who was out in Rittenhouse Square walking her standard poodle Nelly when Bo approached. She talked, he talked, and they found out they had me in common. Wendy’s face is now one of the nearly 150 faces that make up Bo’s newest installation–150 different faces that have nothing–and everything–in common.

“Inscrutable” at the Asian Arts Initiative

Inscrutable is a two-venue show. This review focuses on the half of the show that is at the Asian Arts Initiative. A review of the half that is at the University of Delaware space at the Crane Arts Center will be reviewed, also today, in Roberta’s Weekly Update. Although the shows mostly have pieces that are different, there is some overlap.–r&l Inscrutable, an exhibition happening concurrently at the Asian Arts Initiative and the University of Delaware at the Crane, explores issues facing Asian artists such as globalization and multiculturalism.

I won the POST lottery–the studio of Bohyun Yoon and WonJung Choi

A dreamy utopianism underpins Philadelphia Open Studios Tour, the annual event in which art lovers and artists get to connect with each other without galleries in the middle. It’s the equivalent of discovering a starlet-to-be sipping a black-and-white at a Hollywood lunch counter.

Subtle and mysterious photos of Daydream Nation

Post by Emily Friedman Daydream Nation, PPAC’s 1st Annual Contemporary Photography Exhibition, opened several weeks ago in the Crane Arts Building.  Philadelphia Photo Art Center received 170 entries for the juried show, from which they chose 34 photographs by 34 different artists and awarded three prizes. Jock Reynolds and Joshua Chuang, respectively Yale University Art Gallery’s Director and Assistant Curator of Photographs, judged the entries.

Alexander Arrechea at Crane Arts Building and Miller Lagos at Penn

Alexander Arrechea’s installation, Orange Tree, occupied Crane Arts‘ huge Icebox as well as the Grey Box leading to it from Jan. 21-Feb. 21, 2010, and it definitely held its ground within that vast space.  Arrechea’s work, combining suggestions of menace and the high-tech production values of the latest Hollywood movie, rose to the challenge of the monumental scale.  On entering the darkened Grey Box visitors were confronted with Black Sun (2009), a silent video projection of a swinging wrecking ball that marked time in the exhibition like a destructive pendulum.

Big pictures at the Ice Box

The long east wall in the Ice Box at the Crane Arts Center has so much wall space–25 x 100 feet–that founders Nick Kripal and Richard Hricko decided to make something even bigger of it– In a push to challenge video artists to take advantage of the enormous space, they have installed four computer-controlled video projectors capable of filling that wall, including creating a seamless image (a la Matt Suib and Nadia Hironaka’s The Soft Epic or: Savages of the Pacific West video installation there).  It’s hello Cinemascope times two.

Techno wonders from Delaware

In a show that should attract all the techno-art hackers out there, the University of Delaware faculty show themselves able to out-techno the technologists. Feats of tech derring-do abound in video and mechanical and electronic wizardry. Things growl and click at you in this show and the art doesn’t stand still. Neither do you as it surrounds you in some surprising ways.

Never too late

Well sometimes it is too late. Here are a couple of things I saw that I didn’t get up before they closed. But I really liked what I saw, so I had to share, anyway. Michael Coppage at Crane Michael Coppage, A Mature Pair, mixed media drawing on pegboard, a detail from Coppage’s installation 1) Michael Coppage’s show in the so-called Archive Space at the Crane Arts Building is the first I’ve seen in that awful alley that found a number of ways to rise above the constraints of space, the aggressive daylight streaming in through the window, and the ... More » »

Weekly Update – Heartworks Sizzles

This week’s Weekly has my review of the Mazzoni Center fundraiser, Heartworks, the exhibit and auction at the Icebox. The auction is Saturday night. More photos at flickr Anne Magnusen’s faux Basquiat painting made specially to be auctioned this weekend at the Heartworks fundraiser. Though many artists donate art to worthy causes, they don’t always donate brand-new work or favorite pieces. Christopher Veit, organizer of “HeartWorks,” the week-long art show and auction, got a tsunami of dazzling works by more than 80 artists (many of them with national and international reputations) to land in Philadelphia. Proceeds from the auction Saturday ... More » »

Soft Epic redux and Grothusen’s memory house

Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib’s Soft Epic (detail) at the Icebox. I caught Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib‘s Soft Epic video projection at the Icebox on the last day of its run and want to add my appreciation here to what Andrea wrote previously. Deep into a seemingly endless war and at a time of severe ecological peril, The Soft Epic rides both those waves of anxiety and yet, with its sweep of imagery and magical sound, the work has beauty as well. The post-apocalyptic panorama, with fires consuming the urban landscape and animal-headed avatars watching, had a kind of ... More » »