Jennifer Levonian video still

The talk
More immediate is the April 12 talk there by Jennifer Levonian, the stop-action animation video artist who charms while pointing out our culture’s crazy disconnects. Her talk is noon-1 p.m. at the West Collection at SEI, 1 Freedom Valley Drive, Oaks, PA 19456 (for navigation and mapquest search 250 Cider Mill Rd., Collegeville, PA 19426). Open and free to the public. RSVP by Monday, April 11 to Lee Stoetzel, lee@westcollection.org

Easier climb to Tiger Strikes Asteroid
Tiger Strikes Asteroid is moving May 1–downstairs to the second floor of 319A N. 11th St., right nearby Grizzly Grizzly and Marginal Utility. For a grand opening, they will have a one-night-only show of all the collective’s members on April 15, 5-10 p.m. in the new space, and a simultaneous reception for the Theresa Saulin show in the tiny old 4th floor space. Even more simultaneity–this all coincides with Philadelphia Gallery Night. We didn’t much like hiking up to the 4th floor, so we’re totally thrilled.

Ai Weiwei and Slought
We got an email today from Slought Foundation deploring the arrest of Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei. The Sloughties had “just begun working on a project about cultural dialogue” with the artist–hence their plea for people and institutions to advocate on Ai Weiwei’s behalf. Full text is on the Slought site.

Chad Gerth, "Division & Latrobe," Photograph behind plexiglass, image courtesy the artist

Gerth’s photographs of vacant lots in Chicago make clever use of such uncertainty. A recent M.F.A. graduate from the Art Institute of Chicago, the artist went to impressive lengths to make his images, hiring a camera-equipped drone helicopter to hover above desolate parts of the city.  Viewing flat parcels of land straight on from a distance of approximately 80 feet above, depth and scale suddenly evaporate. Are we seeing tall grass on ground, or fuzzy moss on wood?

Glancing at the work on the walls, you might miss the fact that two of the images represent the exact same lot. They are both titled Division & Spaulding, but their appearance is different in every respect. Photographed at mid-day, a vertically-displayed view of this location shows an even bright green covering and could easily have been called View inside a Terrarium. In a horizontal version, much of the lot is in shadow, and different lighting reveals different details. Fence posts along the outer edge of this long rectangle resemble the diagonal hashes that once bordered airmail letters. A set of grassless tire ruts form a kind of mysterious writing on that envelope. The artist reminds us that each photograph is its own object, independent of what was photographed.

Every one of Gerth’s images, in fact, is rich with graphic detail. Without vertical reference points, shadows read as flat diagonals. Tire tracks in gray sand in Lake & Costner look like the frenzied scribbles of a child as she draws the same circle over and over. In Chicago & Avers, cracks in a cement slab form a rectangular grid that resembles a miniature street grid. The alternating pink-and-black parquet from a leftover patio supplies a splash of warm color amidst green and gray. Lifted from the most mundane of urban realities, these images are quite pleasing as abstract art.

Lydia Jenkins Musco, "Surrounding Walls," Paper pulp, image courtesy the artist

If Gerth’s images turn reality into drawing, Musco’s sculptures make the immaterial concrete—literally. Also a recent M.F.A. graduate (Boston University, 2007) Musco was the recipient of a Pollack-Krasner award for sculptures that play with architectural forms and hard-soft dualities. What seems like a tower of mortar-caked terracotta tiles in Surrounding Walls is actually molded paper pulp. Adding to the deception is the stack of thick timbers that serves as the sculpture’s plinth—as if paper needed a heavy-duty support. In Three-sided Square on Four Walls the same paper pulp poses as a heavy pile of felt sheets, each in a different shade of pink or red.

What is most satisfying about Gerth’s photos is that they transcend the game of disguise that is the basis of their creation. The process of discovering tire tracks, poles, and grass that makes for good visual fun in Gerth’s work also reveals of years of fighting between humankind and nature. The art is not only about how humans form a concept of their world, but also the struggle between human conceits and the natural surroundings that always seem to get the better of them.

One of Craig Hein's small clay sculptures.

Craig Hein’s small clay objects are very modest. No room-sized installations here. He molds things which are mostly recognizable – carpets, dirt piles and hand trucks – yet rather elusive. For instance, why is the hand truck loaded with mounds of dirt and a flag? These tiny, perhaps easy to overlook creations allow for an astonishing amount of possibilities in their simplicity.

John Slaby and Tobias Waite, the exhibition’s other artists round out the show in two dimensions. Slaby’s suburban scenes are composed of skateboards, hair, trains, buildings, yards and well, more hair. Undoubtedly this takes many viewers back to days of youthful rebellion and infrequent haircuts. The flat green yards and train cars reinforce the familiarity of these Anywhere-USA landscapes.

Waite’s creations scintillate between pure pattern and subject. Horde, one of the show’s highlights, shows just the weapons of a perceived mob of people poking through waves of color. Both fun and potentially critical, I think this piece is somewhat revealing of our troubled economic and social climate.

Vox Populi’s September exhibiton is as diverse as it is overwhelming. One group exhibition, Paradise, explores the recession and its impact through large-scale, documentary style photos and a video calling for the return of the Works Progress Administration of the 30’s.

Jamie Dillon's installation at Vox Populi

Jamie Dillon offers the most visually interesting, if most obtuse, work in the show. The front fender of a Dodge Magnum sits idly near the center of a room. Having previously been twisted out of form, perhaps in some past accident, it mimics the pinkish streaks of paint smeared along the four walls. If this piece has any distinct meaning, it is unapparent, but standing between the crumple zone of this car and the marks on the walls, I found myself spending more time with this single piece than any other.

Two of David Kontra's paintings at Vox

The showstopper at Vox, though, is undoubtedly David Kontra. This almost completely blind painter dives headlong into biting social criticisms and doesn’t look back. Questioning America’s overindulgence, greed and apathy, Kontra takes shots at a number of sources from the Bush Administration to the Westboro Baptists to the average American that sits idly by drinking beer and watching TV. Painting a quarter inch at a time, as if “looking through a straw” as he puts it, these gnarled images do well to reinforce his messages.

Cardboard sign from Adam Blumberg

The most amusing September exhibition I encountered was almost certainly Adam Blumberg’s Punctum(s) at Tiger Strikes Asteroid. A show of seeming refuse and witty banter, Blumberg creates some signs in the style of those held by homeless people asking for change, except encouraging the readers to “Jump! You Fuckers” or asserting that “I Wish I Had Your $Millions of Problems.” Both irreverent and relevant, some pieces are simply word bubbles on loose-leaf paper.

One piece is a plaster and wooden contraption, a beer bong, painted golden-bronze, and looking more like a broken bugle than a drinking device. The do-it-yourself, low cost, drinking-away-of-sorrows approach to Blumberg’s show make it worth a few hearty chuckles and perhaps the hankering for a beer… although I prefer a glass, myself.

PuppeTyranny at Vox Populi, Leslie Rogers and Zack Paladino performing the sexy-weird Mouth Theatre piece

Vox was the first big surprise. We skimmed the top of the press release for the one-night event Sound/Stages and assumed it was going to be an evening of djs, music and bands. Guess we needed to read down to the bottom.  Turns out, it was performance and puppet shows too! Performances by Beth Heinly and Bobby Gonzales and puppetry by PuppeTyranny.  The Mouth Theatre puppeteering by Leslie Rogers and Zachary Palladino was part flea circus part gender discussion. Very unexpected content for a tiny puppet show–all performed in Leslie’s mouth, with Zachary inserting a variety of instruments of torture and food. It was part yucky and part laugh out loud funny, and very suggestive of bondage and control–without being either of those. Some videos by Jeffrey Bussman here.

Beth Heinly, reading from Fear & Art

Meanwhile, our own beloved Beth Heinly, artblog’s ad coordinator and gal friday, saturday and sunday, gave a deadpan reading of Art & Fear, dressed in all white and exuding Greta Garbo I vant to be alone-ness in a white box space–Olympia on a white chaise in white bicycle shorts and white socks. The artist as art object! The self-help text was a little bit ridiculous and the subtext was ironic and the comedy was subtle. No fear here and lots of art!

We ran into Diedra Krieger whose reading-Baudrillard video was on tap for the open-call video room. We couldn’t stay, but we had curated it into the ID show at Projects Gallery a couple of years ago. It was a perfect pairing with Beth’s performance! Theory and practice.

We also ran into Austin Lee and Katrina Mortorff, who gave us a postcard for the upcoming Thanks. Frank show they organized to honor recently retired Tyler painting guru Frank Bramblett.http://www.thanksfrank.info/ The show will be Aug. 27 to Sept. 21. Reception on the 27th. See you there. We co-taught with Frank one semester so we know we’re a little partial, but really, the guy is amazing. And he’s left a huge mark on many many artists, including, besides the organizers, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Anthony Campuzano  and Rebecca Saylor Sack.

Thomas Vance -- Plan, at Tiger Strikes Asteroid. In addition to the 3D wonderworld the walls are filled with drawings collaged together showing similar potato shapes set amongst passages of wood grain

Thomas Vance, one of the contributors to Thanks.Frank is at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, with his charming cartoon Zen topiary, trees as the planets. It’s nature without the natural, and the large planet/potatoes are a break-out new direction in his work. Vance told us he and his wife artist Nami Yamamoto were leaving for real nature in Maine soon at the Acadia Summer Arts Program, aka Kamp Kippy, as in Kippy Stroud, Fabric Workshop founder and patron of the arts.

Abigail DeVille, installation Gold Mountain, at Marginal Utility. Charred sticks from fire at Trestle Inn.

At Marginal Utility, Yale grad student Abigail DeVille has installed Gold Mountain, a black-lit black hole with references to discrimination against Chinese gold miners and all other discrimination-affected classes. The piece was made from scavenged material found in Chinatown and vicinity, including burnt timbers from the newly incinerated Trestle Inn.

Abigail De Ville, floor bricks, painted and lit with black light

The floor “bricks” gave the piece a Yellow Brick Road jauntiness that was jarring. The stars and stripes allusions, plus a real flag, situated the piece in a land of dripping irony. DeVille said she hadn’t used black light paint before, but the effect was pretty great. The installation took her a week with help from David Dempewolf, and lots of hard labor.

Abigail De Ville, looking swanky

Abigail had never been to Philadelphia before. We had a conversation about Chinese American history and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and America’s long history of serial racial intolerance. DeVille looked glamorous, even in the heat.

MU has been one amazing installation after another, each one transforming it so its real shape has become increasingly mysterious. We think there’s some competition between MU and GG (Grizzly Grizzly) next door, which also has been running fabulous installations in its shoebox space.

Tiernan Alexander's side of the Grizzly Grizzly installation is all goth Victorian homebody. Tim Eads' side (sorry no photo) is sci-guy hard-edged, with a wood armature zig-zaging through the space and Gatorade bottles connected to surgical tubing, everything suspended, mid-air.

This month, we saw new work by Tim Eads and our gal (contributing writer) Tiernan Alexander, whose installation is a husband-wife death match, in which they will invade one another’s portion of the installation and revise each other. We hope they are still talking in the end. As Tiernan said to us, “At the closing there will be blood or snacks!”  Eads and Alexander really are husband and wife, btw.

And speaking of GG and couples, artists Paul Outlaw and Jennifer Catron, known to us as the Honeymooners from their installation at GG, will soon be trolling around Brooklyn and Chelsea serving up Midwest fishfry, which we can’t define–batter-dipped mystery fish? We got this news from Art Fag City.

We also ran into Gerard Brown and his two little boys. He was glad the summer semester was over.

Minty/Matt Savitsky playing puppy in the window at Bodega

Then we skedaddled over to North 3rd Street to Bodega. The highlight was in the window–Minty, the puppy in the window, was sticking up his butt and wagging it at us, making googly eyes at anyone who passed and paused. Two thumbs up for one weird performance. By the way, Minty was Matt Savitsky, we think, and he’d been in that window all day long, except for a change of costume to dress swanky for the evening. That’s the version we saw. This was pretty edgy–a mix of endearing and kitsch and strange. It captured our mixed feelings about real puppies in the window. Then of course there’s that whole level about sex trafficking and Amsterdam hookers in windows.

The final touch–we walked through old city and there was a harpist in a white gown on the sidewalk playing celestial music. Old City sure shines up pretty these days. A lot of the galleries were shut, but the street scene was glamorous and chock-a-block.

Big news this First Friday: A new gallery, Marginal Utility , is opening in the Vox building. The six-story former factory building already houses Vox Populi , Copy , AHN/VHS , Progressive Sharing , Jeffrey Stockbridge Fine Art and Tiger Strikes Asteroid . With the addition of Marginal Utility on the second floor, the alternative art scene truly has a new center of gravity.

Ronnie Bass, still from The Astronomer, at Marginal Utility opening Nov. 6

Founded by Basekamp ’s David Dempewolf and Yuka Yokoyama —who also launched the recent art theory zine Machete—Marginal Utility has 700 square feet of space including a 500-square-foot gallery and a separate work space for artists in residence.

First up in the new space is “The Astronomer, Part 1: Departure From Shed , ” a nine-minute video projection and sculpture project by New York artist Ronnie Bass . The video—still in production—is a yarn about oppression and a better future acted out by a small cast which includes the artist. The piece is rooted in 19th-century French philosopher Charles Fourier’s writings on utopian societies.

Ronnie Bass, The Astronomer

Still images show the actors highlighted against a black background giving a sense of disembodiment and foreboding. Bass’ sculpture project, which will grow and change during the show’s two-month run, is a water fountain made with garage sale and dollar store 
purchases—highly un-utopian.

P. Timothy Gierschick, Golem, from his show at Tiger Strikes Asteroid

P. Timothy Gierschick ’s abstract paintings at Tiger Strikes Asteroid whisper like Morse Code tapping a quiet but insistent message. The works in ”Patch and Plot” subvert universal signs and symbols like rainbows and geometrical shapes twisting them into new designs that suggest something familiar without being clear. Is the rainbow edge around a cloverleaf pattern happy? Geirschick — a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid collective — uses spray paint, house paint, enamel and collage on found furniture, scrap wood and cardboard.

Daniel Heyman, from the Shelter show at the Painted Bride

From the impresario of ”Welcome House , ” the recent temporary public art project in Love Park, comes ”Shelter , ” at the Painted Bride Art Center . Marianne Bernstein , an artist and activist, organized the group show to foster a dialog between artists and the public about social issues. Before the show, 14 artists were paired with 10 Philadelphia families to make art dealing with issues of family crisis and homelessness. The photography, painting, video and drawings that resulted are art as social activism by artists known for great empathy in their art. Printmaker Daniel Heyman created word-and-image portraits of veterans in transitional housing. Ricardo Rivera of the Klip Collective made a documentary video of a dying and bedridden woman, Gloria, and her devoted husband.

Bernstein, a filmmaker and photographer, also has great empathy for people.  Her new photo book, “Tatted,” shows tattooed strangers she photographed in the alleyways behind the South Street tattoo shops.  The works capture the personalities of the tattooed men and women with great care and love. Tatted, published by Grit City Inc, launches Dec. 4 at Pure Gold Gallery.

Jeffro Kilpatrick's The Nearness of You, in the Creature show at Brave New Worlds

Need more Halloween imagery? Check out ”Creature Double Feature” at Brave New Worlds . The show features original works by 20 artists who are affiliated with the Philadelphia Cartoonist Society. Concetta Barbera and Christian Patchell curated the show which will have small scale prints, drawings and books at reasonable 
prices

Ronnie Bass: “ The Astronomer, Part 1: Departure From Shed ,” Through Jan. 10. Reception: Fri., Nov. 6, 6-9pm. Marginal Utility, 319 N. 11th St., second fl. 917.355.4487.

Philadelphia Cartoonist Society: “ Creature Double Feature ,” Through Nov. 25. Reception: Fri., Nov. 6, 6-9pm. Brave New Worlds, 45 N. Second St. 215.925.6525.

Bill Smith combo of projections and sculpture and mechanical wizardry

Our first stop (Andrea and me), the Fabric Workshop and Museum was filled with crowd-pleasers from five artists from across the country.

Smith autographing a happy FWM member's exhibition brochure.

Bill Smith, from Illinois, merges an obsession with the natural world with delicate, lacy mechanisms that are next to impossible to photograph, but are easy to delve into in person. Each mechanism works differently, but each piece delights as its m.o. delivers a punch. The combo of hard mechanics with such delicate networks is a total crowd pleaser.

Tommy Joseph's prototype 3-piece suit, hand-painted w/ FWM artists, the imagery based on traditional Tlingit imagery, also on display along with masks that, with the suit, will be used in performance.

And Tlingit Alaskan Tommy Joseph has made a prototype of a performance costume–a three-piece suit hand painted with traditional Tlingit imagery. It’s a terrific merger of cultures. This is not your Mummer’s flash and dash. It has an elegance, a sense of serious intent and shamanistic power.

Robert Chambers, Ribbon Cutting, performance/ephemeral installation on Arch Street. The kids jumped right in.

On the street in front of the FWM annex, Florida artist Robert Chambers let loose 9 rolls of broad ribbons from windows overhead, creating a gorgeous streetscape in his “Ribbon Cutting” installation. I asked for a swatch of the ribbon and an FWM employee cut it for me–the future color of my bedroom, I hope.

Andrea snapped this picture of Joe Rishel and me. The ribbons made everyone feel happy! photo by Andrea Kirsh

Here I am with PMA Curator Joe Rishel and my swatch. Chambers’ other work inside the FWM is also concerned with how things work. There’s a curiosity about the way things are made in the modern manufacturing society and an interest in what these manufactured items represent in our culture.

The exhibit included a video of Ruben Ortiz-Torres’ low-rider inspired artist-modifed scissor fork lift, Hi ‘n’ Lo. Ortiz, like Chambers, is modifying what’s already out there, and talking to cultural values. I loved the pairing of these two. Also there, Seneca nation member Marie Watt’s womb-like, ultra-soft felt structure, called Engine (hope you get a chance to go inside–check out the shaman video, which is one of the features that makes this not just another yurt) .  It’s yummy in there.

A woman tries out a Dennis McNett print/papier mache wolf mask, in front of two fabulous wall-size collaged prints.

At Space 1026 and then at Vox, giant prints stole my heart. Dennis McNett takes over 1026 with Year of the Wolfbat, arguably a Halloween and Day of the Dead themed exhibit that includes two and 3-D work based on prints and collage. The 3 D is outstanding papier mache and sometimes wood–skull masks, birds and “wolfbats” covered with collaged prints. On the wall, enormous prints, smaller prints, and prints collaged to create wall-sized psychedelic explosions are all yummy and mesmerizizizng.

This Dennis McNett wolves-in-wolf print and paint collaged on panel includes carved-into mouth, nose and eyes.

Doing your Xmas shopping or decorating now? Check out the prints, some as low as $5 and $10! The quality of this work is top notch.

Rob Swainston's two-wall print installation suggesting a personal journey as well as a landscape.

A very different double-wall-sized print installation dominates Rob Swainston’s exhibit at Vox–mountain landscapes made of, well, there’s a shaggy dog back story here–that boils down to Swainston going to the Rockies for an artist residency and not having the space to print with the wood he brought along from Philadelphia. He threw the wood into the snow in disgust, where it swelled and warped. He screwed it together to flatten it and headed home, only to have his truck break down. After abandoning the truck and the wood, he was able to recover the wood and get it shipped home.

Rob Swainston is a great storyteller, and I wish I could have recorded his tale of his struggles to make this print and put it up as a podcast.

The prints are of the wood grain itself, raised up by the snow and the rain, creating an abstract landscape, mountainous with winding trails or streams–a symbolic map of the wood’s journeys and the artist’s. The work reminded me of Yan Kai’s digital photomontage landscapes at the InkNotInk exhibit of Chinese art at Drexel last spring.

still from Hiraki Sawa's 8 Minutes, video, 2005, courtesy the artist and James Cohan Gallery, NYC, copied from http://www.screeningvideo.org/

There’s more about landscape at Screening Video, where Hiraki Sawa’s video shorts of animals and a landscape inserted into an ordinary bathroom are delightful meditations on fantasy and quotidian, real and not real, and the schism between modernity and nature. I want to once again give props to Screening for the most comfortable foam cube seating and egg-crate foam sound insulation on their walls.

Luren Jenison and a detail of her cactus installation at Copy.

Still another landscape fills Copy Gallery, where Luren Jenison’s “cactus” installation visits a lot of the same issues. Trash cans bristle with ratchet ties; pool noodles are topped with toothpicks and corn holders. A spot-lit giant white balloon is the moon or the sun, and the whole space manages to create a theatrical tongue-in-cheek faux nature.

The largest of Alexis Granwell's crumbling infrastructures at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Gallery

Landscapes were clearly the dominant theme of the evening. Alexis Granwell’s decomposing structures at Tiger Strikes Asteroid form dark, urban landscapes of our failure to overcome entropy. As in Sarah Sze‘s work, the walls have a precarious infrastructure that tumbles out and threatens immediate collapse.

Arden Bendler Browning's gouaches tumble across the paper, creating a world veering out of control.

At AHN/VHS, Arden Bendler Browning’s abstracts also have a sense of a landscape tumbling out of control, a sense of the precariousness of life, nature, and our own backyards.

I also want to give a shout-out to Caitlin Perkins’ collection of sea monster memorabilia in AHN/VHS’s The Cabinet–another meditation on human vulnerability fictionalized and projected onto a dangerous creature that doesn’t really exist.

At this point Andrea was wild with hunger, while I was worried that if I sat down to eat I’d never get up. Miraculously, we wandered into a real Chinese restaurant, a place with cow viscera, eel soup, and aromatic pig ears on the menu. We ordered the water spinach, and got an enormous plate of garlicky sauteed watercress. Fabulous. I’m not even gonna tell you the name of the place in hopes that it stays this way a while longer!

The amazing Beth, who curated Breaking News and was wise to resist her brother, who must have had groom-itis.

Our last stop? Little Berlin. We wandered in at 10:30 to the delightful show (not about landscape at all!) that Brandon already told you about. Our artblog gal friday Beth Heinly was the curator, too! Here she is at Little Berlin the night before her brother’s wedding, wondering if she was being a beast for refusing to have her hair and makeup done for the occasion. Just look at her! Are you kidding?

People enjoying a piece of the Piazza

The Piazza was busy enough, and the gallery’s back door and back glass wall on the Piazza joined the interior and the exterior spaces. The Piazza is a breathtaking stretch of open space for an urban setting–big enough to dwarf the Jumbotron! The only thing I disliked about the space was the stage beneath the Jumbotron–a stepped, flat-topped half-pyramid that domineered in an unpleasant way.

Bambi

Sarah Gamble, joy, oil on canvas

The biggest crowd I saw was at Sarah Gamble‘s opening of her show the Unemployment Paintings, at Bambi, now located at developer Bart Blatstein’s Italian fantasy, the Piazza. Gamble, a recent Pew fellowship recipient, lives in a world where things–houses, weeds and invisible waves are animate. The electromagnetic emanations and encrustations are seductive rainbows against the blue sky, Other things–perhaps computer trash and cell phone trash–have taken up residence amid baroque fields of weeds. Computers emanate a golden igloo of Blue Toothiness. One of her charred black houses–a baroque Victorian with multiple wings and turrets–is also animate, threatening and mournful. These paintings look great, even as their subjects become forces of nature, taking over. The exhibit will remain up to July 26.

Jennifer Hermann, Cameo necklaces Stacked vinyl andcd's w/ sterling silver Cast cement Cameo necklace crystals, fresh water pear, sterling silver

Also at Bambi, which is a boutique as well as a gallery, is some of the best arty merch ever. I adored some giant cameo necklaces made of CDs and vinyl records, by Jennifer Hermann. Hermann also made a bunch of white plastic rings made of orange juice seals that she then embroidered with a sewing machine–also terrific–and reasonably priced (see comments for a correction on this; they only look machine made).

Kim Alsbrooks, James Madison, Mary Bartholomew, David Rittenhouse, from the White Trash Family series, oil on trash

Proprietor Candace Karch also has a number of pieces from previous shows, like the miniature historic portraits Kim Alsbrooks paints on crushed soda cans–her White Trash Family, or like Tory Franklin’s cut-out paper portraits. Plus she borrowed a hilarious Warren Mueller chandelier made from push brooms, and hung it in the back/boutique section of the store. If I had the space for it, I’d find out how to purchase it.

Projects–Summer in the City and more
On my way back toward Center City, I stopped at Projects Gallery for their Summer in the City exhibit, now in its second month. This show is pretty good for an open call sort of thing, and life in the hot city is what its main theme is. And part of what I liked about this show was it didn’t seem to hav an age bias. So there was work by young and old, side by side, and most of it, even if you could tell the artist’s age, seemed pretty terrific.

Among the outstanding work there:

Aubrie Costello, detail, He Shouldn't Let You out the House (Philly Hollers), 36 x 12, acrylic on paper, dupioni silk, clothing, jewels

Moore College grad (’07) Aubrie Costello’s pieces from her Philly Hollers series apparently offend the men and delight the ladies according to Projects Associate Director Sequoiah Medley, who sits in the gallery taking in people’s responses (she’s also was a juror of the show). Costello’s installation, with its Lynda Benglis bravado, includes a brief girl’s top, ultra short shorts, and hottie sandals with two giant hot-pink prize ribbons across the cleavage and the crotch. The medusa-like torn and tangled ribbons surround painted messages. The larger ribbon says, “Ya man, He shouldn’t let you out of the house alone.” The smaller one says, “Juicy as Shit.” Costello said she has a notebook filled so far with three years worth of some of the offensive things that men have called out on the street to her and her friends.

Daniel Petraitis, Fire Hydrant, 40 x 16 x 16 inches, blown glass, steel

In contrast, Daniel Petraitis’ glass Fire Hydrant on a ring of steel is as cool and male and terse as Costello’s installation is hot and female and gabby.  Part of what’s wonderful about Fire Hydrant is the hot processes that created something that looks like a melting ice sculpture. The piece is at once a penis and the source of sidewalk gushers keeping kids cool. It’s a mix of deadpan and glamor, humbleness and grandeur, reminding me of how Olafur Eliasson’s The New York Waterfalls captured the those dichotomies using opposite means (DIY humbleness to suggest grandeur as opposed to vice versa).

Conor Fields, Neapolitan, 7 x 3 x 3 inches, ice cream cone, freeze dried astronaut ice cream, hot glue

And speaking of hot and cold, Conor Fields’ ice cream cone, Neapolitan, made with a real cone, dried astronaut ice cream and hot glue is wonderfully revolting as it too plays with the contrast between hot and cold.

Adam Lovitz, detail Candy Abdomen (series of 3), 5 inches x 3 inches each, mixed media on paper

In the 2-D department, I especially enjoyed several gouache and collage pieces by Adam Lovitz, which all have conceptual underpinnings and inexplicable magic in their choices. I especially loved his Candy Abdomen series of saccharine children’s portraits atop a tower candy-colored stripes, looking for all the world like Pez dispensers.

Fay Stanford, The Elders, 9 x7 inches, woodcut

In dramatic contrast to Lovitz, some black and white woodcuts by Fay Stanford look to elderly people–two women arguing in the pool lanes, and three grumps atop their skinny legs, looking like indignant storks. The wit and sharp observation in Stanford’s cartooning crosses generational barriers.

Henry Berkowitz, Transformer Trio, 8 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

I also liked the pairing of Henry Berkowitz’s traditional oil-on-canvas skyscape of transformers and wires, which is the most youthful of his pieces, in terms of subject matter, and the vignette of urban life in Jennifer Baker’s oil on mylar Wedding Party, which, youthful though it is in its handling of imagery, can also pass for quite old except for the mylar.

Tamsen Wojtanowski, cast, 17 x 17 inches color photograph bikes, 17 x 17 inches, color photograph

A couple of photos by Tamsen Wojtanowski caught my eye. I liked the raking angles of the compositions and the content–a lineup of beer bottles casting long shadows on the sidewalk, and a lineup of crippled bicycles. Both photos not only capture the sorts of things we normally avert our eyes from, but also capture things as representations of people, worn and hurt by a tough life in the city.

Others in the exhibit are Linda Dubin Garfield, Ashley Flynn, Bobby Rosenstock, Martha Savery, Allen Spencer and Deborah Imler, Jayne Surrena, Mat Tomezsko, and Andrew Wapinski.

Lisa Murch, detail of an installation in progress, going on in the lower level of Projects Gallery

While I was there, Medley took me downstairs to look at an installation in progress by Lisa Murch. The sewn egg crate bottoms are pretty amazing!Murch will be down there off and on during the summer growing the piece, and would welcome people to stop by and give her feedback as she works. As of now, there’s no set schedule, but you could probably call the gallery and see if you can pin down a sure time.

Tiger Strikes Asteroid–Andrew Prayzner and William Crump
Manifest Destination was the perfect July 4th experience, with its questions about the American dreams of success and a limitless frontier.

Andrew Prayzner, untitled, oil on linen, 28 x 22 inches

Prayzner, an ex-Philly guy who has moved to Brooklyn, is showing six oil paintings that appropriate police photos of Colombian drug mules. The images of half-stripped bodies taped with drugs or with drugs packed into underclothes are depressing and degrading–the baggage deforming the bodies in weird ways. The pixelated grid covering the faces strips the mules of their identity and places them in some sort of meta world of those who don’t deserve to be seen because they are bad.

Andrew Prayzner, untitled, oil on linen, 28 x 22 inches

Yet they look vulnerable, vulnerable enough to elicit a load of empathy–people who underestimated the risk of what they were doing and were pawns of a larger cultural and economic system, entrapped by the poverty of their lives and an oppressive legal system that seems a little crazed on this subject of drugs.

William Crump, The Mountain Man Dreams of His Bounty, While the Sweet Bird of Redemption Sings in His Ear, pencil on paper, 16 x20 inches

While we’re on the subject of the land of the brave and the free, New York artist William Crump‘s beautiful drawings of the American landscape populated by lonesome frontiersmen–cowboys, trappers, mountain men, and a voluptuous nude of a mountain man’s wife–are distanced from their references to historic magazine images of the great frontier by discordant elements like rainbow creeks and auras. These images at once capture the majesty of Ansel Adams’ Yosemite photos and reflect on the story the nation told itself about the push Westward.

William Crump, The Mountain of Yesterday's Burden, gouache and graphite on paper, 20 x16

Crump uses what I take to be a very hard graphite pencil, to which he ads gouache or colored pencil in some cases. The paleness of the drawings not only pull you in close, but they suggest a fading, a loss of power and a loss of memory. The colors are dreamy elements, the last drippy drop of romanticism still flowing, or even orbiting threats.

The work is beautiful and sad, the fireworks of an era undercut by a more cynical view.

All three exhibits, using largely traditional media in four-square formats, still manage to find new ways to see. On this moment of our nation’s birthday, I saw a loss of optimism, and a sadder definition of what it means to be American. I suppose that’s not surprise, given the economy, the draining of American power and leadership, and the loss of moral high ground perpetrated by the last administration (I can’t even write that man’s name).

Secret Passage by Charles Hobbs, on display at Vox, is a somewhat awkwardly choreographed interactive piece.  As one approaches the opening to the exhibit a large, almost surreal twisted gate structure is immediately viewable, inhabiting the center of the room. As one draws nearer to this large structure, the inner-workings of the exhibit begin to expose themselves.  The entryway into the exhibit can only be traversed by navigating through a slowly moving mesh-like curtain which is rigged around the room on a motorized pulley system.  The result of this contraption is at once both restrictive and engaging – as the curtain moves into a closed position across the doorway, the choice to enter the space (or leave for that matter) is no longer available.

Unfortunately aside from the striking central gate-object which severs to initially draw the viewer in, there is not much else engaging once you’ve successfully entered the space, resulting in a backup trying to both enter and leave through the blocked opening.

The back-up creates a forced experience between viewers, as people wait to be released or permitted entry by the delicately moving curtain. It also creates a rather timid dance as people flow in and out of the exhibit at regular intervals as the curtains open and close.   The result is a displacement of the viewer, as she realizes the restrictions this exhibit places on her viewership.  This displacement is nicely complemented by the eerie dream-like quality of both the central gate-object and the mechanical curtain, as well as the background of theramin-generated lulls and the squeaking along of the pulley system.

This eerie displacement continued up on the sixth floor with the opening of Music and Sound in Progressive Sharing, a gallery space started by Maggie Manzer.  This space seemed curated to transport the viewer into a dream-like state (or perhaps it was more a result of the great beer selection at the Vox opening and all the Twin Peaks I’ve been watching).  As in the Secret Passage, music plays a central role in the exhibit, and it was also the subject of the piece displayed on the walls.  This display was less interesting, however, than the richly-real experience unfolding in the space.

As you enter, there is music being played from an antique Victrola accompanied by its owner and operator. To his left sits a parrot atop a wooden perch.  When I inquired with the man if that were his parrot, he responded, ‘No, this is my Victrola that’s his parrot.” indicating the man across from him (pictured above) who was apparently part of the orchestration of this experience.

The artist told that the man that he was free to go as the hour was getting late, but the man seemed insistent to stay and accompany his Victrola until the end.  Moving around the room one encountered various contraptions and exposed wires, related to the experiment with sound that was the subject of the opening.

I think the success of this work was perhaps less in what it intended – the experiment with music and sound – as it was in the realness of experience it created, especially when approximated by the work that is on display a few floors down in Vox.

Before I had more time to investigate the specifics of the music theory displayed on the walls in Music and Sound, an event began unfolding downstairs. It was another eerie choreographed experience; descend the stairs, migrate across the street towards the light emanating from yellow bulbs suspended at the tunnel’s ceiling under the tracks.

The yellow bulbs are an installation piece titled 'The Little Red String' which is part of 'Chinatown In/Flux'. The installation really helped to set the stage for a beautiful performance.

There everyone gathered around a table set with a number of crystal wine glasses full of water.

Each person individually wet their finger, and began to circle the rim of the glass.  The moaning of the reverberation from the glasses started out softy, then grew and morphed as more people joined in, and filled the space.  Coupled with the faint echo of the tunnel, and the dramatic soft light cast by the bulbs overhead, the sound created an engulfing other-worldly experience.

The seamless orchestration of this symphony was rather impressive, the doings of Mike Fleming and Ryan Hinkel in conjunction with the piece on display upstairs at Progressive Sharing.  The performance recalls the ‘Happenings’ of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the discordant and unfamiliar sounds emanating from the glassware seem to reference the work of John Cage, one of the originators of those performances.  The new idea in this piece lies in the artfully-intentioned way it was initiated and performed.  Earlier in the night, walking through the galleries, randomly scattered informational diagrams of how to make sound emanate from the top of a wine glass were posted throughout the space. Despite all the times I walked past and noticed the poster out of the corner of my eye, I never stopped to actually read it.  But its clean ‘visual-diagram’ style and repetition of placement in the exhibition space were enough for me to connect the two immediately, unconsciously as the performance began with the migration downstairs.

Poster image by Jon Barthmus

I am thrilled with Progressive Sharing’s experiments with-in and outside-of the traditional gallery space and am looking forward to seeing more from them.  Their thoroughly effective method of urging a happening suggests to me that looking at art in Philly is no longer so straightforward as it might seem.  Everything in the Collective space becomes on display, including the artists working spaces, which lurk at right angles all throughout the building.  Hints at what might unfold populate the space, and are as much part of the opening as the exhibits on display.  This communal approach to exhibition space, studio space, and what becomes performance space has a lasting impact.  The net result is that the work further removes itself from the white walls to go up the wooden stairs, around the corner, into a studio space (wrong turn), back down the stairs across the street and under the train tracks.

The town is full of great exhibits this month but don’t miss two ambitious narrative drawings with tales for the times.  They  will make you ponder, chuckle and shudder.  Annette Monnier’s wall-spanning ink drawing of City Hall at Copy Gallery and Phillip Adams’ charcoal mural of President Obama caught in a tidal wave at Tiger Strikes Asteroid are marvels that reward your trip up the dark creaky stairs at 319 N. 11^th.

Annette Monnier's massive ink on paper drawing of City Hall and the rest of her world at Copy Gallery. Low-lighting in the gallery made for dark pictures. Click it big to see detail.

Monnier’s delicate and whimsical piece shows our city’s seat of power as if taken over by bicyclists, birds, The Claymobile, some hippie vans, cats and young people (including a lineup of ten Kiera Knightly figures). Black balloons float up to the sky and a spaceship seems to be landing near a rainbow that’s not far from a tornado. City Hall is the biggest single character in this elegant, Where’s Waldo-like drawing, but the building is mute, stately and flat as a pancake, a mere backdrop for the swirl of activities around it.  

Annette Monnier, detail of drawing. Note the ten Kiera Knightley fashionistas lined up on the bottom.

Monnier, an artist/curator and co-founder of Copy Gallery (and its predecessor Black Floor) is an avid bike rider who also works at the Clay Studio.  She’s put those aspects of her life in the drawing along with her cat-, bird- and movie star-fashion-fantasies, claiming the city for herself and friends and asking you to re-imagine the place with the energy and foibles of youth.  Monnier’s detailed and fantastical drawing calls to mind the works of Florine Stettheimer, the early American modernist, scenester and friend of Marcel Duchamp.

Phillip Adams charcoal drawing installation at Tiger Strikes Asteroid. Photo courtesy of the gallery.

Adams’ drawing installation, made directly on the gallery’s four walls (it will be erased for next month’s show), immerses the viewer in a dark sea with ten-foot-high waves curling above the head and just about to crash.  It’s a suffocating place to be – both literally and metaphorically.  The one human element in this ominous drawing is our Hawaii-raised president, who is swimming in the trough before the wave, his head above water like a pea in the giant sea.  Surely, he will be going under in a cataclysm of unstoppable proportions.  

Phillip Adams, detail showing President Obama.

This muscular drawing reminds me of Robert Longo’s wall-spanning charcoal drawings of a surfer’s ideal waves.  But Adams’ waves are threatening and the work is not exalting, and with his tiny Obama, the drawing calls to mind Breughel the Elder and his wee humans in landscapes of sublime beauty.

The visions Adams and Monnier express the anxiety and hopes of many young artists—and many viewers as well.  Each in its own way is a perfect drawing for the times.

 >>Phillip Adams: Spring Break 2009, to April 24.  Tiger Strikes Asteroid, 319A N. 11^th St., 4^th floor.  Free.

>>Annette Monnier:  Think Happy Thoughts and Good Things Will Happen, through April 30.  Copy Gallery.  319A N. 11^th St., 3^rd floor.  Free.  By appointment: annettemonnier@gmail.com

Another small gallery is opening in Philadelphia just in time for March First Friday. It’s a group effort by still another great group of artists and in a great location.

The gallery, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, is upstairs from Vox Populi, on the 4th floor of what has become known as the Vox building. (That little neon sign in the window, and the ferment of Vox has marked its spot, I guess).

Caroline Santa

The group includes Alex Paik (my informant), Phillip Adams, Tim Gierschick, Alexis Granwell, Nathan Pankratz and Caroline Santa, and they will be the artists for the opening show. But the gallery also plans to reach out and host a number of invitational exhibits.

Three in this group have a University of Pennsylvania MFA connection, but not all of them, and I’m thrilled to see a new name in the midst of this group of artists whose work we have admired and covered here on the blog. The energy and networking seems to be coming from so many directions at once (I’m thinking about the recent collectivization of Little Berlin (see newsy post here), which began with the Tyler network, but has consistently been reaching out to the University of the Arts and everywhere else, looking for the best and the brightest).