Tag Archive "slought-foundation"

News roundup – West Collection and Tiger Strikes to move, Jennifer Levonian to talk and Ai Wei Wei’s Slought connection

Imagine the Rubell Collection or the Scholl Collection, two of Miami’s premier private museums, right here in Philadelphia. We just learned that The West Collection is actively searching for a big space for displaying some of the larger pieces in their fabulous and expanding collection of contemporary art. We bumped into the Director Lee Stoetzel at the Fairmount Park Art Association’s annual meeting, and he confirmed the organization’s interest in finding a space large enough to display some of the collection’s larger pieces.  They’ve been looking in Northern Liberties he said.  West is the Barnes of today, integrating its edgy ... More » »

Canadian humor survives and thrives at Slought

The dry, geeky humor of Canadians is still up at Slought Foundation — until Oct. 29. Hurry hurry. The two artists, John Oswald and MIchael Snow, put me in mind of Rodney Graham–cool, cerebral, cosmic and silly.

Save the Dates: films by Mona Hatoum and Shirin Neshat on Oct. 9, and others at I House

Once again International House (I House) is the best venue in Philadelphia for films about art or by artists as well as early film classics.  The upcoming season includes : Thursday, Sept. 23 films by the Lumière Brothers and Georges Méliès. The beginnings of French cinema that established many of its conventions. Méliès particularly loved special effects.

Theory talk with Aaron Levy, Slought’s boss

We met Aaron Levy over coffee a while back to talk about theory. Levy, if you don’t know him, is the executive director of Slought Foundation, the gallery and event space with intellectual chops just on the edge of the campus of the University of Pennsylvania.  He’s also a curator and, what we didn’t expect to hear, a red diaper baby.  He grew up in a dialectical vegetarian household that didn’t celebrate holidays, and at age 30-something he’d just been to his first Thanksgiving dinner, with friends, in New York.

Poetry trifecta in Philadelphia

Poets make great art critics. As metaphor-makers themselves they respond to the metaphorical realm of visual art in a direct way and can often write eloquently about it.

Weekly Update – Seriously Pleasurable at Slought

The big news about Solitary Pleasures at Slought is not the graphic content showing masturbation, although there is plenty of that.  The news is that two powerful works by 70s era feminist artists Carolee Schneemann and VALIE EXPORT create a zone of inquiry about taboos that is well beyond the titter and haha stage usually reached when the subject of onanism comes up.

Weekly Update – Slought’s emerging artist shows

This week’s Weekly has my review of 1:5:25 at Slought Foundation.  Below is my copy with some pictures. Video is a huge part of the art world and many galleries now include the medium as part of their regular programming.    Shows of all video art are less frequent although they too occur. Slought’s “1:5:25” is an all-video show curated by a team of 5 and presenting works by 25 artists or artist groups.   A veritable dim sum video banquet of stuttering, fast-paced, culture-questioning videos, the show is good but it raises the question:  How much video is too much?

Gary Hill’s text beat boom hum cacophony at Slought

Gary Hill touched down in Philadelphia last week to install his show at Slought and to participate in a panel at the opening with poets/artists George Quasha and Charles Stein, who are buddies of his.  The two have just published a book about Hill, An Art of Limina:  Gary Hill’s Works and Writing (2009, Ediciones Poligrafa), and the mighty tome was on display (and for sale) in the gallery.  

This week’s cornucopia of wonderful things to do

Hello artblog readers. This week’s overload of fabulous activities has even us flummoxed. We wish we could do it all! With three talks at Penn in two days, we want to give Penn the Yakkity Yak Award. TUESDAY MARCH 17 Gary Hill–NOTE:  AS OF 2 PM MONDAY, MAR. 16, THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. Hill has been working with video and sound since 1973. His intermedia use of text, speech and image explore the physicality of language and our thought processes. Winner of a MacArthur Foundation Genius award in 1998, and winner of the Leone díOro Prize for Sculpture at ... More » »

Weekly Update – Peter Weibel’s words and video at Slought

This week’s Weekly has my review of Peter Weibel: Rewriter at Slought. Below is the copy with some pictures. Austrian artist Peter Weibel’s video and text art from the 1960s and ’70s, now on view at the Slought Foundation, fits perfectly in today’s concept-driven and media-obsessed art world. The work’s refusal to be beautiful shocked audiences back when most thought art was a pretty painting or figurative sculpture. But today, Weibel’s work—with its playful approach to subject and its smart wordsmithing—prefigures much contemporary art. Vulcanology of Emotions 1971 Throughout the large show, Weibel’s works have an undeniable charm. Soliloquy (1973), ... More » »