Tag Archive "fleisher-challenge"

Michael Konrad next Monday on artblog radio

Since Michael Konrad arrived in Philadelphia from New York, he has been walking the streets of our city, looking at the collapse of its ebulliant industrial past and the collapse of the meaning of words. He notices how people jury-rig ways to survive and mend what is broken. His artwork involves carefully stitching and fusing the city’s ditritus–plastic bags, old signs, and crumbling homes and factories into a personal survivalism. Konrad, who has an MFA (2005) and a bachelor’s degree from NYU (2001), showed in New York in Art in General in 2009. His Wind Challenge 2 exhibit at Fleisher ... More » »

Last chance–Fleisher Challenge

The best reason to see the first Wind Fleisher Challenge of this season (ends today) is Arden Bendler Brownings enormous abstract cityscapes.

Challenge 3–Tetsugo Hyakutake, Scott Kip, Brenna Murphy

My motives for going to see a Wind Fleisher Challenge have changed. I used to go to see work by emerging artists whom I either didn’t know or wanted to see more of. That’s no longer the best motive for getting me there, what with all the collective venues showing the cutting edge emerging work in town.

Relationships R Us in the Fleisher Challenge 3

Fleisher Art Memorial ends its season of Challenge exhibits with works that range from whimsical to nostalgic to earnestly activist.   The Challenge shows have always been three emerging artist solo shows in one but if you work at it you can see a common thread running through the works.  In this show, it’s all about relationships.

Interventions and displacements at Fleisher Challenge

Mark Khaisman’s packing-tape stills on light boxes. At what point, I say to myself, does an intervention or displacement of some sort become suggestive of something bigger than the mere act of creating a shift. That’s what I came away thinking about at the Wind Challenge Exhibition #2 at the Fleisher Art Memorial, which features work by Mark Khaisman, Kara Crombie and Hope Rovelto. Khaisman and Crombie are both doing something rather similar in a way–displacing and inserting something outside the normal context. Mark Khaisman Khaisman, who is known for his packing tape drawings of noir film stills, is pushing ... More » »

Weekly Update – Social commentary at Fleisher Challenge 1

This week’s Weekly has my review of Wind Fleisher Challenge 1 at Fleisher Art Memorial. Below is the copy with some pictures. More photos at flickr. And see our interview with Tim Belknap here. Tim Belknap’s hand-built ice cream truck with its pineapple greenhouse on wheels at the Fleisher Challenge. With the exception of shopping mall artist Thomas Kinkade, most contemporary artists have a complicated relationship with beauty. The artists of the first Wind Fleisher Challenge are no exception: None of their works could be considered beautiful by traditional standards. Solar panel on top of ice cream truck. The artist ... More » »

Tim Belknap’s Post-Apocalyptic Pineapple at Fleisher Challenge 1

Tim Belknap and Dream Come True, at Fleisher We’re big fans of Tim Belknap, one of the Belknap Brothers, whose performance at FLUXspace in 2007 we loved for its mesmerizing weirdness. So when he invited us for a gallery walk-through to see his installation at Fleisher, we couldn’t wait. Belknap is one of three artists in the first Wind Challenge exhibit this year at Fleisher Art Memorial; the others are Cheryl Harper and John Garrett Slaby. We’ll tell you about the rest of the show in another post. You’ll find our photos of the entire Challenge exhibition at Roberta’s flickr ... More » »

New Fleisher Challenge winners–plus money!

Timothy Belknap and his brothers plus a girlfriend on the drums (I’m not sure whose) performing at FLUXspace in June 2007. Fleisher Art Memorial‘s juried Wind Challenge Exhibition Series will be awarding the next batch of winners an honorarium of $1,000 each, the first time in its history, the program announced. This is great news and a swell way to celebrate its 30th anniversary (the first Challenge exhibits were in the 1978-1979 season)!!! The coming year’s winners for the ’08-’09 season are: Timothy Belknap, installationKara Crombie, videoCheryl Harper, sculptureJohanna Inman, photographyMark Khaisman, installationYvonne Lung, installationHope Rovelto, sculptureJohn Slaby, paintingConstantina Zavitsanos, ... More » »

Lots and lots of stuff at Fleisher Challenge 4

Shelley Spector, installation at Fleisher Challenge 4. Palms Open, oil, acrylic and enamel on wood and mixed. 28.5x8x34″ 2007Balls and Chain. oil on wood, paper and clay with chain. 14x14x34″ 2007Red Eagle, oil on paper, wood and clay and metal, 14x20x34″ 2008 Accumulations — of words, pencils, birds, people and memories sit at the table in the Fleisher Challenge 4 exhibit. The 3-person exhibit by Judy Gelles, Erica Zoe Loustau and Shelley Spector is by turns energetic, nostalgic and dreamy. Spector‘s mechanized sculptural objects made from scrap wood and found objects (or in several cases digital prints laminated onto objects) ... More » »

The American dream Dufala style

Billy Blaise Dufala and Steven Dufala Brothers and collaborators Billy Blaise Dufala and Steven Dufala have to be the two most unlikely PAFA grads ever. Their surprising art about the world around us–the homeless, bad taste and inflated lawn ornaments, the beauty of tools, and the dehumanization of the medical system and the body–is in this year’s Fleisher Challenge 3, up until Feb. 9. In the past, the Dufalas brought us toilet tricycles, a giant grater that looks like clumsy armor from a Monty Python skit, and a rusty dumpster with mendhi-like decorations and an upholstered interior. Each of the ... More » »