6 best shows of 2010 that we saw:
Mika Rottenberg @Mary Boone
Paul Outlaw and Jennifer Catron’s The Honeymooners @Grizzly Grizzly
Value City @Little Berlin
Failure to Show @Extra Extra
Philagrafika @Temple Gallery (especially for Heavy Industries)
Bauhaus @MoMA

Derek Frech RGB Cube iRL projection, wood, in Value City at Little Berlin. (It's the opposite of James Turrell)

Explorer extraordinaire award
Duke Riley kayaks on the Delaware to Petty’s Island and produces one of the best Philagrafika shows, at the PA Historical Society.

Photo by Duke Riley of his King of Petty Island commemorative seal atop a Citgo tank there. The island is owned by Citgo which is owned by Venezuela.

Can’t believe it’s over award
Zoe Strauss’ Under I-95 exhibit

Picture stalkers bringing home the goods at 4:01.

Snark and Mirrors Award
“The Art of the Steal.” Lies with high production values and Friends of the Barnes propaganda.

Crowd watching The Art of the Steal on the big screen tv in the Piazza

Major Leagues Award
Huff Post names Julian Hoeber’s Hammer Museum show to its top 10 art shows, a list that includes Tino Sehgal, Marina Abramovic, John Baldessari, and Christian Marclay. Hoeber, who works in LA, comes from Philly.

Julian Hoeber, Demon Hill 2010 Mixed media installation. Courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles. From http://hammer.ucla.edu/

Mother Theresa Award
Marianne Bernstein for respect and help to the homeless in Dilworth Plaza, where she curated Philadelphia Underground video show (one of the videos shown below).

Katya Gorker, Starts

Tempest in a Teapot Award
False internet rumor accuses Arcadia Works on Paper biennial of dirty pool and pisses off the masses. Here’s the truth on audio.

Community meeting at Little Berlin, to clear the air of foul play rumors

Best Helpers Award
Hooray for our interns–Tiernan, David, Emily, Becca, Catherine, Chip, Clarissa, Kathleen, Erica, Jayne, Cari, Jennifer, Montana, and all the interns who have helped us cover the scene this year. Some of them are still writing for us.

Gross Oversight Award
Whitney Biennial passes on Philly artists this time. What the hell!

Our Pew Wish List.
Even though the nominators identities are secret, we like to think they read artblog. So here is our wishlist for the Pews:
Tim Eads
Jayson Musson
Jennie Thwing
Bohyun Yoon
Leslie Rogers

Tim Eads' painting machine "spray" painting stripes on a building

Bohyun Yoon's shadows animate his studio wall.

PuppeTyrany at Vox Populi, Leslie Rogers and Zack Paladino performing the sexy-weird Mouth Theatre piece

Wish we’d thought of it first award
Wine flowing from the kitchen tap in Paul Outlaw and Jennifer Catron’s tricked out kitchen installation. It went perfectly with the cupcakes and the bickering,

Jennifer Catron and Paul Outlaw's Honeymooners installation with wine in the kitchen tap

Irrelevancy award
Bravo’s Work of Art. In spite of the local connection, that would be Abdi Farah, who won the goods and went on to a solo show at the Brooklyn Museum, there was no reason to watch.

Abdi Farah, painting from his senior thesis exhibition at Penn in 2009

Theoretical Award
Machete (goes the extra mile with its reading group, attended by dozens of  local theory-hungry people)
AWRG

How Much is That Doggie in the Window Award
Matt Savitsky’s sexy puppy performance in the window at Bodega

Matt Savitsky's puppy in the window performance at Bodega

Best aluminum foil installation
Tyler Kline’s maze reinvented the art space at Little Berlin

Tyler Kline's inventive aluminum foil walls, at Little Berlin, Oct. 2010

New galleries rising
Extra Extra
Jolie Laide Gallery opens
Great and Terrible Collective
Vwvoofka
Bodega
Heavy Bubble
We know we’re missing a few, so add them to the comments, gang!

Bodega, a new performance and exhibition space on 3rd St. in Old City. Emily Rooney and Strauss Bourque-LaFrance

Invisible Man award
What happened to Jayson Scott Musson’s Hennessy Youngman stand-up comedy videos this month at Sande Webster Gallery? We hear she was worried about the content, then changed her mind, but no videos. Instead he’s showing paintings.

The No-Award Award
Whither the Wolgin Prize? The last one (and only one) was in 2009.

Ryan Trecartin, happy, after being awarded the Wolgin Prize, fall, 2009. No Wolgin Prize awarded in 2010.

Worth noting–City Hall gets a real art gallery this year; PEI gave away a cool $1 million; Knight Foundation commits $9 million over next three years; Pew grants disappointing if you’re a visual artist; Sue Spaid goes to Baltimore Contemporary Museum, and we’ll miss her; FPAA creates Museum Without Walls, first-in-the-city app tour of its public art collection; Sid Sachs’ Women of Pop show goes to Brooklyn Museum and Tufts–the catalog selected as a notable book of the year in New York Times.

Gary Steuer, Director of the city's Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy, speaking at the opening of the new art gallery in City Hall, June, 2010.

Knight Foundation's Dennis Scholl and Mayor Michael Nutter speaking at the launch of the 3-year, $9M Knight Challenge, Oct. 2010

Sue Spaid, standing in Caroline Lathan Staffel's piece, Abington Art Center. Former Art Center curator's on her way to Baltimore Contemporary Museum.

PAFA Curator Bob Cozzolino, left, and Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery Curator Sid Sachs, pictured at a recent artblog radio taping. Sid's Women of Pop show got deserved national recognition. Bob's Narcissus in the Studio is a highpoint this season.

A warm happy holiday wish from the artblog team, without whom this list would be impossible. So thanks to Andrea, our art historian in residence, to Beth the ad coordinator and so much more, to Kelani the tech wizard and so much more, to Peter Crimmins without whom artblog radio would drone on and on, and to all our wonderful contributors!

David Kessler's piece, The Voice of the Oracle of Neptune, our pick for best of show. That's milk spilling out of the Academy of Music Ballroom chandelier and flooding the room

We have to say that Marianne Bernstein, who curated the brief festival, is a wizard. When she arrived to install on Friday, it was filthy–it was the day of the week that the Center City District doesn’t clean there. Bernstein rounded up some of the homelss people who live there and for a small amount of money they cleaned it up. It looked, and smelled ok when we were there!

Katya Gorker, Starts

She also paid them a little something to help her with breaking down the equipment at the end of each night’s show. Bernstein, who had orchestrated the Welcome House in LOVE Park last year for Design Philadelphia, also had befriended that park’s denizens. “One guy [from LOVE Park] said when he saw the lights and the dancing and music, I knew you were there.”

We wondered about alcohol served in the public plaza. Bernstein said Margot Berg, the city’s public art director, smoothed the way for everything. All Bernstein had to do was get insurance.

Danielle Lessovitz's inverted reflection of the streetscape above.

Here’s the list of artists and below is the map in case you want to match what you saw where you saw it with a name.

1&2 Ricardo Rivera, Phoenix Redux (klip.tv)
3 David Dunn, Underground Video  davidthomasdunn.com
4 Katya Gorker Starts katyagorker.com
5 Danielle Lessovitz
6 Adam Carrigan, Conspexi, with Matthew Lyons music by Michael Barker
7 Peter Parker Brodhead, Sub-Mudane parkerism.com
8 Diedra Krieger, MoVid youtube.com/deea333
9 David S. Kessler, The Voice of the Oracle of Neptune dskessler.com/blog

Map of Underground Video festival in Dilworth Plaza, part of Design Philadelphia

The films were mostly about public transportation with a few about the city in general. And didn’t it all look great! The trains, the buses, the commuter lines, the hustle and bustle of getting where you need to go. Several of the films captured the romance of the city. David Kessler’s poetic milk-fountain chandeliers flooding the ballroom of the Academy of Music was a dreamy poem. The water beading up and dissolving Katya Gorker’s subway scene had the highest score for graphic impact as well as for its beauty–the watery dissolve was amazing to watch. Projecting against the tiles proved more daunting for most of the other artists. Danielle Lessovitz’ video caught the street-level world inverted in the subterranean netherworld, where rules of physics break down and magic rules. Adam Carrigan’s tease of a striptease in a back alley, although it didn’t go anywhere, did capture the secret dreaminess and historic aura of the city’s back alleys–something essentially Philadelphia.

Adam Carrigan, Conspexi, video, with Matthew Lyons music by Michael Barker

Kudos to Marianne, and to all the artists. We need more temporary public art to freshen the city and introduce the public to unusual contemporary art usually not seen by most folks because it lurks in galleries where most folks don’t go.

Map of Underground Video festival in Dilworth Plaza, part of Design Philadelphia

The 6-year-old festival, co-founded by Hilary Jay and administered by the University of the Arts, has had its ups and downs—losing its affiliation with Philadelphia University only to find a new home at UArts, known for its industrial-design programs focusing on sustainability. Last year, DesignPhiladelphia had 135 exhibitors, and this recession year Jay expected half that turnout—only to have the number of exhibitors go up, with the added bonus of finding a sponsor in Philadelphia’s new art czar, Gary Steuer, and his Office of Arts and Culture.

Here’s a look at one of the Design Philly standouts: the nocturnal public-art venture Philadelphia Underground Video Installation (Oct. 8-11). This temporary program of moving images projected on the bare walls of the pedestrian concourse under Dilworth Plaza near City Hall is a refreshing new way to paint a mural on the city’s walls.

Cellphone video submissions by subway riders organized by Diedra Krieger will be projected large in Dilworth Plaza concourse as part of Philadelphia Underground video festival.

The underground installation was organized by Marianne Bernstein, who during last year’s DesignPhiladelphia festival curated the Welcome House (a 10-by-10 glass-walled structure erected in Love Park for a couple of weeks in which various artists, passers-by and park denizens made art), and she’s clearly a woman with a vision and an ability to get things done—even getting the city to approve their underground opening party (Oct. 9, 7-10pm) under City Hall, which will be hosted and emceed by Dave P, founder of Making Time.

As for the video pieces themselves, Diedra Krieger’s citizen-participation piece MoVid gathers cell-phone videos made by SEPTA commuters documenting the city’s underground caverns, screechy-braked subway cars and people of all shapes and sizes. Low-resolution cell-phone videos take on a pointillistic cast when blown up on the wall—dots of light and color up close resolving into an image at a distance — moving Seurat pictures if you will.  One clip captures a man eating a bag of sunflower seeds and spitting out the casings around him—anyone who rides the train regularly is familiar with the aftermath, but it’s fun to see one of the culprits on candid camera.

Still frame from David Kessler's video imagining a milky fountain in the Academy of Music ballroom

David Kessler’s video near the waterfall fountain superimposes footage of the industrial concourse space itself with scenes of the opulent interior of the Academy of Music ballroom, with a waterfall of milk showering down from its crystal chandeliers, a contrast to the blue water in the City Hall fountain.

Other participants showing videos or image projections include Ricardo Rivera, David Dunn, Katya Gorker, Danielle Lessovitz, Adam Carrigan, Peter Parker Brodhead and Group Exhibit.

The Underground Video Installation is just one of dozens and dozens of mostly free exhibitions, events and installations that are part of DesignPhiladephia. Don’t miss the exhibit of Philly-made design objects on display at PhillyWorks at Penn’s School of Design for the whole festival, and think about taking advantage of the more serious parts of the festival. There’s opportunities to visit architecture and design studios and go to lectures about design—and the town hall meeting (Oct. 12) on moving from talk about sustainability to actually doing something about it could actually be not only interesting, but important for the city’s future.

Read this article at Philadelphia Weekly.

Charles Ritchie, Night II, 1997-1010, printed by Jim Stroud, Center Street Studio, Milton, MA, published by Center Street Studio, One of 10 artist's proofs, ed. of 50, 2007.2.1, soapground aquatint and mezzotint with handworking including scraped highlights and painted gouache and watercolor additions on Somerset paper, image 11 7/8 x 15 3/4 inches on sheet 17 7/8 x 22 7/8 inches

Imagine my shock walking into Gallery Joe and seeing all the works hung salon style in the front gallery–a small explosion of art–and then seeing a color-rich cosmic explosion of a sound-and-video installation with lots of plexiglas, in the vault.

The exhibits Prints by Gallery Artists and big bang are certainly atypical of this gallery, which generally does not show prints or video and which usually limits the size of the shows to allow for eye-level hangings around the spaces, the better to show off the meticulous drawings that are the gallery’s bread and butter.

Installation shot at Gallery Joe, with prints by Astrid Bowlby (two on top right), by Jeanne Jaffe (below) and two by Mary Judge (to the left).

Owner Becky Kerlin asked her gallery artists to contribute prints, if they had any, and they did. The resulting exhibit, while surprisingly populous, is consistent and excellent.

The big surprise for me seeing a Charles Ritchie print with lots of red in it. The Ritchies I have seen at Gallery Joe have been wonderful black and white suburban noir drawings filled with portents. The red suggests infrared night-scope goggles and surveillance. Now that is triple-portentious!

Among other work I was especially taken with was an early Lynne Clibanoff print. Although it precedes in date her constructions, it looks a lot like them. The off-square perspectives have a hint of Constructivism.

Martin Wilner, Journal of Evidence Weekly Vol. 138, 2008, printed by Amber McMillan, Post Editions, Brooklyn, NY, edition of 100, book closed 6 x 3 3/4 x 3/4 inches, opened: 112 inches

I also want to give shout outs to a print version of a Martin Wilner fold-out journal (OK, so it looks exactly like the hand-done versions and I do like the hand ones better) and an early Stephen Robin series of autobiographical cartoons of himself as Every Shlub facing the ladies (OK, so I think I saw this before somewhere, but I still liked it, maybe because it’s so Stephen).  Marilyn Holsing’s feminist versions of a young Marie Antoinette, with their tongue-in-cheek reference to kitsch illustrations, are also pretty terrific!

Marilyn Holsing, Young Marie Casts a Shadow, 2007, edition of 10, commissioned by Philagrafika, printed at Silicon, Philadelphia, digital print on archival 100% rag paper, image 16 x 13 inches, sheet 18 x 15 inches

The show is filled–literally–with works that look a lot like the drawings and other non-print work the same artists show at the gallery. The hanging has an ebullience plus some savvy pairings that make everything look great. Hey, I even admired a Christine Hiebert, whose work is a taste I haven’t quite acquired yet. Others in the exhibit are Emily Brown, Sharon Louden, Winifred Lutz, Rob Matthews, Linn Meyers, Kate Moran, Samantha Simpson and Mark Sheinkman.

Adam Carlton Carrigan, bang, in the big bang installation, .5 x 7 feet, wood w/ etched hexagonal plexi

The cheek-by-jowl display almost prepared me for the ambitious big bang installation by Adam Carlton Carrigan in the vault. The video, with an original–terrific–musical score by Thomas Roland,  is movie-theatrical. Carrigan projects it through a plexiglas-paned geodesic dome that reminds me of the panoramic windows of an air-traffic control tower, and the view to outer space from the captain’s chair on the Starship Enterprise.

The windows and their ’50s vision of man looking out into the beginnings of the cosmos elevate the video, which seems pretty standard-issue big bang, or maybe the video is just overwhelmed by the marvelousness of the dome. Carrigan, who studied multimedia at UArts, has made music videos for a number of bands including Man Man, and that experience of music and performance is embedded in this installation. He also has shot and written for films in collaboration with Philly’s Liberian community, for screening in Africa.

Adam Carlton Carrigan, big bang installation, detail of the seven phases telling the story of the rise and fall of planet earth and man, .5 x 7 feet, wood w/ etched hexagonal plexi

Around the other walls of the room, seven small (13 x 13 inch) etched drawings on plexiglas that suggest philosophical, scientific, mathematical and cabalistic systems. Maybe they are charts for mapping humankind’s great escape. But the narrative seems to be about the failure of humankind, the failure of communication, and the failure of science. For all the beauty in the etched panels, they seem subdued in the light-show environment, which is unfortunate, because their content–a cosmology of sorts–suggests there’s something more going on here than just another light show.

I liked the daring here and the sound-and-light immersion experience. Although the elements here don’t quite gel, I’m looking forward to seeing more work from Carrigan, seeing where he takes this. This big bang was guest-curated by Marianne Bernstein, who brought the Welcome House to LOVE Park.

The print show is one of the independent projects of Philagrafika, and both exhibits run through this Saturday, Feb. 27.

Marianne Bernstein, one of the photos she took of people who participated in Shelter, which opens tonight at the Painted Bride.

Bernstein, who moved here from New Haven about eight years ago, has finally gotten her Philly sea legs; she’s now moving full steam ahead.

Just a little background first. Bernstein has had a career that has included film and photography in New York and then New Haven. She has worked as a commercial photographer for the Muppets, the Maysles Brothers and more. Esquire and the Atlantic Monthly published her work, and she has received grants from the Honickman and Leeway foundations, and was co-director (with Judy Gelles) and producer for the award-winning documentary “From Philadelphia to the Front.”

I spoke to Bernstein back in July, when Tatted–which documents some of the tattooed people she encountered on South Street–was in the middle of production.

“I’m Interested in people and their stories in whatever form it takes–photos, words, whatever.”
She wanted to photograph people on South Street, near where she lived. But she needed some kind of excuse for approaching people and decided on tattoos.

Marianne Bernstein, one of the images from her forthcoming book Tatted.

“I started about two years ago, and even in the last two years, saw a huge rise in the number of people with tattoos.

“When taking a picture, there are two dialectics, the tattoo and the person. There’s a duality. Heaven and hell, all the big themes, Blakian themes, on every person.

“I would walk along South Street and pick a person. They always said, yes. All the photos are taken on street level, right there. If you walk along South Street, there’s so much going on, the cars, the signs, the people. I’m a purist. I also have some commercial photography training. It helped because it was hard because of all the cars and crap.

“I couldn’t have done the series anywhere else. There’s a vibe there on the weekend. People aren’t in a hurry. They are completely open, and they are excited when I ask them. And then the veil got lifted [the public persona once she started talking with them and taking their picture].

Marianne Bernstein, the subject's tattoo reads Heaven.

“I really had to feel centered in order to do this. The interactions took no more than 5 minutes.”

Bernstein said she is pretty much self-taught, but clearly she knows a little of what’s what.

“Portrait of these kinds are not in vogue.  They remind me more of some old portrait photographs from the early 1900s.”

I asked, what do the photos remind you of and why. “August Sander. The subjects are in the frame, documented in some way.”

In the forthcoming book of these photos, the pictures are accompanied by notes the subjects wrote in a little book Bernstein carried around with her.

Marianne Bernstein--a portrait and explanatory note (by the subject) for the book Tatted.

LR: What did you ask people to write in the notes?
MB: I didn’t just want a literal description. I would tell them, this note is going right next to the portrait. What would you like to say? I found ways to be less and less direct about what could go in there. I got better at it.

LR: What kind of equipment do you use?
MB: I used to work in film 4 x 5, Hasselblad. But I switched to digital; I used a Canon 30D.

Doing the photos–it was almost like being an interior decorator, finding the background that would work with them, their clothing. I’d say, Let’s take a walk, and they’d follow me like ducks. Then I would calm down. I didn’t tell them how to pose. I just told them to relax as much as they can, and to look at the camera as if it’s someone you really care about.

Sometimes, it was so intimate. One of the subjects, Bobby Vanity–he’s going to be added to the book–is covered with tattoos. He’s charming. But the tattoos are all about Satan. He wrote in his note that God is Satan. Sometimes I was literally touching the tattoos and they let me! It’s almost as if people can put down their guard more easily with a stranger than with someone they know.

Marianne Bernstein in Love Park, during her Welcome House installation there.

Bernstein told a story about  a young man–skater, artist, homeless guy–who she met early one morning while trying to get a shot of South Street for the book. He’s going to be in the book and his drawings are going to be in the show at Gallery Joe.

MB: You never know how you’re going to touch people, and they’re going to touch you. The interactions are everything.

LR: Is there anything unique about Philly tattoos?
MB: Philly people use more words. It makes sense since the first printing press was here. In Hawaii, Anna (a local tattoo artist) told me people liked rainbows and fish for their tattoos, but in Philly, people like a lot of words. I made poems from the tattooed words on the people I photographed.

Maybe the tattoos here are so individualistic and artistic because more and more people graduate from art school and need a job, so they become tattoo artists.

Photo by Marianne Bernstein, part of her series of people and their tats on South Street.

LR: How do you pick what’s in the book?
MB: It’s a process of elimination. It’s important what goes next to what. It’ like a poem, an experience looking at them. Doing this is about piercing stereotypes (my own stereotypes, too). Like the Shelter project. I’m trying to go beyond my own comfort zone whenever I can. In the end you find people are pretty much the same.

LR: when you started, were you planning on a book?
MB: I did not go out and try to get a book. I met the designer–I walked into Silica Glass Gallery and saw a nicely designed book. I had been working with Ruth Perlmutter and the Jewish Film Festival, and their design stuff was not so good. So I called him about designing for the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival. So we became friends. He knew about my tattoo images, because he was with 215 magazine, it’s now only on the internet, which ran some of the photos. Then he began working for Grit City Books. Grit was doing a Philly related series of books, all ending in -ed–Smoked, Tatted, Bounced (about Bouncers).
He asked if I was interested in doing a book and if I was still taking photos. I was.

I think it’s funny that all four people working on the project are Jews, and it’s about tattoos.

LR: Why is that funny?
MB: Jews are not comfortable with tattoos–concentration camp numers were tattooed on people, and also it’s against Jewish law.

Daniel Heyman's portrait of Lonnie Bowen, for the exhibit Shelter

Back to tonight’s show–another venture that brings artists out of their comfort zone, forcing them to confront the private lives of vulnerable people who are having a hard time keeping food on the table and a roof overhead. Shelter features the work of 17 Philadelphia artists–Phillip Adams, Marc Bernstein, Adam Carrigan, Joan Wadleigh Curran, Judy Gelles, John Broderick Heron, Daniel Heyman, David Kessler, Dierdra Krieger, Danielle Lessovitz, Damon Reaves, Ricardo Rivera, Nicholas Santore, Matthew Savitsky, Zoe Strauss, Katie Tachman, and Eva Wylie. They collaborated with 10 Philadelphia households whose homes were restored by volunteers from Rebuilding Together Philadelphia.

The exhibit opens 5-7 p.m.

Big news this First Friday: A new gallery, Marginal Utility , is opening in the Vox building. The six-story former factory building already houses Vox Populi , Copy , AHN/VHS , Progressive Sharing , Jeffrey Stockbridge Fine Art and Tiger Strikes Asteroid . With the addition of Marginal Utility on the second floor, the alternative art scene truly has a new center of gravity.

Ronnie Bass, still from The Astronomer, at Marginal Utility opening Nov. 6

Founded by Basekamp ’s David Dempewolf and Yuka Yokoyama —who also launched the recent art theory zine Machete—Marginal Utility has 700 square feet of space including a 500-square-foot gallery and a separate work space for artists in residence.

First up in the new space is “The Astronomer, Part 1: Departure From Shed , ” a nine-minute video projection and sculpture project by New York artist Ronnie Bass . The video—still in production—is a yarn about oppression and a better future acted out by a small cast which includes the artist. The piece is rooted in 19th-century French philosopher Charles Fourier’s writings on utopian societies.

Ronnie Bass, The Astronomer

Still images show the actors highlighted against a black background giving a sense of disembodiment and foreboding. Bass’ sculpture project, which will grow and change during the show’s two-month run, is a water fountain made with garage sale and dollar store 
purchases—highly un-utopian.

P. Timothy Gierschick, Golem, from his show at Tiger Strikes Asteroid

P. Timothy Gierschick ’s abstract paintings at Tiger Strikes Asteroid whisper like Morse Code tapping a quiet but insistent message. The works in ”Patch and Plot” subvert universal signs and symbols like rainbows and geometrical shapes twisting them into new designs that suggest something familiar without being clear. Is the rainbow edge around a cloverleaf pattern happy? Geirschick — a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid collective — uses spray paint, house paint, enamel and collage on found furniture, scrap wood and cardboard.

Daniel Heyman, from the Shelter show at the Painted Bride

From the impresario of ”Welcome House , ” the recent temporary public art project in Love Park, comes ”Shelter , ” at the Painted Bride Art Center . Marianne Bernstein , an artist and activist, organized the group show to foster a dialog between artists and the public about social issues. Before the show, 14 artists were paired with 10 Philadelphia families to make art dealing with issues of family crisis and homelessness. The photography, painting, video and drawings that resulted are art as social activism by artists known for great empathy in their art. Printmaker Daniel Heyman created word-and-image portraits of veterans in transitional housing. Ricardo Rivera of the Klip Collective made a documentary video of a dying and bedridden woman, Gloria, and her devoted husband.

Bernstein, a filmmaker and photographer, also has great empathy for people.  Her new photo book, “Tatted,” shows tattooed strangers she photographed in the alleyways behind the South Street tattoo shops.  The works capture the personalities of the tattooed men and women with great care and love. Tatted, published by Grit City Inc, launches Dec. 4 at Pure Gold Gallery.

Jeffro Kilpatrick's The Nearness of You, in the Creature show at Brave New Worlds

Need more Halloween imagery? Check out ”Creature Double Feature” at Brave New Worlds . The show features original works by 20 artists who are affiliated with the Philadelphia Cartoonist Society. Concetta Barbera and Christian Patchell curated the show which will have small scale prints, drawings and books at reasonable 
prices

Ronnie Bass: “ The Astronomer, Part 1: Departure From Shed ,” Through Jan. 10. Reception: Fri., Nov. 6, 6-9pm. Marginal Utility, 319 N. 11th St., second fl. 917.355.4487.

Philadelphia Cartoonist Society: “ Creature Double Feature ,” Through Nov. 25. Reception: Fri., Nov. 6, 6-9pm. Brave New Worlds, 45 N. Second St. 215.925.6525.

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!!!