Tag Archive "philadelphia-art"

Growing toys for growing boys at Bambi

Terrence LaRagione, Ruminations, oil on panel Some of the toys in Terrence LaRagione’s paintings in “Some Assembly Required” at Bambi have gone retroactive and nearly radioactive. This latest outing by LaRagione takes on the charm of old-fashioned comics, thereby transforming the hyperlit toys into something slightly sinister against dark, oily, old masters backdrops. Think early Disney meets Rembrandt here. Terrence LaRagione, Have No Fear, oil on panel Yet the work is not too scary to put in a kid’s room. It’s almost like LaRagione has captured the creepiness of the Teddy Bear’s Picnic, without losing the hug factor. Terrence LaRagione, ... More » »

Print Center curator named

The Print Center has named John Caperton its new curator of prints and photographs (isn’t that all they show there, anyway?), starting Sept. 5. John’s previous experience includes Locks Gallery and the Fairmount Park Art Association. I think this is really good news!

Surfing sofas and other ideals by John Lightfoot Greiner

The sofa at the end of the hallway is a video projection that’s part of a larger installation by John Lightfoot Greiner I didn’t take off my shoes when I saw the sand. It covers the floor of a long, narrowing hallway that ends in a pink/lavendar glow of light, in one of John Lightfoot Greiner’s installation at Flux Space. Down where the glowing is, a sharp left turn reveals a sofa projected on the wall, bouncing up and down. (I could swear the sofa was a generic orange-brown, the sort of color you see in some student living space, ... More » »

Look! at the Book of War in the peace of the PMA

Click To Play We love the Indian miniatures we’ve been seeing in Gallery 227 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, so when we saw the gallery now had The Book of War: The Free Library of Philadelphia’s Mughal Razmnama Folios, we had to pay a visit. The 25 book pages on display are elaborately illustrated folios are from a single Mughal manuscript, the Razmnama (literally, “Book of War”), dated to 1598–99. While we were there, PMA Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art Darielle Mason showed up and explained to us (and to you too if you watch this episode) just ... More » »

Threats and escape–Kirk Hiatt at EXIT

Kirk Hiatt, It Acts Like a Weed, marker on paper There’s science fiction, with the stress on fiction, and then there’s science fiction with the stress on imminent fact. The future is all too near and all too scary in Kirk Hiatt’s one-man show at EXIT Philadelphia, a skateboard shop in Fishtown. Kirk Hiatt, We Dine, Bic pen on paper This is work with a sidewinder punch that lingers after the fact. I know there are lots of young artists worrying about what’s happening to our planet and creating art work about it. But what Hiatt does is push the ... More » »

X marks Andrew Jeffrey’s Wright’s spot in Juxtapoz

I was browsing in my son’s favorite comic shop, Rocketship, in Brooklyn on Smith Street. Every time I go in there I end up dropping a little dough–really my son drops it, showing a tender and generous streak that always surprises me just a little. This time I picked up the August issue of Juxtapoz, and thumbing through, I found Space 1026er Andrew Jeffrey Wright featured in a two-page Showstopper spread. The reviewer admired a wall-sized “rainbow/psychedelic/zig-zag “X” canvas, which sounds sort of like this small work on paper also by Wright. The Juxtapoz item was really more a story ... More » »

Three in one

Sometimes Roberta and I joke about who we’d put together in a show. Between my last post and first Friday, I’ve been thinking about this little group: Multiple contributors to Staring Therapy, an installation at Space 1026. At the Staring Therapy exhibition we saw at Space 1026 Friday, Toronto artists Victoria Kent, Seth Scriver, and Sandy Plotnikoff displayed works they gathered by sending out a pre-recorded phone message to friends and contacts around the globe. People responded with small artworks and found objects, which formed an installation to be viewed through specially decorated Staring Tubes. The pedestal-top arrangements of kitsch, ... More » »

Piles of art

Mars the Red Planet, 1988, Plastic toy flamingos, barbie doll, fluorescent light, chalk, xerox, arches papaer, synthetic polymer with sparkle, oil stick, pastel; ensemble set on formica covered trapezoid wood base, 82 1/2 x 44 x 12 (artist’s comment: this sculpture relfects my fear of an impending nuclear holocaust).Tom Kerr and Donna Martorana are sitting on a pile of art. It’s not even theirs. It’s the work of Mildred Elfman Greenberg, an artist with three works in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (here’s a post about her by Martin Bromirski at his blog, anaba). Quartet: Ice Age ... More » »

New Art Billboard on 11th St.

On the way back to the car after making the First Friday go-rounds in the Chinatown corridor (Copy, Vox, Space 1026) I noticed the Art Billboard sporting a new image — something distinctly different from the previous realist images up there (by Ruth Thorne Thomsen and by Thomas Chimes). Anyone with the inside scoop please stand forward and deliver the news on whose work it is. I like this because it reminds me of sky writing and of the ubiquitous jet trails you see in the sky. And I like it also because it made me wonder for a moment ... More » »