Bohyun's new installation in his studio. There are nearly 150 glass plates, plus the shadows, placing the viewer in a crowd. Image courtesy the artist.

The new installation, in Bo’s Crane Arts Center studio, seems simple–a large cube framework nearly filling the space, from which hang the portraits–each silk-screened onto a glass plate in a different monotone color. A single bare bulb, hanging in the center of the cube, projects the portraits onto the wall in gray scale, creating a catalog of faces and souls. Very Christian Boltanski. But Bo’s spirits also have the liveliness of newsprint and community. Wherever I stood, I was crowded in among the nearly 300 faces pressing in from the colorful glass plates and the shadowy projections. Bo said my friend Wendy was in the crowd, but he couldn’t find her just then.

Then Bo, who teaches at Tyler School of Art in the glass department, started talking–about neighborhood, the South Korean army, life, death, and race.

Bohyun Yoon, image courtesy the artist, 2011, metal, glass, silkscreen, lightbulb, wire, clips

Libby: What are you thinking about when you make these portraits?
Bo: They are like neighbors. When I first came to Philadelphia, I was surprised to see so many different races. Korea is (more homogeneous). I am now in Northern Liberties. The neighborhood is changing, not as mixed. But we are all the same human beings, have the same soul. There’s life and death–that’s for everybody. …I am interested in light and shadow. …I want to reveal something behind–life and death. If there’s death in it, I can feel the beauty. Beauty, art, needs to have death in it.

Bohyun Yoon's glass helmet/teapot musical instrument, scheduled for a 2012 show at the Smithsonian. Click on the picture to see and hear it in action (it's like a Ben Franklin Armonium). Image courtesy artist.

Libby: Do you have any shows coming up?
Bo: The Smithsonian Museum in 2012 asked me to show my helmet, a glass instrument, in a show “40 under 40.”

My education was in glass as a craft material. But glass art is always set up on a pedestal. It’s very precious. I don’t like that. I asked myself, How can I see this material from a different perspective. How about I wear the glass. …I have to move my body to make a sound. Body and clothing mean lots of things. Uniforms carry identity in society. And the military is a controlled society and has a controlled uniform.

Bohyun Yoon's Shadows.

I feel human beings are such a fragile and weak creature (in a system of societal rules). We are like puppets controlled by some invisible power. We are tricked by power.  The doll (in Shadows) is truncated like a puppet, and is flipping reality and unreality. This (new installation) is a similar setup. Society and politics–(they are) for human beings and life. In the afterlife, there is no race. I don’t know what that world is. I want to see our life (from) a little bit of distance. We complain about politics and rules. But we are small creatures, born and living with other people.

Libby: Why did you leave Korea?
Bo: I felt I have a little bit of talent. I was thinking (about what) I live for, what I am meant to be. And I want to help people somehow, but using this talent, art, so something is revealed, something a little hidden.

I came here in 2001.  I started RISD, and had good freedom, and passion about art. After, I go back to join the military. Korea wouldn’t give me the passport extension. (All South Korean males must serve two years in the military). During that time (in the military) I was not able to make art.

Bohyun Yoon, Two Year Soldier Project, postcard. Image courtesy artist.

I did not want to go. My father and other people said, if you look at two years from (today), it feels long, but in a whole life, two years is not long–and it’s a special experience. But two years in the army is quite long. (Bo said when he was a child, he loved toy guns, but the realities of guns in the army–the weight, the harsh recoil, the loud bang, and the smell of cordite–was terrible).

Libby: Did you have to fight?
Bo: I did graphic design at a computer. I was a translator–I also speak Japanese (and English).

Then RISD invited me to come back to teach, under a changed visa type.

Libby: And now you’re teaching at Tyler?
Bo: Yes, in the glass department.

Bohyun Yoon wearing his Transparent Business Suit in Providence, R.I.

Libby: How do your parents feel about your being an artist?
Bo. My parents are happy with what I’m doing. My father is a business man. I really appreciate that he understands me. I always watch him wearing a suit all the time. At RISD I was wearing casual clothing. The clothing is wearing us, not we them. The clothes are controlling you and you not them. I made a transparent business suit and walked in Rhode Island with a vinyl suitcase. I appreciate that my father, my parents, understand me. I made camouflage, vinyl, and a soldier’s glass helmet  and gun (in my Two-Year Soldier Project). I made a postcard of me. I made it before joining the army.

Bohyun Yoon, Glass Lens Mask, image courtesy artist

Libby: Do you plan to stay here?
Bo: I want to stay in the United States. I am interested in contemporary art. There are many different artists here with brilliant ideas. But I’m thinking I don’t know really about my country. I have to learn and study about my country. I like Koreans. They speak their mind. Koreans on the outside are very aggressive; many people compare them to Spanish people. Koreans are loud but are making good relations (i.e. get along with each other).

I also lived in Japan. There people are the opposite. Outside they are very quiet and protect themselves. Koreans are fighting but have good connections with each other.

Libby: When did you fit in living in Japan? How old are you?
Bo: 36. I was born in 1975, December, but my documents say 1976, February. My father went to register me late, not right away. It’s not that easy to change. I tried. …

I lived in Japan 10 years. I was an elementary school student. My father is a banker. The bank sent him to their Japanese branch.

My mother is a ceramist. When I said I was going to study art, she said ceramics is kind of old. Why don’t you do glass? At that time there was no glass education in Korean universities, so I did my undergraduate and graduate education in Japan, in Tokyo. Then then in the US at RISD did an MFA again. Japanese education is very craft-wise, and I was curious about contemporary art.  But the craft background is helping.

WonJung Choi and Bohyun Yoon in their studio during POST

Libby: What’s next?
Bo: A baby. My wife (artist WonJung Choi) is pregnant, in her last trimester.

On my way out, I spotted Wendy’s face.

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.

Ken Chu. Channeling Andy: A process-based work. 2005-06. Chinese Arts Centre. Manchester, UK.

The first piece to the left of the doorway as visitors enter the Asian Arts Initiative is a digital slide show documenting a group project orchestrated by Ken Chu – “Channeling Andy: A process-based work.” The artist in his statement explains that he intentionally chose a skill that he did not know for his post-minimalist work, and that he wanted to reference the social network of Andy Warhol’s factory. Ken Chu assembled a group of knitters and together they recycled plastic bags by turning them into yarn, which would then become a material used in making his mixed-media paintings. The plastic yarn was knitted by the group into sleeves that fit over Chu’s rectangular, monochromatic paintings. The finished pieces are formally beautiful and show the endless possibilities organic forms have to offer.

Since the process of making the work is the focus of “Channeling Andy,” showing a slide show of the works in progress is very effective. The learning, encouragement, and sharing of ideas that went on during this project is made apparent to the viewers. However, it would be helpful to see one of the finished pieces next to the slide show in order to get a better understanding of how effective the pieces were in terms of materials and formal ideas, as well as the contrast between the texture of the plastic yarn and the smooth texture of the paint.

Barbara Takenaga. Black/White/Blue. Acrylic on linen. 54" x 45" 2008.

Barbara Takenaga’s “Black/White/Blue” is an acrylic painting that is 54″ x 45″ and covered in an intricate spiral pattern consisting of hundreds of circles that grow larger as the spiral reaches out towards the edges of the linen on which it is painted. The board was first given a white background. Blue, black, and red circles were painted on top, along with various lines that help to articulate the order of the spiral. Only a few small circles in a selected area are red and that made me wonder if there is a certain significance to these circles – perhaps the artist had a particular system she was following when it came to coloring the circles.

The immense size of the work completely surrounds viewers with the pattern and throws them off balance. This type of artwork allows the viewer to get an idea of the great amount of time and physical effort the artist put into the piece. Time and effort does not automatically make a work great – but the attention to detail, color choices, composition, and optical illusions that went into this piece make it very effective. It would be even better to see this work done in oil paint, since color plays such an important role here. The matte, plastic quality that acrylic paint has may not always work well for these intricate, abstract paintings.

Jinming Dong. I want to talk: 1956. Video Installation. 2010.

Also included in the show is a video art piece by Jinming Dong titled “I Want to Talk: 1956”. The video, which is in both venues, consists of a computer animated Chairman Mao giving a speech to the National Association of Music Workers and some other comrades in Beijing on August 24, 1956, which Dong translated to English. The projected video shows Mao, dressed in his traditional grey suit, from the shoulders up. The colors are vibrant, like those you would see in an animated film, as opposed to the colors of a film from 1956.

At the Asian Arts Initiative, this video is projected towards the top of the wall to give the feeling that the viewer is looking up at Chairman Mao. The piece puts the viewer in a subordinate position – he/she is below Mao and the image of Mao is larger then life. Since the artist chose to create an animated Chairman Mao instead of showing real footage of him, the piece made me think of George Orwell’s Big Brother.

Due to the nature of the exhibition, the artwork varies greatly. As such, it would be helpful to see the materials and sizes of the pieces included on their title cards. Nevertheless, the work is tied together by its connection to Asian culture. Some pieces reference Asian culture and stereotypes directly, while others use geometric forms or philosophical approaches that connect to the artists’ heritage. The part of the exhibition at the Asian Arts Initiative had some strong and engaging pieces, but felt sparse. Perhaps some of the works could have been eliminated so that they all fit in one location.

The Asian Arts Initiative, located at 1219 Vine Street, is more than a gallery space – it also puts on musical performances, theatrical performances, and workshops for all ages. The exhibition runs through February 26 with a closing reception occurring at the Asian Arts Initiative on Friday, February 4 from 5:30 – 7:30 pm.

WonJung Choi and Bohyun Yoon in their studio

Realistically, the most likely scenarios are that a collector may find a piece of art at a great price and an artist gets a chance to put out work for sale that doesn’t have gallery representation. But the big dream that fuels it all is the discovery of unrecognized talent.

Earlier this month, during the open studios events, I hit the POST lottery–with the help of a tip. I went to one studio and it fulfilled my personal fantasy–finding an artist I didn’t know whose work swept me off my feet. The studio is in the basement of the Crane Building, and it belongs to Bohyun Yoon and his wife WonJung Choi. Bo, as he prefers to be called, said the two of them have been in Philadelphia for a year. Bo was at RISD, prior.

Bohyun Yoon's shadows animate his studio wall.

Bo’s work, which makes use of shadows and reflections, is about bodies and and gender and sex and the individual as a small item in a large society–and lots more. Along the wall of his studio he had hanging small Barbie doll-sized cast body parts hanging from clear nylon lines in a seemingly random array of arms and legs and torsos and heads. A light projects a shadow on the wall, and voila, the parts coalesce on the wall into a frieze of figures engaged in sex. A breeze or a shake animates them.

Bohyun Yoon, Merge,2004,Live models, plexiglas mirror, steel, 200 x 800 x 800 cm,Performance at RISD Museum , Rhode Island

Bo also showed us (I was with Andrea) a video of a performance he created with sliding mirrors (think of your closet doors) and naked people with half their bodies on each side of the mirror (the mirror is cut out so they can fit exactly in the hole). Their visible half-bodies became whole via the reflection. When a male performer and a female performer moved to just the right spot, they created a reflection that was half male, half female. You can view the video here.

The work is meticulously crafted, carefully thought through, conceptual and accessible all at once! Yoon is currently teaching glass-making in the crafts department at Tyler School of Art.

WonJung Choi's fish, courtesy of her website Wonjungchoi.com

His wife Choi also works with shadows, and her work has something to do with being a fish out of water as she adjusts to American culture. The work has more of a landscape and museum diorama quality. At the studio I saw a school of 3-D fish out of cut-out plastic sheets with lines of hot glue that project on the wall. Her husband showed us a video of Choi’s installation of an elaborate, large dinosaur skeleton made of what looked like hundreds of pieces of the same materials assembled in the middle of a gallery space and also projected on the wall, creating a 3-D illustration. According to Choi’s online resume she lives and works in New York.

It turns out Bo was in a CFEVA show here in Philadelphia in February, Introduction 2010, at Moore College, so some of you may have seen his work on exhibit. I missed that one (and so much more, goodness knows) and it was right under my nose!

Daydream Nation, PPAC’s 1^st 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.

Alex Wein's "Falling Woman (Second Story Door)"

I saw the show before the opening reception, missing the announcement of the winners and walking around the show with fresh eyes.  The theme of Daydream Nation (probably not coincidentally also the name of a seminal Sonic Youth album) is photography’s ability to convey the daydreams of the photographer and explore the line between fantasy and reality.  Like our daydreams, photographs can be whatever we want them to be and are often infused with a little mystery.

PPAC’s descriptive blurb notes that, “each image shares a subtle underlying mystique.” They do, and the photographs in the show that made the biggest impressions are those that really make you ask yourself “what am I looking at?”,  “what exactly is happening here?”

Jerri A. Castillo's multi-layered "Clutter"

Jerri A. Castillo’s inkjet print Clutter is one of the works that provokes this kind of response.  It takes a closer look to figure out that you are looking at several layers within the photograph, including what seems to be a projected image.  Even after studying the photograph, it is difficult to tell how many elements are at play.  The work plays perfectly into the show’s theme, because only the photographer really knows what went into producing the image.

"untitled #4" Prin Amorapanth

Prin Amorapanth’s untitled #4 is another highlight.  It is full of mystique; we can’t figure out much about the photograph’s context beyond it being of a child and a woman in the wind.  The subtle diagonal, beginning at the woman’s head and ending at the blur to the child’s right, is a really pleasing composition.  But the mystery of where these people are and what surrounds them ups the image’s appeal.

Susan Bank's "Piercing the Darkness"

Another of these mysterious content photos is Susan Bank’s Piercing the Darkness.  The image seems to be of a warehouse or storage room, and the buggy hints at a foreign country, but what to make of the boxes with names and dates?  Are they full of bones or ashes? Or just personal possessions?

Mallory Johnson's "Frames"

The inclusion of both color and black and white photography gives the show a nice rhythm and keeps it varied.  And the juxtaposition between the two types of photographs draws out their different moods: black and white usually feels classic and serene, and color often gives off a more modern, tangible vibe.  The vibrant shades in many of the color prints here especially standout.  Most of the works in Daydream Nation are inkjet prints, and eye-popping colors, like those in Mallory Johnson’s Frames, are the happy product of modern printing capabilities.

Daniel Shea's "Old Lock 24 Campgrounds"

But that’s not to say that all of the color photographs are bright and energetic.  In the first prize-winning image, Old Lock 24 Campground, Daniel Shea deploys color so subtly that the photograph looks like it could be in black and white.  The photo’s intrigue lies behind the window in the two ghost-like smokestacks.  After Shea’s image, Andrew Rugge‘s Philadelphia, PA 2010 and Tony Chirinos‘s El Coco Lococ, 2009 took second and third place, respectively.

Daydream Nation — which runs to Aug. 21 — demonstrates that some of the most engaging, pleasing photographs are those with a touch of mystery.  Elusive subject matter or methods that only the photographer really understands keep the viewer on their toes.

Alexander Arrechea, front room of 'Orange Tree' installation at Crane

On the walls around it were three huge drawings and a digital print, all executed with tromp l’oeil virtuosity.  Almohada (Pillow) (2005) and T-Shirt (2005) are watercolors depicting vastly-enlarged versions of the named objects, bound with measuring tape.  I can’t say exactly why the form of the bound pillow evoked a trussed corpse, but the association was undeniable (I made me think of David Hammons ). Birds (2009) is a c-print referring to the camera-bearing tree in Garden of Mistrust, a video projection in the large space beyond.  It creates the illusion of a piece of marbleized paper cut into the silhouette of the tree and pinned to a black background.

Alexander Arrechea ' Almohada' (Pillow) (2005) watercolor 66x44 in.

The Icebox space contained Orange Tree (2010), a towering, multi-limbed “tree” sprouting nineteen basketball hoops, rather than branches, surrounded by balls which looked liked fallen fruit.  Facing it was a similar-sized video projection of Garden of Mistrust (2007), an earlier “tree” with constantly-moving video surveillance cameras substituting for branches.  Both are obviously urban species, and strange mutations.  If the increasing use of cameras is a way of keeping urban youth under control, basketball is one route they take to make their way within and out of the ghetto.  It is unclear whether basketball will empower these players or ensnare them in the corporate control of professional sports.

Alexander Arrechea, rear room of 'Orange Tree'

Arrechea’s world is one of illusion, often invoked in the name of power.  The mutant forms and shifting scale create an intentional unease.  He has previously dealt with the equipment and spaces of sports, those arenas and stadiums where boys and men play out their manhood, where symbolic wars are fought and national passions aroused.  Raised within the state control of Castro’s Cuba, Arrechea is sensitive to the control that corporate power and fear have imposed on more open states in Europe and America. The project, curated by Anabelle Rodriguez, was the first in the International Curatorial Exchange at Crane Building, and a roaring start it was.

Alexander Arrechea 'Orange Tree' (2010)

Miller Lagos’ Silence Doogood at the Arthur Ross Gallery, U.  of  Pennsylvania

Miller Lagos’ 'Silence Doogood' during fabrication

Miller Lagos’ Silence Doogood at the Arthur Ross Gallery (the title was one of Benjamin Franklin’s pen names) through March 21, 2010 is the product of the artist’s residency at the University of  Pennsylvania, and one of the independent projects of Philagrafika He worked with fine arts students to paste a ton of newspaper pages together and wind them into a huge roll which he sculpted to resemble a cross-section of a huge tree, although I needed to read the label copy to discover that.  The gallery also contains stacks of newspapers sitting in the form a cube; walking around the pile the visitor discovers that a group of paper has been removed, resulting in a shape that reads as a throne (a sort of ur throne that a child might make).  A video of Lagos working with the students and a short introduction by Lynn D. Marsden-Atlass, director of the gallery and Jose Roca, curator of Philagrafika, is shown beside the entrance.  It can be seen on Youtube . .

Miller Lagos is clearly a charismatic teacher and the project appears to have been a pedagogic success. Jose Roca remarked that Lagos’ work reminds us that paper comes from trees; if the students  hadn’t learned that in grade school, it was probably a useful lesson.  They clearly saw the power of one artist to transform materials and gained experience with the shared vision and coordinated work required by such labor-intensive art, which they could never attempt within an educational system marked by semesters. The final  product, however, was a bit thin as a gallery presentation.  That’s a shame, because Lagos’ previous work sculpted from recycled newspaper is very impressive.  The notion that the work deals with the dissemination of knowledge via newspapers may have been impressed upon the student collaborators, but did not come through as a significant focus in the work on display.

Su Tomesen, 40,000 feet, video installation at the Ice Box, courtesy the artist

The long-range plan is to have October be video month at the Crane, and to entertain proposals from artists and curators around the world to use the 125,000 cubic fee of space in the Ice Box and use the new video and sound system.

“We always thought of that space as a kind of place where people could expand their studio or curatorial practice because  they have the opportunity [to use such a large expanse],” said Kripal in a recent telephone conversation. He and Hricko named the projector project I.C.E., or the International Curatorial Exchange.

The inaugural run of the system for an art project, which people can program to run in numerous ways, is up right now, and has just been extended an extra week to run until Nov. 29.

The site-specific video installation, 40,000 feet, by Netherlands artist Su Tomesen, projects floating clouds and ocean filmed from airplanes around the world. The installation also includes smoke (ah-choo) and light and sound. It’s a sort of landscape that is at once familiar and unfamiliar. Philadelphia artist Candy DePew, recently on a residency in the Netherlands, saw Tomesen’s work there–a similar piece designed for a very different space, a restaurant–and suggested the piece for ICE.

VideoZoom info

This is not the only upgrade at the Crane worth noting. Until tomorrow, another video exhibit is screening at the Crane–in its brand new video projection area–a vast improvement from the curtained black box in the Gray Area.

Video Zoom, showing in this country for the first time ever, is an annual project started by Mary Angela Schroth of Gallery Sala 1 in Rome in 2003. Schroth invites a curator from a different country each year to assemble a survey of that country’s video scene.  Videos from seven countries, about 40 minutes to an hour for each country, are being screened. Schroth will speak tomorrow (Sunday, the 22nd at 5 p.m.)

Kripal said he’s doesn’t know if the video month concept will be in place for October 2010, but he’s looking further into the future. “It is our intent to do an annual project,” he said.

Su Tomesen’s 40,000 feet is up to Nov. 29, by appointment only.

Video Zoom is up until tomorrow. Mary Angela Schroth lecture tomorrow, Sunday, Nov. 22, 5 p.m.

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

Best of all is Lance Winn and Simone Jones’ murder mystery video Knock with a deadpan script by Hope Thompson and a surreal bare bones set of a door, a chair that never gets used, a 4-tier birthday cake on a plant stand props right out of Clue. This piece — projected on 3 walls and the floor with looping action where all the actors kill and get killed and magically appear again in what is a horror movie lowbrow farce.

Abby Donovan, These the Heavens of my Brain: an Orrery of Sorts (Oh I think I know where the green ray goes) 2009

What’s new about this projection is how the image moves via robotic arm and so do you trying to keep up with the action taking place all around you. It’s a refreshing change from standing statically in front of a screen or series of screens.

This is a great new direction for art video. It solves the problem of the static screen and the static viewer in the gallery space.

Other gizmos that we admired for their electronic chops as well as their aesthetics are Abby Donovan’s motorized assemblage using clay, string, mirrors and colored lights to suggest a cosmos connected by string, if not by string theory.

Ashley Pigford and Troy Richards, Vanishing Point 2009

Ashley Pigford and Troy Richards’ Vanishing Point Rube Goldberg machine with a moving Lego car careens across a track causing a reaction, an explosion, a growl of sound and finally a juicy hyper-saturated explosion of color on a video screen that reminded us of an outtake from a Pippilotti Rist video. We had to wait too long for the roughly ten-second event to occur but we apparently the wait was dictated by techno-reasons.

Rene Marquez, Home Again 2009

Rene Marquez’s Home Again is a tricky projection piece using slide carousels and other projection devices to comment on old-school technology…and old-school life. It took us a while to figure it out and we’re sure not going to give away the trick here. Marquez uses material from his own past in the projections. The piece is loaded with emotion. Also in the show are Colette Gaiter and Amy Hicks.

More about another techno wonder at the Crane coming up in another post.

Information Translated
UD/ART Selected University of Delaware Faculty 
October 21st – November 29th, 2009

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 aesthetic disgustingness imparted by two old urinals.

Michael Coppage, installation detail

Litterbug was a happy confluence of subject matter and materials (corrugated cardboard, spray painted stencils of the bugs, bubble wrap–you get the idea– that seemed tailor made (well some of it was; it was an installation, after all).

Jennie Thwing at Nexus

Here’s a mercifully short video of part of Jennie Thwing’s installation, Catch My Legs; clearly my video skills need upgrading.

2) Also at the Crane, Jennie Thwing‘s somewhat mysterious video installation Catch My Legs at Nexus includes animation, photographs, sculptural installation and totally unexpected imagery. Socks are harvested from trees in the woods, where everyone seems ghostly. In another video, substantial socks slip across the screen and slither away. Birds are projected onto a suburban development–a relief of roof tops on the wall. Some of the footage is projected on a tent, reminding us of Kara Walker’s installation at the Fabric Workshop. Each video had a different affect, atmosphere and sense of place. The back story of a collective of women who harvest legs doesn’t really make this more understandable. What is clear is industriousness, the world of nature, the world of spirits and ghosts, and the world of people.

Some of the footage was inspired by the death of her grandfather.

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 will honor and support Mazzoni Center, a local organization that administers medical care to the LGBTQ community. Veit says the Mazzoni Center saved his life when he almost died from HIV/AIDS in 2006, and this show—exhibited in the Crane Arts Building’s Ice Box—is his thank-you note.

Because many of the artists included care about the artist/curator and his cause, the caliber of work in the show runs high. Several of the best works were created specifically for the event.

“HeartWorks” is a big show of small works. From jewelry and unique clothing to paintings, photos, sculpture, drawings and video, what you get ranges from the beautiful (Jack Pierson’s Cactus Garden photo and Virgil Marti’s darkly gorgeous Untitled white skull and mirror piece) to the funny (Dufala Brothers prints and the Alex Bag drawing) to heartfelt or existential works by Philly’s own Zoe Strauss, Shelley Spector, Gabriel Martinez, Eileen Neff, Alex Da Corte and lots more.

View looking from Cabin 1 through to Cabin 2 and 3 of the nice installation at the Icebox.

Veit built three little cabins in a row to house the silent auction works in Ice Box’s white whale of a space. It was a great strategy for small, medium and tiny works that would otherwise be swallowed up in the vast Ice Box. The art hangs in the chambers according to a timeline that reflects Veit’s friendships and influences.

The festive little cabins seen from the outside. Plywood with a cloth scrim around them and lights behind the scrim. They remind me of a tent community in the desert.

The journey begins in Cabin 1 with works by early influences such as his sister, cousins, and high school and college friends. Cabin 2 holds works by friends from his desert home in Joshua Tree, Calif., while Cabin 3 displays art created by more recent friends and artists he met in conjunction with the show.

Alex Bag’s Noli Me Tangere (Heathus/Mary-Kadalene), part of the live auction and made specially for the curator.

The live auction pieces hang outside the cabins on the wall behind the auction stage. (Celebrity auctioneer Alasdair Nichol of Antiques Roadshow presides over Saturday’s auction.)
Don’t miss show-stoppers like Alex Bag’s old master-sendup drawing Noli Me Tangere (Heathus/Mary-Kagdalene) depicting a Saint Heath Ledger and sinner Mary-Kate Olsen. Bag doesn’t make a lot of drawings, but she created this one for Veit for the show.

Jeni Spota’s Giotto’s Dream, for Chris, made for the curator for this show.

Anne Magnuson’s faux Basquiat painting (top of post) with Philly references to cheesesteaks was also made specifically for this event. Chicago artist Jeni Spota, known for her cake-icing-thick paintings and miniaturized depictions of biblical scenes, pulled out the stops in a work titled Giotto’s Dream, for Chris.

In the first cabin, jewelry by the Curator’s sister, Missy Singley and a digitally altered photo by Veit, himself. There’s lots of photography in the show.

Red-hot photographer Ryan McGinley, also a friend of Veit’s, donated an energetic photo of a nude roller skater, a celebration of skin and youth from his ongoing project documenting carefree, naked young people. Andrea Zittel, friend, neighbor and hiking buddy of Veit’s, donated a starburst painting on birch plywood that’s reminiscent of the colors, intensity and mesmerizing atmosphere of the desert. (This is the high-priced ticket at live auction, with the minimum bid at $15,000.)

Veit says art enthusiasts are coming to the auction from all over the country and that interest is high on many of the works. So, many donated so much and with such love that “HeartWorks” is already a success even before the gavel strikes.

>>HeartWorks Exhibition, FREE through April 25.  Crane Art Center, Icebox Project Space, 1400 N. American St.  Gala and art auction, Sat. April 26.  $125 per couple; $75 per person; $35 artists/under 30.  Tickets for gala/auction at inliquid (click buy tickets) or Wilma Theater Box Office, 215 546 7824.

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.