News Cue the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack: Ascot Studios, our banner sponsor from the UK, recently saw one of their artists ascend to fame in a way that can only be described as pure Hollywood, or perhaps Dickensian. A painting of New York by British artist Angela Wakefield on the front cover of national art magazine Art of England was spotted by film director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire), who was so taken that he asked Wakefield for permission for this image to be used in his upcoming film Trance. Since the news, Angela has achieved a record sale of $12,500 for one of her ... More » »
News Two on technology – 1. President of RISD John Maeda, featured in a Q&A in Thinking In Practice, the online magazine, says some interesting things about artists and the future. “Technologies are raw forms of enablement; art and design take those technologies and bring commercial and cultural relevance to them. Whether those technologies are an oil-based pigment that dries glossy, or a tubular form of steel that bends easily, or a mechanical platform with 4 tires, or a TV screen that lets you change more than the broadcasting channel, artists and designers are the ones who see the potential in these materials ... More » »
News This just in from Libby and Roberta — We learned today that Curator of Contemporary Art Julien Robson will no longer be at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts as of the end of the month. What’s next for the risk-taking curator who brought contemporary art from Philadelphia and the hinterlands into PAFA’s exhibition spaces? Other projects, he said, including bringing artist Mel Chin to “curated by-Vienna,” an international art exhibit in its fourth year. Julien was one of 25 curators invited to participate in the 22-gallery art festival, which opens Sept. 20, 2012. The show this year ... More » »
News Through the Heritage Philadelphia Program (HPP), the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage has awarded $766,325 to six local organizations, including two first-time grantees; the winners include the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, for their effort to revitalize the John Coltrane House in North Philadelphia, and the Mural Arts Program, for Structure and Surface, a community-based public art initiative about the history of Philadelphia’s fallen textile industry. The full list of grantees and descriptions of their projects is on the HPP site. The Brandywine River Museum is offering exclusive “Andrew Wyeth Experience Tours” on selected days in April and May. The studio where Wyeth worked, which has undergone ... More » »
On the way to Art Miami, held this year in the midst of a group of other fairs in Wynwood, across the bay from Miami Beach, I ran into Jayson Musson who was heading off to see a friend at Scope, one block south. Jayson had come to Miami to do Hennessy Youngman Presents: His History of Art at the NADA fair on December 1, and commented that the entry price to Art Basel Miami Beach was prohibitive. It was. I mentioned that those of us in Philadelphia wish him well, but also wish his descriptor, living in New York ... More » »
This year’s graduates of area BFA and MFA programs displayed their works all over town the last few months. The group exhibits showed the young artists to be continuing the trends we’ve seen now for a while: performance videos; videos in general; outsider-influenced drawing and painting; photos that play with concepts of reality; and finely-crafted sculpture (some of it made to look gloppy and not so finely crafted). Here’s a picture post for you, in case you missed the shows. We saw exhibits from: University of Pennsylvania, University of the Arts, Tyler School of Art, Moore College of Art and ... More » »
It can’t be easy to interview Jayson Musson when he’s in character –he’s a little slippery, actually a lot slippery. But art writer Brian Boucher is game in his delightful interview in Art in America online of the ever funny Musson as his alterego Hennessy Youngman. Check it out! By the way, we interviewed the real Jayson Musson for one of our artblog radio pocasts. Look for it on our radio page (nav bar at the top will do the job).
Our series sponsor is Fleisher Art Memorial. Locks Gallery is our episode sponsor. Profanity and insults are just distractions in Jayson Scott Musson’s posters, screeds and rants. The real message is the human comedy of rules, categories, identities, stereotypes, pretensions and social classes. In this interview he talks about trying to solve his problems as an artist and as an equal opportunity irritant to the politically correct. Musson has a solo show of his work at Marginal Utility Feb. 4- March 27, 2011. First, a short sample from the interview; and below that the full 12-minute episode. Right click to ... More » »
Jayson Scott Musson’s language-based art sometimes gets him into trouble. But that’s the whole point of the smart and edgy work by this astute social critic. Recently a gallery dropped a scheduled showing of Musson’s Art Thoughts video series, for its liberal use of the N word. We talked to Musson at his Fairmount apartment about his videos, his music and his art–and his frustration at sometimes being misunderstood. His solo show Neoteny, The Hard Sell opens Friday, Feb 4, at Marginal Utility. Below is a 39-second promo; hear the entire episode next Monday. Jayson Musson 39-second promo
5 Under 40, the show at Sande Webster Gallery this month, unsurprisingly consists of five artists under the age of 40. One of those showing his work, Philippe Jean, is also the curator of the show. The questions and practices asserted by these artists demonstrate both wry social criticism as well as strong visual references.
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