Tag Archive "ppac"

News – Jason Lazarus, Knapp Gallery closing, Richard Torchia at CENTERpieces, and curators, curators, curators

News Jason Lazarus will take your unwanted photos Do you have photos that are too painful to keep around? If so, Chicago-based artist Jason Lazarus will take them.  He’s collecting unwanted photos for an art installation. There’s no need to provide the background for the photos, and if you feel they are too private to be shown, the artist will display them face down. Lazarus can pick them up on Sunday February 5 from 10 AM – 7 PM. E-mail him at jasonlazarus.photo@gmail.com or call 312-953-2885. Knapp Gallery closing Old City’s Knapp Gallery is closing up shop at the end of ...

Interview – Sarah Stolfa on making your own opportunity and printing for Zoe Strauss

For the Daily News article on the Philadelphia photography community I talked with a number of artists and others in that community. Here’s the first of several interviews I’ll put up in the next week or so. Others coming up are Martin McNamara, Stephen Perloff, Grisha Enikolopov, Al Wachlin, Jr and Harris Fogel.  Note: this post is a re-publish of one that was somehow vaporized in our recent blog transition. The day I talked with Sarah Stolfa of PPAC, their website had briefly crashed from all the traffic they were getting from Living Social, a coupon site, where they had ...

Group hug – Togetherness in Philadelphia’s photo community

Stephen Perloff is plugged in to Philadelphia’s photo world via his esteemed quarterly publication, The Photo Review. A self-taught photographer with a graduate degree in history, he made himself invaluable to photographers and photo lovers, covering all aspects of photography in his journal and turning that publication into a virtual Philadelphia photo center — a place to read about exhibitions; read interviews with artists; and find the latest opportunities. Perloff launched the Photo Review in 1976, and he characterized that era in Philadelphia as a golden age for photography. As for the current photo scene, “We’re getting back to the ...

Finding my inner Minimalist

I love taking photos–for better or for worse, usually for worse. But Philly Photo Day is an excuse to take pictures not to give information–my usual reason–but rather just to play. Here are some of the runners up from my day of photo-taking. As I went through the day, the photos get sparer and sparer. What I finally submitted for the exhibit, which is in its second year at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, is spare indeed. Here’s where I started. Not a good beginning.

News: West Collects (with the mayor), 3rd Ward in Philly,Tina Barney lecture and more!

News West Collection launches $300,000 art acquisition project–$100,000 set aside for Philly artists It was all about money outside City Hall the other day as Occupy Phladelphia protested economic issues; and it was all about money inside, too, when Paige West, with Mayor Nutter by her side, announced plans for a $300,000 arts acquisition project on the part of the West Collection, with $100,000 earmarked for Philadelphia artists. “West Collects” has no fee to apply, and the winners will be selected in April 2012. Any artists over the age of eighteen working in painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, installation or video mediums ...

Participate, activate, engage – programming is in the air!

Years after 1969′s Summer of Love, it’s the fall of power to the people. More than just looking, this season galleries, museums and alternative venues all over town want you to come in, hang out, eat, discuss, make, share, and generally become an active participant in what they’re doing. There’s no city-wide manifesto, and nobody organized this fall programming juggernaut.  Call it the influence of online social networking or the influence of foundations eager to fund socially-engaged programming. For whatever reason, the Philly art world wants You!

News and Ops: Norway->NYC, Red Scare lecture, Philly Photo day, and more

News Norway in NYC Following our last news post about Milwaukee in New York, now you can catch a piece of Norway too!  NORWAY NOW in NYC opens at .NO Gallery at 253 E. Houston on Sept. 7.  The multimedia exhibit mirrors Oslo’s annual juried art exhibition Høstutstillingen. The New York show had almost 600 submissions, but the jurors Koan Jeff Baysa and Omar Lopez-Chahoud narrowed it down to six artists. Opening reception is September 7 from 6 – 10 PM and the show runs until October 2.

A Love Supreme – hors d’oeuvres for the photo-seeking soul

A Love Supreme at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center provides a cross-section of photographers and techniques, as well as content that ranges from near-documentary to almost complete abstraction. It is a great sampling of images that whets the palate but leaves the viewer seeking more.

Weekly Update – Deconstructing image, Wall Space at PPAC

Virgil Marti’s sculptures “Night Watch” and “Vesper” stand like sentinels at the entrance to the Philadelphia Photo Art Center with a kind of haunted-castle grandeur. The 6-foot, 80-pound slabs are shaped like ornate mirrors one might find in Snow White’s stepmom’s bedroom; instead of glass and foil, though, they’re made of rough plywood plated in chrome. They reflect a dull sheen from a nearby window, but no clear images—it’s a standoff between viewer and mirror in which Narcissus loses, and a perfect greeting to Wall Space, a great little show about image.

Kensington ramble to Crane Arts, Little Berlin, Rebekah Templeton

It’s remarkable how much territory you can cover and art you can see in an afternoon, on foot, in Kensington. Here’s a sample of some offerings from my walk last Saturday afternoon.  I started at Little Berlin, where Landscape Techne, the group show curated by LB member Kristen Neville, suggests that no matter how electronically-or technologically-sophisticated we are as a society, artists will always have a need to create landscape imagery of some sort.