Tag Archive "pafa"

News roundup for you

Sad News Walter Edmonds We are sad to bring you the news that Philadelphia Artist Walter Edmonds, 73, died of a heart attack on June 12th.

Tyler Kline – next up on artblog radio

Tyler Kline’s art is influenced by mythology, by community and by his childhood in the small town of Stone Mountain, GA, which was a pretty magical place to grow up in, with lakes and a pine forest and lots of heavy flowering magnolias and droopy weeping willows. A bit Southern Gothic to hear the young artist talk about it. Tyler graduated from PAFA with an MFA this spring. His work has been shown locally at Little Berlin, where he is a member, and at Rebekah Templeton and Vox Populi. He has made installations using sheets of aluminum foil and string; ... More » »

Weekly Update – Hiro-ism in Sakaguchi’s solo show at Morris Gallery

Bad things do not happen in Hiro Sakaguchi‘s world, but the threat of bad things is everywhere. Which is why it’s hard to see the Japanese-born artist’s depictions of violent nature and vulnerable humanity without thinking of the recent cataclysmic events in Japan. But the Philly artist’s works, now in the Morris Gallery at Pennsylvania Academy, are not meant to serve as direct social commentary. Rather, Sakaguchi’s drawings, paintings and sculptures are the musings of an outsider who sees the world, imperfections and all, yet accepts and loves it to death.

Studying the body, not just the figure – Anatomy/Academy at PAFA

By Kaitlin Kylie Pomerantz With little-seen gems from Philadelphia’s historic scientific institutions, as well as side-by-side art history ground shakers including Thomas Eakins’ Gross Clinic, Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase (no. 2), and Eadweard Muybridge’s early motion photographs, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art’s new exhibition, Anatomy/Academy, rephrases the dusty argument over the continued importance of human anatomy studies in art education while touching on a number of important sub-topics along the way. Rather than advocating a backwards or stodgy interest in the figure, this exhibition shows how the study of the human body progressed side by side with ... More » »

Narcissus in the studio at PAFA – embracing life, death and the figure

Bay area figure painter Joan Brown hugs a fish. Hans Weingaertner, a German-born transplant to the US, shows his naked reflection in the mirror on which he crouches–but keeps his fish out of sight. Narcissus in the Studio, an exhibit of portraits and self-portraits at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, is full of delights and surprises, fearlessly hung to show the many ways that portraits are about more than reproducing a face or even suggesting an identity, but that they can be about mortality; life with its woes and joys; and the mind.

Weekly Update – Fall roundup of maps, photos, artists’ self portraits and more

Hundreds of shows open in Philadelphia this fall, far too many to include in this short roundup. Six shows caught my fancy, but they’re just the tip of the iceberg. Nowhere at Arcadia (Sept. 23-Nov. 7. arcadia.edu)

PAFA’s Summer Surprises and more

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, in the past two years, has acquired work by five African American artists, four of them from the international and national art strataspheres. Their work looks spectacular in the show Summer Surprises, an exhibit that includes recent acquisitions of work by 11 artists, placing the 11 in the context of some earlier acquisitions also on display! The large contingent of artists of color working within yet challenging and stretching the academy’s reality-based tradition is the big news. The five with work acquired in 2010 and 2009 are Mickalene Thomas, Kehinde Wiley, Mark Bradford, ... More » »

Weekly Update – Warhol’s celebrity photos

Andy Warhol loved to take pictures of people, especially celebrities. Warhol was a potent combination of socially awkward and a voyeur; he killed two birds with one stone by frequently taking refuge behind a camera lens in social situations, and his prodigious output shows it: At the time of his death in 1987, the pop artist had amassed more than 60,000 snapshots and Polaroids of his social circle and celebrities.

Andy Warhol, the movie – the thingness of things

The last scene in Andy Warhol — the first documentary made about the artist after he died in February, 1987 —  is a close-up of Warhol talking while he’s having make-up applied by an assistant, presumably for a tv appearance although it’s not clear.   He’s having a conversation with someone off camera and he’s talking about make-up. Specifically, make-up that’s applied to dead bodies for a funeral.  As he talks, Warhol’s image begins to pixillate, growing more and more abstract as he says things like “Death can make you a star but if the make-up isn’t right, it’s all people ... More » »

Weekly Update – art list of summer, just do it

Art Gallery at City Hall The new 700 square ft. Art Gallery at City Hall — with high ceilings, fixed walls, and lots of natural light – brings art into the seat of power like never before.  The brainchild of Gary Steuer, head of the Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy, Art Gallery at City Hall lives at street level in Steuer’s new offices (near the Tourism office).  The gallery’s mission is to help arts organizations with their programs, thus “On the Rise” which opens tomorrow, has work by 12 artists from three non-profits – inLiquid, Center for Emerging ... More » »