Itʼs always nice to walk into a minimal, simply curated show. I hate walking into a show that looks jumbled with too many pieces, or pieces that are too big for the space, etc…Grizzly Grizzlyʼs current show, Southern Cross, is a great example of how to curate a well balanced, comfortable show without overwhelming the space, allowing you to engage with the work in an uncluttered and personal way.

Gallery View

No doubt Grizzly Grizzly could be easily overwhelmed, as itʼs perhaps the smallest gallery in Philly, maybe 150 square feet at best. Still, despite the limited space, when a show is hung correctly and its curation is sound, the art is allowed to breath and a successful show is given life.

Southern Cross, the theme and title of the show, is a distinctive five-star constellation, visible year-round in the southern hemisphere. The five stars hang in a cross-like pattern. The show consists of five artists, each given a position in the gallery that represents one of the five stars. (The irony wasnʼt lost on this writer that they decided to present a show that alludes to a major star constellation that is probably billions of light years wide in a gallery smaller than a McMansionʼs coat closet!)

Chris Moss - "March Madness," 2011 - acrylic on masonite - 30 x 26 inches

Representing the star Mimosa is an excellent painting by Chris Moss. The picture depicts a loose pile of those cheap, plastic strings of multicolored flags youʼd see strung up in the parking lot of a car dealership, thrown into the hull of a dark wooden boat. The painting is really awesomely colored and painted flatly with a rich matte surface quality that would look great hanging over my couch – a proud addition of my art collection.

Matthew Fisher - "Below the Salt," 2011 - acrylic on canvas - 23 x 19 inches

Matthew Fisher’s cleanly painted “Below the Salt,” which hangs in for the star Gacrux, is an obsessively tight, well-crafted painting that seems to toy with a super-realist aesthetic. A lonely grass-like blade rises out of the sand on an eerie sunrise beach. The painting has a clean, well-balanced eggshell surface and radiates a lazy, calming, but strange light. The sand at the bottom of the picture is trippy and complex. I think much of its detail was applied with paint flicked with a toothbrush.

Rob Matthews - "Memorial," 2011 - Color pencil over ink wash - 8 x 6 inches

In for the star called Delta Cru is “Memorial,” a dark, smallish drawing by Rob Matthews. Based on a makeshift street memorial that the artist would pass on his way to work, the drawing depicts a crucifix leaning against a tree, with empty cans of Budweiser strewn around its base. The dark, somber scene brings pause, making you think of innocent youth snuffed out prematurely, like a best friend who has suddenly been lost.

Patrick Brennanm - "Montauk Discussion," (2009 - 2011) - Acrylic, Hand dyed silk, mylar, Paper, spray paint and popsicle sticks on Linen - 24" x 18"

The other two stars in the show include a sculpture by Stacy Fisher and a mixed media painting by Patrick Brennan. Fisher’s shiny black “Vampires from Mars” has a nice spatial presence and resembles some cylindrical core samples of oil or tar, bringing to mind the Mercury Rev lyrics, “Iʼm a vampire baby, suckin blood from the earth…” Brennan’s medium sized painting “Montauk Discussion” is aggressively textured with multiple mediums, including popsicle sticks.

Stacy Fisher (free standing sculpture) - "Vampires From Mars," 2011 - Hydrocal, spray paint, wood - 58" x 7 1/4" x 8 1/4"

All in all itʼs another enjoyable show at Grizzly Grizzly. The gaze-worthy show runs until Dec. 19.

Rob Matthews, The Hunt, graphite on paper

This new graphite drawings feature some stunning portraits of trees. The works are not about the trees or about nature at all, although the landscapes reflect mostly real places like Fairmount Park and Zion National Park. The trees — monumental, and placed squarely in the middle of the paper — are witnesses to acts that happen around them and sometimes involve them. Beer cans litter the foot of one tree, evidence of a party; a cat stalks a mouse at the base of another; a snake climbs up the trunk of yet another; and mysteriously, a group of 25 bats is nailed to one poor tree. A figure — the artist — stands in his underwear before one tree, a grimace on his face, a beer bottle in one hand. He is off-balance and looks like he’s seen those bats nailed to the tree; he might just lose his lunch, or breakfast or dinner. There’s been some trouble; and there’s more on the way.

Rob Matthews, The Composer 2009 graphite on paper 10 x 8 inches

We’re in the realm of Christian story-telling, fairy tales, and the movies, and nothing is totally apparent, with everything symbolic and portrayed as if a misty and metaphysical fog has descended onto the land.

I spoke with the artist at the gallery last week. Here’s some of our chat:

Roberta-Why are you working in ink now after working in graphite for so long?
Rob – Ink was a way to work faster and be productive….Also, things have to evolve. It was a kick in the pants in the studio. I was able to cycle through things (more quickly). I don’t have a level of expectations with this (the ink)…as I do with graphite.

Well, also, you must have some carpel tunnel from all the graphite drawings …
No, and no vision problems. As long as you stop drawing when you get a headache… That is what happens when you spend 70 hours a week with your eye two inches away from the paper…About ink, the question is how use the material to best express something.   You have a line that can be a wash…and you can re-arrange (the composition).

You’ve worked with ink before
I have worked with ink before. The Spontaneous Combustion drawings.

Do you consider the inks finished drawings or working sketches?
Some are sketches but some are fully realized (and they wouldn’t be in the show if they weren’t all complete drawings).

Rob Matthews, seals from Mason jars, drawn in ink and chalk

Tell me about the drawings in the seals — they’re different than the others, more painty, and folk-art like
The seals are from the backs of the Mason jar. I did rubbings of the (embossed seals) on the back of the jars. Mason jars are from Philadelphia. Also, it’s what you put moonshine in in East Tennessee [Matthews grew up in Tennessee]. Also it gave me a chance to paint a little more.

Your work seems very much about America, rooted in place (Philadelphia) and using the feel of Hudson River landscapes and sources like folk songs (Knoxville Girl).
Yes, it didn’t start intentionally but but became so…for example, The Dumbest Man series [landscapes focused on different cities in the US].  I got into early German art –those people were committed to their region. The Germans are rooted in their forest. I’m indebted to European art, influenced by it but formulated in an American way. For me to do other than what I do is disingenuous. Do you have an influence because it is…or because it validates what you think?

Rob Matthews, The Snake 2010 graphite on paper 10 x 8 inches

Your influences include the movies — Hitchcock, for one.
The Coen Brothers. The Coen Brothers once wanted to make a movie in Japan. I thought how can you do that…what you do is so American.

How about the role of photography in your work?
People ask why I work from photos. I do it to keep the emotions in check. It’s easy to be gestural and romantic…I don’t feel like manipulating (emotions).

Talk about collage. There are collage elements in the ink drawings. That seems radically new for you.
In Milan I saw the Raphael cartoon for the School of Athens–it’s a collage of little papers (drawings)! Collage is a way to work on large compositions…

Rob Matthews, Tree with Bats, 2009, graphite on paper. 25x21", detail - 25 bats nailed to a tree

If you’re going to get big and radical, how about color in your future?
I don’t think color’s going to get in it. I don’t have to do color with drawings. But paintings…you need to work with color. Somebody said that with color, it’s all about color and everything else is subsidiary.  I do want to keep doing landscapes. They go with thoughts of the future. I got a tablet (computer drawing tool) for animation. I want to make a ten-second animation.

Talk about this idea of the night of chaos and the aftermath.
After Knoxville Girl I had this bigger idea — bat hunting, but it’s more than about the hunt.   Everything happening…chaos, then everything coming together in the end. There are films that deal with that –American Grafitti, Dazed & Confused. Also the Passion Story…

How about the grey mist that sits over everything
I don’t want to content to be directly related in the way it’s made.

There’s only one figure in the show, The Composer (picture near top of post).
He’s about half way through his night [of chaos] and he’s had a rough night, wrestling with issues of existence and faith. The future will be fleshing out this guy. I know where this guy is going.

Rob Matthews – It fills us.  we arrange it, to June 26, Gallery Joe

Donald E. Camp, Man Who Hears Music, Andre Raphael Smith, Earth pigment and casein mono-print, 22” X 30”, 2006

I don’t want to say much more about the ideas in there (so many more I can hardly believe it) because if you go, the show will reveal itself to you in ways you won’t expect. And you should go.

Here are some more reasons why:

Photographer Donald Camp’s elemental, giant portraits of African American men dominate the show. If you have never seen these one-offs printed with earth and casein, you owe it to yourself to see them now. These portraits tell a tale of self-invention and gravitas that overwhelms the popular culture’s focus on African American men as gangsters and gangstas. Camp is a former photographer for the Philadelphia Bulletin who manages to indict even the crappy newsprint and its quick and dirty printing methods in these masterpieces of material and social depth.

James Mundie, Portrait of a Big-fingered Boy, Pen and ink, 8” x 6”, 2004

James G. Mundie’s small ink drawings of circus freaks–another group of outsiders reimagined, dignified, and preserved by portraits that borrow art historical compositions–stand up well, even next to Camp’s gorgeous ultra closeups. Mundie and Camp are both on a mission to reestablish into the mainstream the rejected, without tampering with the subjects’ self-images and their control of their own destiny.

Matthew Fisher, The Ocean, Pencil on paper, 10 1/4” x 9 1/8”, 2009

Two other drawing wizards–Matt Fisher and Rob Matthews–are still more reasons to see this exhibit. Fisher’s 18th Century soldiers are vulnerable and awkward, even when they cavort or daydream. The delicate drawings are everyman in costume, playing a role and yet not quite inhabiting the clothes,  adult boys who are confused about how they could possibly be who they are and where they are–models of self-doubt as modern as they are antique. The deadpan drawings are delightful and quite like the soldiers–dreamy storybook figures that leap off the page into your heart.

Rob Matthews, Steve, Graphite on paper, 9” X 9”, 2008

In contrast to Fisher’s figures who exist as universal soldiers of any time, Rob Matthews’ portraits are documents of this time–ordinary family and friends depicted with art historical allusions that preserve the subjects in the continuum of history, that place them in that collective memory that erases most mortals in a couple of generations. Matthews said he thinks of these as memorials, and therefore has written on the back the subjects names and particulars. The context of this show highlights all the thinking and complexity that has gone into this seemingly deadpan take on social circumstances that nearly consume individual identity.

Joshua Mosley, Commute, Still image from mixed media animation, 2003

Out on his own moon, Joshua Mosley’s claymation cyber-video Commuter uses the cell phone as the opening metaphor for journeying beyond concrete physical circumstances to some place in the imagination or the mind. The mind’s world here is futuristic, an adventure down the wormhole of technology where physical and genetic facts seem almost beside the point! The journey is playful, defying nature, gravity, and other limits–and highlighting how technology is a magical mystery tour where we can escape who we really are where we really are.

Laura Graham, Forrest, 40” x 60” inches, Archival pigment print from 4x5 film, 2006

In the context of these complex works, Laura Graham’s large, introspective photos of women seem too large, their hints of psychological depth and mythic underpinnings not fully realized.

Beautiful Human, curated by Shelley Spector, is up to Oct. 9, 2009.Bea

Rob Matthews, Light Dream, 2003. One of two drawings the artist put out on the street last night, free for the taking--you just have to find them.

By 10:45 pm last night one of the drawings had been nabbed.   But as of this morning I think the other one is still out there looking for a home.  Rob’s got a couple treasure maps ala google satellite on his blog of where the telephone polls are.  Good luck!

Kehinde Wiley, The Veiled Christ, 2008, Oil on canvas, 82 x 216 inches (208.3 x 548.6 cm), Source Imagery: Giuseppe Sanmartino

Petah Coyne at Galerie Lelong

Detail of Allesandra Exposito decorated horse skeleton.

ROB MATTHEWS

Rob Matthews
The artist’s cousin (Dan), graphite on paper

Rob Matthews has his solo debut in New York at Daniel Cooney. Show, titled Kindred, opens Sept. 11 and runs to Nov. 15. Matthews is a formidable Philadelphia blogger as well as being a fabulous artist who shows locally at Gallery Joe.

ZOE STRAUSS

Zoe Strauss’s new book, America. We love the American flag reference in the carpeted steps.

Zoe Strauss has her second New York show Nov. 22 – Jan 10 at that fabulous photo gallery, Silverstein, working title “We Love Having You Here.” She’s also got a new book out, America, which is in production and can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com. Zoe says the book will be available in all bookstores, mid October… pre-election.

MARK SHETABI

Mark Shetabi. Caspian Sea Hilton, oil on linen. 2008. 20 x 30 inches

Mark Shetabi’s second solo Jeff Bailey show runs Nov. 13-Dec. 20. The artist will have new paintings and sculpture — a suite of things based on the cult of charisma in music (think Freddie Mercury) — all as a metaphor for polical charisma. Why is it fine to have charisma in music and scary to be charismatic in politics? There will be a peephole piece. and the whole thing will be theatrical. Shetabi told us about the Bailey show while in the midst of installing a different suite of his works for a show opening Sept 11 at Tufts University Art Gallery. “Empire and its Discontents” is a group show with artists talking about empire, including Marjane Satrapi (author of Persepolis) and more. The show’s curated by Amy Schlegel and Rhonda Saad.

AMY S. KAUFFMAN AND JOHN FREEBORN

Amy S. Kauffman’s little boats from folded Trident gum wrappers as seen at the Philadelphia Art Institute, student-curated show re-construction, 2006.

Art power couple Amy S. Kauffman and John Freeborn are in a group show, Panorama 3, at the ultra-hip Jonathan Levine Gallery in NY. The show, organized by Jordin Isip and Rodger Stevens, runs Sept. 6-Oct. 4, 2008 with a reception Saturday, Sept. 6, 7-9 pm. This show’s gimmick is each artist puts the work on a 4×6″ wood panel on which a horizon line has been drawn at the same place on each board. The show will be hung with all the horizon lines lined up around the room.

Kauffman also has two more shows this month, a solo at Lump Gallery in Raleigh NC and a group show, Big Kids, Little Kids, based on Freeborn’s book, in Houston.

REBECCA SAYLOR SACK

Rebecca Saylor Sack.
Untitled (red), 2008
Oil on canvas
24 x 28 inches

Rebecca Saylor Sack debuts a solo show of her luscious expressionist landscapes at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery. The show, titled Breaker runs Sept 4-Oct. 5 with a reception Sunday, Sept 7, 4-6 pm. Saylor Sack wrote that a bunch of the Lower East Side galleries will be having their openings Sunday, September 7th– so should be much fun.

ASTRID BOWLBY

Astrid Bowlby.
7.10.07 (Variegated spirals)
2007
ink on paper
22 x 18 inches

Astrid Bowlby’s in a great group show, Drawn to Detail, at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts between August 30, 2008 and January 4, 2009. Bowlby, like Matthews, is part of the Gallery Joe stable.

The exhibition features artists: Alice Attie, Astrid Bowlby, Jim Dingilian, Jacob El Hanani, Dave Eppley, Tom Friedman, Darina Karpov, Laura Kim, Ricardo Lanzarini, Martha Lewis, Cynthia Lin, Marco Maggi, Louise Marshall, Jane Masters, Julie Mehretu, Tadashi Moriyama, Mary O’Malley, Carol Prusa, Jessica Deane Rosner, Andrea Sulzer, Kako Ueda, Julia von Eichel, Rachel Perry Welty, David Omar White, Martin Wilner, and Daniel Zeller.

In the middle of artist Matt Fisher‘s talk last week, I thought, gee, this is interesting. So I pulled out a pad and started taking notes.

Matt was speaking at Untitled, Jenny Jaskey Gallery‘s brand new forum on contemporary art that she hopes will help “people to appreciate (and buy!) contemporary art (and works made locally!),” Jaskey wrote us in an email.

This first event, organized around her current exhibit The Drawing Narrative, featured talks by Fisher, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Curator of Modern Art Robert Cozzolino, and Gallery Joe Director Rebecca Kerlin. The event drew in more than 100 people at the gallery, and they gamely stood through the whole thing or sat on the floor. Somehow, the standing made the contact between the speakers and the listeners more intimate–and also may have shortened the comments, which meant things moved along quite nicely.

By time I got my pen rolling, Matt Fisher was nearly done, so I don’t have much of what he said. He did say that although his work is narrative and the narrative is not the main reason for his making the art. “There’s enough openness for the viewer to fill in exactly what they want,” he said. He also said he thinks of himself as primarily a painter, and his drawings supported his paintings.

Rubens Ghenov, “An Unpruned Vine, A Lonelier Monk,” Sumi ink, Charcoal and graphite on paper; image taken from matthewstheyounger.blogspot.com

I did get many of the things Becky Kerlin said. Kerlin’s Gallery Joe shows mostly works on paper, and Print Center Curator John Caperton said this about her earlier this year in an interview: “Another person I admire is Becky Kerlin [at Gallery Joe]–she found a niche and operates in that niche that she’s really excelled at. They do great shows. If you bought one piece from each show, you’d have an amazing collection!”

After giving tribute to Anne d’Harnoncourt (see post on her death), Kerlin said, “As I learned the business, I began seeing I was more in tune with drawing [than other art forms]. …I think it has something to do with being the daughter of an architect.”

Kerlin said she grew up with a house full of drawings, and switched her gallery to drawing in 1999, after seing a Mark Lombardi show at the Drawing Center. “If this is drawing, if this is art, then this is what I want to be involved in,” she recalled saying to herself. Drawing burst on the art scene as a field of its own in the ’90s, she said, partly because of the Drawing Center‘s presence.

Sixty percent of Kerlin’s sales are outside Philadelphia. She does one or two art fairs a year to get her artists out in the world and “to validate what I’m doing.”

Rob Matthews, The Great Disappointment #4, 2007, graphite on paper, 11×18.25, image–one of the images in The Drawing Narrative; image courtesy the artist

As for me, I say, Yo, Philly, what’s with you? Buy art and buy it here in town.

Cozzolino staked his ground as the de facto drawing curator at PAFA because he is the only curator there right now. That drew a laugh. When he landed at PAFA, he got thrown into the mission of creating an enormous works on paper show for the 200th anniversary of PAFA, showing work dating from the 1700s to the present from the collection. “I looked at every work the Academy owns on paper.” Here are links to our posts on the show:
libby’s post
roberta’s post

Cozzolino cited Alfred Stieglitz, who made no hierarchical distinction between drawings, sculpture and painting. “It’s the idea of the thing that matters.”

The delicacy of drawings, though, raise questions about how to show them without degrading them, and how much to spend on them. He’s been asked when proposing to buy a drawing, “‘Do we really want to spend $25,000 on a drawing we can only show every few years because of preservation issues?’ Or do we spend that much money on a painting?”

His own view is, “Go for the great object, no matter what medium it’s in.” He also said that we can’t look into the future and know what kinds of lighting and conservation advances will be made. Perhaps perservation will not be an issue. He did mention that PAFA will be looking for a way to cover the skylights in the historic building to protect drawings on exhibit.

Astrid Bowlby drawing

Cozzolino also talked about his personal taste. His first love was 15th century Flemish paintings. The 20th century works he loves now include symbolism, narrative constructivism and mystery–which all refer back to the Flemish work. He likes work that is visceral, creates its own parallel world, and is personal. He mentioned that Astrid Bowlby‘s and Rob Matthews‘ work both have that (Matthews is one of the artists in Jaskey’s The Drawing Narrative exhibit; the others, besides Fisher, are Holly Coulis, Rubens Ghenov, Ridley Howard, Robyn O’Neil and Charlotta Westergren).

The question and answer session brought up some other issues in drawing:

Question on validity of digital drawings
Cozzolino would include them as legitimate drawings. He referred to recent Pew winner Charles Burwell’s recent work using computers as an example. Fisher said he himself uses Google images to search, as part of his process. Kerlin held back a little, saying she hadn’t yet seen computer work that interested her, but that things in the last five years have gotten more interesting.

Charles Burwell, Flood, 21 x 21, archival digital print, created on the computer and shown in October at Bridgette Mayer Gallery.

Question on the seeming increase of interest in drawings
Kerlin suggested that it may have had to do with the influence of cartoons. “I have a son, a drawer. And he is not alone. …There was a tremendous amount of stuff they [her son and his friends] were doing that had to do with superheroes, drawing action on paper. …It allowed the figure to come back into art in a way that wasn’t precious.”

Cozzolino agreed. He also credited the graphic novel. “Also the graffiti boom of the ’80s and the ’90s spilled over into the art world.

And Fisher talked about drawing being more affordable than a painting. An art lover “can buy a drawing for a tenth of the price.”

Abington Art Center Curator Sue Spaid (in the audience) added the influence of Raymond Pettibon, Paul McCarthy and Martin Kippenberger, as well as Ed Ruscha, may have increased the interest in drawing.

Cozzolino also added that the DIY aesthetic may have contributed.

Question on how define drawing.
Cozzolino said, I don’t define drawing. I let the object tell me what it is. I let the artist tell me what it is. Even Lightening Field, that could be a drawing directly lightening to make marks in space.

Fisher, applied the old line about pornography to drawing: When you see it, you know it.

Kerlin said people can imagine the time it takes to make a drawing. They can imagine how it was done, how long it took to make each mark.

Art critic and curator Judith Stein mentioned The world’s Largest Drawing, a YouTube phenomenon, in which an artist draws his self portrait on the earth, using the trajectories of a series of airplane trips as the medium.

While I was answering a cell phone call during the talk, someone asked how people kept up with everything going on in Philadelphia, and Cozzolino answered, Roberta and Libby. This tidbit from Roberta. I had to put that in to sort of make it real because I missed it!

This being the first of the Untitled forums, it was free and open to one and all, but Jaskey is creating a (nominal, I think) membership requirement for the events, and promises behind-the-scene tours of area institutions, visits with private collections, and talks by contemporary art experts and enthusiasts. When I ever get through to Jenny (I’ve been trying for days) I’ll add it to the post. She probably was busy with last night’s fundraiser for Art Briefs, a Philadelphia art calendar in the works that she has been working on with others, including David Kessler, Annette Monnier and Rebecca Saylor Sack.

Philadelphia’s art scene doesn’t take summer vacation anymore.

Miguel Luciano, interactive piece based on Puerto Rican saying that (loosely translated) means that children can be heard when hens pee (which they never do).

Miguel Luciano’s identity-fueled works at Taller Puertorriqueño use exaggerated stereotypes to poke fun at bromides about Puerto Rican identity. Luciano, a New York-based artist, turns Taller’s galleries into an interactive playroom with sculptures (including a slot machine) that let people “play” with their own identities.

Luciano’s work is filled with mordant humor. I love the framed t-shirt that comments on the disenfranchisement of Puerto Ricans who can’t vote for president.

Last year I saw a show of Luciano’s at the Cue Art Foundation in Chelsea, and this hot young artist’s paintings—parodies of ads for KFC and McDonald’s (picture a triumphant Ronald McDonald as a conquistador slaying natives)—were outrageous and right on target. Luciano’s Pure Plantainium necklace on a chain turns the stereotype of macho gold chain-wearing hoods into a wonderful mock-heroic embrace of Puerto Rican culture and cultural stereotypes.

Luciano’s painting based on 1930 era cans of yams which stereotypes Puerto Ricans as submissive servants.

Wexler Gallery’s “(In)Between” is a juicy little show about pleasure and death. Check out Damien Hirst’s toothless silver skull sculpture, a Philadelphia gallery coup that brings the British phenom’s high-end and much-talked-about objects to town for probably the first time. Beyond the skull (there’s also a Hirst silver heart sculpture and a print of the legendary diamond-encrusted skull), this art’s all about life being pleasurable. Short, sweet, then over.

Joe Boruchow’s announcement card for his new work at Wexler Gallery.

Joe Boruchow’s cut paper narratives in black-and-white are perfect noir—their content and craftsmanship is astonishing. Randall Sellers’ new oil paintings are mini fantasy worlds. Known for microcosmic graphite drawings of people amid scenes of ruined architecture and weeds, Sellers proves his painterly side as graceful accompaniment to his paper works. Adelaide Paul shows forlorn limbless ceramic and stitched-leather animals, while Tim Tate chimes in with tiny videos under glass vitrines. The show also features Anne Siems’ mannerist paintings and Dirk Staschke’s sculptural gargoyles. See Annette’s post on this show.

Natasha Bowdoin’s I am the sun in the morning, I am a dog at night, 2006; cut cards and gouache on paper, 36 x 54 x 9 inches. at Philadelphia Art Alliance.

Speaking of cut paper, Philadelphia Art Alliance’s second floor surrenders to the pulpy planes starting June 19 with “Paper[space],” an eight-artist show in which some of our best local practitioners flash their craft for cutting, twisting and fashioning paper into objects of art. Hunter Stabler, whose lacey, intricately patterned works feature gothic symbolism and mandalas, and Natasha Bowdoin, who paints and places words on ornate cut paper constructions, will provide youthful energy and angst. Nami Yamamoto’s taxonomic arrays of cut paper leaves marries Victoriana with a modern feeling of embattled and endangered nature. Others in the show are Jin Lee, Leslie Mutchler, Donna Ruff, Dawn Gavin and Sarah Julig. Also at the Art Alliance, new works by Jolynn Krystosek in carved wax, cut paper and other materials that complement the show upstairs.

Bill Lohre, Still Life, cardboard at Bambi Gallery’s Welcome to My World.

Meanwhile, there’s even more cut paper this summer at Bambi Gallery in a group show “Welcome to My World,” opening June 6. Philadelphia expat Bill Lohre (based in New York now) brings cut-paper fairytale constructions where damsels in distress definitely don’t get helped by Sir Galahad. Other works in the show include Marie DesMarais’ metal, glass and plastic abstracts, Joshua Erb’s Holga photos and collaborations with gallerist Candace Karch.

Samantha Simpson, one of her ballpoint pen drawings at Gallery Joe.

Charles Burns’ Black Hole is going to be made into a movie, and the director is…

Check out this item in the Hollywood Reporter, passed along to us by none other than Rob Matthews, the king of Philly art gossip.

Tracy Matthews, quoted by Rob after she read the item: “Charlie Burns?”

A total Hollywood moment.

Drawing by Randall Sellers, Richard Heller Gallery’s booth at Pulse Art Fair Miami.

artblog got an email blast from artist Randall Sellers with his latest news:
“Takashi Murakami bought two of my drawings at the Pulse Art Fair in Miami last weekend!!!

“(Richard Heller, my longtime dealer in Santa Monica, had a few drawings down
there. Miller Block, my Boston gallery, also represented me at AQUA.)”

Great gossipy Philly purchase

Untitled 2007 (let them eat mussels), Rirkrit Tiravanija
Mirrors, gas tank, mussel shells, EDITION/SET OF: 4
h: 90 x w: 90 x d: 90 cm / h: 35.4 x w: 35.4 x d: 35.4 in
Galerie Chantal Crousel

We ran into our buddy Mari Shaw and her husband Peter at the William Kentridge talk at PMA the other night and she confessed to a big new purchase from Miami. They bought a Rirkrit Tiravanija performance piece…and they bargained for annual performances at their house. The piece is a mussel piece set in a corner of a room on the floor with mirrors meeting in the corner — a reference to a Robert Smithson piece, they said. The performance is the cooking of mussels, the eating of mussels and the stacking up on the floor before the mirrors of the empty scrubbed shells. Each year the stack of shells will get higher. The Shaws met Tiravanija’s assistant at the gallery booth and it was through his intercession that they got the performance agreement. Image from Galerie Chantal Crousel on artnet.

Cerealart

artblog spoke with Larry Mangel, Cerealart king.

Nathan Marbry bronzes at Cerealart’s booth at NADA.

“We had our best year ever. I’m not sure if it was the people there…or a lot of the things we were working on were finished. We got a new piece by Mickalene Thomas; new bronze by Nathan Marbry.

Mickalene Thomas, sculpture, resin and Swarovski crystals.

“It’s the first sculpture Mickalene did. It’s cast resin, painted and with Swarovski crystals. It was modeled in clay. It’s painted It’s two intertwined wrestlers. They have leopard jumpsuits and the crystals are on the stripes. It’s Micki wrestling with herself.”

artblog: How did the Kehinde Wiley tapestry do? (The Gypsy Fortune-Teller — see post for image).

“We sold some. It was very well received.

“It’s an edition of 48 tapestries. Belgian tapestries made electronically with jacquard technique. It took over a year to make the file.

“Our booth was at NADA. 2003 was our first year there.”

artblog: Will you go back next year and if so to what fair?

“Yes, if they’ll have me. It’s scary. You have to apply. I’m a member of NADA. I love that association. I love the quality of the work there…”

artblog: I heard it was a circus down there…

“Most people had a good fair. A couple European dealers had to convert their prices to dollars because Euros were scaring people off.”

Gallery Joe

Rob Matthews, Shannon, from the Knoxville Girl series

artblog spoke to Sarah Holloran, assistant to Rebecca Kerlin.

“It was good for us.”

artblog: What sold?
“Philadelphia artists Rob Matthews (5 drawings including Shannon and several other portraits), Astrid Bowlby, Samantha Simpson sold. Also Lynn Woods Turner did well. She’s from Portland, OR.

“Those were the people people were most interested in.”

Pentimenti Gallery

artblog talked to gallery owner Christine Pfister.

Margaret Murphy painting, Pentimenti Gallery

artblog: Did you have a good fair?

“Yes, definitely. The fair was very good for us. We’re very very happy. We did better than our expectations. We sold some works. I’m not saying which. The quality of the place…was like a forum. We saw many curators from all over–Texas, the Midwest, West Coast, New Zealand. That is one reason to do this…for the exposure.”

Some highlights for Pfister were:

• A French/German television crew was following a collector and shot footage in her space.
• There were a lot of Europeans because the dollar is weak.
• She had collectors from London, Chicago, Texas and Philadelphia who bought from her.

Schmidt-Dean

artblog emailed gallery owner Chris Schmidt

artblog: What sold?

“We sold multiple pieces by William Smith , Ruth Thorne Thomsen, Samuel Worthington and Csilla Sadloch.”

Projects Gallery

artblog talked with gallery director Helen Meyrick

artblog: What sold?
“We sold work. I took Jim Brossy, and he was very very well received. Susan B. Howard we took for the first time. She also had a nice response to her work. Alex Queral always does very well. Caleb Weintraub we had his drawings which we did sell — Only one left. Frank’s work we always sell. We did fine. We would have liked to have done better.”

artblog: What do you mean?
“We did two fairs. At the Bridge (hotel fair) we did better than at the Red Dot Fair (hotel fair). They were across the street from each other. The Bridge rooms were all white and kind of hip. Red Dot rooms were darker.

“At Flow, the rooms were newly renovated and gorgeous.

“Art Basel Miami doubled the number of fairs this year from 12 last year to 24 or 26 this year. Oh heavens, it affected everybody. [Meaning there was too much competition for the available dollars.]

“[You could tell there's] still an enthusiasm for the arts. Can you imagine it — 26 art fairs — happening in Philadelphia? Just that aspect that you can do that and be in Florida where it’s warm. It’s always a nice thing. You need to see what’s going on. It’s one stop shopping. You can see it all.

“At the Basel fair, things sold very quickly, the blue chip stuff. At the other fairs, things went a little slower.

“I did find that the audience was more selective [than previously]. It wasn’t I better buy it before everybody else does. …it was more like a buyer’s market. We did have a nice attenedance. We did sell work. We could always sell more work.”