Tim Belknap 33 second promo

TIGER STRIKES ASTEROID

Tim Belknap at Tiger Strikes Asteroid

moving on is a spare little show. With works by three artists, one local, one in London and one in upstate New York, the exhibit covers a lot of geography — and a lot about the human condition,  in sexy, manic, or bare-bones fashion.

Carolee Schneemann at Tiger Strikes Asteroid

The surprise here is Carolee Schneemann, the powerhouse 60′s-era feminist artist — her presence is highly unexpected in an alternative gallery show.  ”Fuses,” her scratchy film-to-video, (1966) is a melange of moving images of bodies (herself and her boyfriend making love), sometimes so up-close they are completely abstract. The work slips from one image to another with a liquid fluidity, and the mournful piece talks beautifully with both Tim Belknap’s skeleton piece and William Blackhurst’s two videos. All the work in the show is moody, a little forlorn and human-focused.

Belknap’s motorized skeleton somehow conjures the ambiance of a post-life The Dude with his loose-limbed, sandal-footed amble. Alexis Granwell, who was gallery sitting, said that the piece had been and was supposed to step more lively. But to me, the slow, almost-drunken movement more closely suggests the elasticity of time and its unstoppability. The digital read-out reinforces the idea of time and speed as well. Belknap has a solo show at Rebekah Templeton, and Dennis will tell you about that soon.

William Blackhurst at tiger Strikes Asteroid

William Blackhurst’s animations merge video footage of what might be home movies with animation to create a psychedelic and fractured narrative — a take on human interaction that suggests we all have real and unreal characters within. The artist lives in London and the press release says this is his first gallery exhibit.

NAPOLEON

Max Seckel in Commonplacing at Napoleon. Pencil on wall

The tiny gallery looks great with a big group show in it! Commonplacing is the debut curating show by members of Napoleon; the members each selected one of the eleven artists in the show. Pay attention in particular to the wall drawing by Max Seckel, a marvel of control over a difficult surface (stucco). Described by Leslie Friedman — there when Cate and I visited — as a landscape with a Where’s Waldo aspect, the cartoon landscape is dotted with tiny references from the artist’s life. Seckel is a Space 1026 member.

Loo Bain, Fixed Strays, at Napoleon

Perhaps because it is a large hanging object, Loo Bain’s “Fixed Strays” made of yarn, thread and string, has a big presence in the show.  Backlit by the window and swaying in the breeze, it’s the piece you gravitate to first in the show. The colors are totally upbeat, but the hanging animal harkens back to the dark work of Berlinde De Bruyckere (featured in ICA’s Springtide show in 2005) who also suspends animals or animal-like creatures in the air (or on plinths) to suggest commodification. (See also, Maurizio Cattelan’s suspended horse.) I’m not sure that’s what’s on Bain’s mind (commodification) but it’s a reference for sure. Apparently the artist was going to use this structure an an armature for another piece but decided the armature is the finished work.

Edward Marshall Shenk at Napoleon

Edward Marshall Shenk’s mystery pills on a plinth are optical magic (due to an optical illusion). (Remind me somebody where I’ve seen this piece before…)

Dana McElroy at Napoleon

Also a kind of magic, Dana McElroy’s photo of a room with a spooky luminescent window, and a door that appears to be coming up out of the floor. We were told the image is of a miniature environment. Whatever the source, there’s some Magritte-like wizardry in the work.

Joe Boruchow in Commonplacing at Napoleon

And it’s great to see Joe Boruchow’s cut paper works here. The virtuoso pieces are the basis for some of the artist’s recent street posters–you’ve seen them on mail boxes and elsewhere around town. Also in the show Shelby Donnelly, Hannah Rose Dumes Nelson Figueroa, Anna Gray, Ryan Wilson Paulsen and Ryan Parker.

Napoleon has a website now,  designed by Matt Kalasky. The full complement of Napoleon members includes: Matthew Brett, Daryl Bergman, Dustin Campbell, Leslie Friedman, Christopher Hartshorne, Jose Ortiz, Jordan Rockford, H. John Thompson, Tamsen Wojtanowski and Jacob Yeager.

VOX POPULI
Vox members James Johnson and Anita Allyn create dueling environments that are oblique comments on human behavior.

James Johnson, Work, at Vox Populi

Johnson’s work is called Work and to read the press release it’s really about work — the work of the artist and what it means to be an artist. But honestly, when I saw Work I hadn’t read the release and so I didn’t think one thought about artists — I though about people.  And I think Johnson’s piece is applicable to more than just the idea of the artist today, although artists are included of course.

Johnson has been a maker of theatrical environments for a while now. Usually, the stage-set-like rooms are accessible only through peep holes or windows. But this time the artist has abjured the container to display a few tiny scenes on the floor without their housing units to protect and encase them. There’s a tiny window in one wall (in front of an actual window, and this doll-house sized window lets in a jewel-like burst of light. Other lighting elements in the otherwise dark room ratchet up the theatricality.

James Johnson

Like with an installation by Pepon Osorio or Ilya Kabakov, there is a story suggested, although Johnson is more a formalist and less a linear story-teller, and so the rudimentary installations (a table, a carpet, a light) suggest Waiting for Godot more than bodice-ripping page-turners. As you tower over the little environments, it’s hard not to feel your size and clumsiness — and how you are the outsider, the audience. No matter what your narrative here, the rooms are haunted, provoking thoughts about childhood hopes and expectations — with sadness, regret and anger all present.

James Johnson

There’s one life size element — a really great-looking object — a box inset in the wall holding what appears to be a stack of large denomination bills. The glass-enclosed case is lit up like a jewel display in Tiffany’s. Everyone’s holy grail is money, whether you’re an artist or work on Wall St or at MacDonalds.

Anita Allyn, I love postdemocracy

In the bright-lit gallery up front, Anita Allyn’s life-size installation, i heart postdemocracy, with balloons, reflective mylar-coated protest placards, mirrors and a low table, is another stage set. Allyn’s pre- or post-party installation (and the ironic title of her show) suggest the played-out actions of those who feel for/against a cause, policy, war, group, politician, but whose feelings are less articulable than the trappings of the protest. Hardly a call to arms, the work seems more a comment on and perhaps condemnation of civic engagement.

Bonnie Begusch, flying type at Vox Populi

Guest artist Bonnie Begusch’s Motion Pictures — animated bits of moving type flying and flashing and flitting across screens or projected onto walls — reminds me of  Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries‘ moveable type text-video in the Temple Gallery Philagrafika show.  Whereas the Heavy Industries’ piece is a story with music, Begusch’s silent works are abstractions of language — formalist designs using bits and pieces of keyboard type.  Some of the pieces are more captivating than others — the piece projected low on the wall that has actual words — but words that are so blurry and sped up you can’t read them — kept us hostage as we hoped for a sentence, or at least a word or two (not forthcoming while we were there).

Claudia Weber at Vox Populi

And guest artist Claudia Weber’s Something Something Panorama, a multi-panel photographic panorama, while formalist and chilly (it seems to show debris on a table or floor, has a cosmic night of the soul aspect that’s worth staring at for a bit (where’s the bench???!).

MARGINAL UTILITY AND GRIZZLY GRIZZLY

Hadassah Goldvicht's Sabbath door at Marginal Utility, made by David Carrow

We walked up to Marginal Utility and were stopped by the gated and grated entrance to the gallery. The sign said they were closed for the Sabbath.  According to MU’s David Dempewolf and Yuka Yokayama, this Sabbath closure is the wish of the artist Hadassa Goldvicht, a Brooklyn-based Israeli artist whose work is about ritual and voices and whose installation here is called Songs for the Peacemaker.  In the dark gallery space, visible behind the grate is a video projection of a woman speaking, and this image behind the grated door conjures lots of ideas about prison, war, police states, harsh economic conditions even.   The artist was in Italy at the time of the opening but would be back  later in the month to install some additional work.  Dempewolf met the artist at Skowhegan, he said. And another artist named David, David Carrow, created the door specially for the exhibit. David Carrow is a poet in metal and the door, while forbidding, is elegant and beautiful.

Grizzly Grizzly closes at 3pm on Saturday, something I always forget, so I am always there too late. But I enjoyed their new fancy gallery name printed on the wall. They’ve seriously claimed ownership now.  Chip will tell you about the exhibit soon.

In the world of visual art, kinetic sculpture is like the kindergartner in a room full of grown-ups—loud, rambunctious and ready to have a good time. Delaware Center for the Contemporary Art ’s anniversary show, “SHIFT: Kinetic Sculptures,” is a perfect example. Eight artists— including Philadelphia’s Tim Belknap—present works using electronics, motors, compressed air, water and found objects (including a trash container, a motorcycle and cow bones). The works may remind you of children’s toys or mad science experiments. Belknap’s water-filled trash container feels like a bathtub where small battleships fight to the death while Dennis Beach’s Flow depicts a 3-D flow chart using clear acrylic tubing, water and compressed air. Whether the works are music to your ears or a cacophony, the show is a great reminder that many artists have roots as dabblers creating messes and having fun.

Tim Belknap's watery dumpster with battleship action at the DCCA.

Andro Linklater, best known as the author of American Revolutionary War books, has a new book about a rascally and sometimes traitorous general, James Wilkinson.

Andro Linklater's book, An Artist in Treason. Linklater speaks at the APS Library.

Linklater reads from An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson at the American Philosophical Society Museum Library . Wilkinson—who was the youngest general in the Continental Army and a trusted aide to Benedict Arnold—was a double dealer with a moral compass as wayward as his actions. While he saves the country from Arnold’s treacherous plot, he later becomes a secret agent for Spain but then saves the U.S. (again!) from the traitorous plot of Aaron Burr.

Hiraki Sawa's Eight Minutes, at Screening Gallery

Hiraki Sawa’s video animation Eight Minutes delivers a lyrical dreamscape in eight vignettes with a cast of ponies galloping through domestic Surrealist tableaus. Sawa’s silent black and white video places toy horses throughout London, including in Sawa’s home. The little herd swims through water in a bathroom sink, gallops around a kitchen sink, runs up and around the glass closure of a front-loading dryer and fords a stream in a diorama-like setting where the horses are dwarfed by a nearby mountain goat.

Hiraki Sawa, Eight Minutes

The juxtaposition of the animals with the domestic landscape may seem jokey at first, but there’s something lonely about the displaced animals that turns the piece into a melancholy reverie about not fitting in. Check it out at Screening, the dedicated video space inside Vox Populi.

Christina West, ceramic figure, at the Clay Studio

The Wexler Gallery and the Clay Studio both showcase works about the human condition. Kiki Smith’s sphinx, an Alice in Wonderland -like tabletop sculpture and Melanie Bilenker’s jewelry pieces are notable in Wexler’s four-woman show “The Self & Beyond.”

Melanie Bilenker, hair drawing on cameo-like jewelry, at Wexler Gallery

Drawn with her own hair, Bilenker’s works reference Victorian mourning jewelry, or cameos, and are beautiful depictions of the artist in domestic situations. Christina West is one of the artists featured in “Former Firsts” at the Clay Studio, a roundup of winners from the gallery’s annual graduate artist shows. Her life-sized painted clay figures of nude or partially-clothed people in odd situations suggest games or child’s play with a darker twist.

“ SHIFT: Kinetic Sculptures ”: Through Nov. 19. Reception: Fri., Oct. 2, 5-9pm. Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, 200 S. Madison St., Wilmington, Del. 302.656.6466.

Hiraki Sawa: “ Eight Minutes ”: Through Nov. 1. Screening Video, 319 N. 11th St., third fl. 267.918.8158.

Andro Linklater: An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson . Fri., Oct. 2, 5:30pm. American Philosophical Society Museum, Benjamin Franklin Hall, 427 Chestnut St. 215.440.3400.

“ The Self & Beyond ”: Through Oct. 31. Reception: Fri., Oct. 2, 5-8pm. Wexler Gallery, 205 N. Third St. 215.923.7030.

“ Former Firsts ”: Oct. 2-Nov. 1. Reception: Fri., Oct. 2, 5-9pm. Clay Studio, 139 N. Second St. 215.925.3453.

The huge, 29-artist exhibit attracted 500 people to Saturday’s opening at the Ice Box at the Crane Arts Center. There is a second opening tonight, at The Crane’s Second Thursday, 6-9 p.m.  that will include some more performances. So it would be a good time to go if you missed the opening, since performance was a key part of so many of the pieces.

Much of the show was about the body, fashion and performance. Here's Gregory Labold hitting all three notes!

Juried by Sarina Basta, a curator at SculptureCenter in Long Island City, N.Y., the show is exuberant and full of unexpected takes on what it means to be human and what it means to be categorized as sculpture, with a sharp emphasis on art about the body and fashion. It’s an exhibit that would be comfortable anywhere in the contemporary art world.

Basta also chose the prize winners:

1. First prize $1,500 Josh Kerner, Chris Golas and Joseph DiGuiseppi for their piece “The Plebeians.”
2. 2nd Prize $1,000  Susanne Gieske for You Can’t Help Yourself
3. 3rd prize $500  Tim Belknap, The Future is now a Shade of Grey

The money comes from a grant from Temple University’s Alumni Association.

Taking first and second prize were artists associated with FLUXspace–

Joseph DiGiuseppe, Josh Kerner, Chris Golas, "The Plebeians," What ever it takes, we must make it to the top. Performance, 18 x 15 x 15 feet, 2009; Photo with Sir Question Mark and the Trusty Steed pushing up Prince Charming, with Mr. Art Shark holding the fort (photo by Marianne Bernstein)

“The Plebeians,” which won prize numero uno, casts its creators  DiGiuseppe, Kerner and Golas as three of four actors in an art fairy tale–an attempt to climb an 18-foot mountain installation set in front of a sky blue corner of the room. A shark guards the top of the mountain, a Botticelli reproduction hanging in the sky behind him–the mythical ogre guarding the treasure. He cooks and heaves waffles down and blows “snow” confetti down at Prince Charming, his Trusty Steed, and Sir Question Mark who are trying to climb art’s heady heights to steal the treasure. The piece has a loveable storybook and DIY affect, and is of course in part about the artists’ personal ambitions, but it invites broader readings. The go-for-broke scale plus the energy and charm of the Perils of Pauline performance make this piece a big surprise as well as a good-natured challenge to the institutions of the past.

Susanna Gieske, You Can't Help Yourself. The family here is eating in the middle of the exhibition.

Numero dos went to FLUX’s program coordinator, Susanna Gieske, for her dining-in-the-gallery piece, You Can’t Help Yourself.  This performance piece–an enormous table and chairs set in the center of the enormous Ice Box space, decked out with settings and a full meal–also dominated the room. This amazing reimagining of the role  of the gallery space also challenges the family. The title is an ambiguous accusation or perhaps an ambiguous anti-invitation. The invitations were hand-written letters, a mix of passive-aggressive expressions of disappointment and love.

Susanne Gieske, detail of letter to one of her uncles, inviting him to dinner, part of her performance piece You Can't Help Yourself

The family was a little shocked that the gallery was where they would be eating, but once they got the picture, they gamely dug in!!! The individualized invitations hung on the back of each diner’s chair. This turning of the tables so that the audience becomes the performer, the personal becomes the public, is pretty amazing.

Tim Belknap, The Future is Now a Shade of Grey. Third prize at Victory.

Prize number 3 went to Belknap for his installation, The Future is Now a Shade of Grey. Belknap’s piece recycles his Fleisher Challenge exhibit last year bringing the narrative story of that installation forward.  Mr. Pineapple’s now-grafitti-scrawled truck has seen some battles.  It’s propped up on yoga balls and pulling (if it could pull) a small flatbed holding a severed hand.  When asked early in the evening about his options to win a prize, the artist (who also has ties to FLUXspace, having curated shows there) quipped that if we saw him later passed out from too much beer that meant he’d won, because the prizes were probably beer tickets!  

Laura Hricko, Interface(ing), performance using antique sewing patterns and hand-made garments, dimensions variable, 2007

The overwhelming focus of the show was bodies in motion, bodies in clothes, and bodies as symbols for survival. We saw Laura Hricko‘s models floating around the room in “antique” hand-made garments based on “antique”–ahem 1950s–sewing patterns posted on the wall. The body as shaped by clothes was a reminder of how fashion reflects the values of a culture.

Just for the record, we learned the juror didn’t know that Hricko was related to Ice Box co-founder Richard Hricko.

Gregory Labold, Mr. Green is Very Mean in This Scene, fabric, silscreen, Nikes, spray paint, plaster, 6 feet 6 inches, x 4 feet x 6 feet, 2008; next to Mr. Green stands Mr. Labold.

Gregory Labold arrived in costume– his own handmade suit and matching black-and-white stripes makeup–a blood borther to his sculpture “Mr. Green is Very Mean in This Scene.” Mr Green, or Moldman, is half Joker, half Ferengi. Labold stole the show from his own golem. And his little coloring zine, which we were happy to accept, invited readers to draw their own mold in the pictured petri dish. We laughed out loud.

Candy Depew, Ode, performance and mixed. Odalisque with swanky decor and blood on the floor.

Also wearing a home grown outfit was the young model in Candy Depew’s installation “Ode,” a very fashionable work, with a clothed odalisque nodding to Manet, Ingres and all other art historical ladies on couches surrounded by pillows and drapery.  The faux blood on the floor beside the couch is an oddly satisfying touch, reminding of how gansters have molls who often are fashionistas!

Ianthe Jackson, Purifyer, animation, life size projection 2007

Elsewhere, saving us from Labold’s Moldman and his killer mold is Ianthe Jackson’s terrific Purifyer, a stop action animation of people on an assembly-line conveyer belt undergoing some kind of irradiation or germ detection process. The conveyer belt looks like a bicycle chain kind of gizmo–all DIY herky-jerky–so when one of the people gets vaporized (not pure enough we suppose), it comes as a shock. Simple in concept and broad enough to apply in all kinds of ways, it’s political and it’s a throwback to early special effects in early sci-fi movies. The timing of the action as well as the style is serio-comic and retro.  (There’s a nice old-fashioned clanging bell that signals the entrance of another human taking a ride on the belt.)

Gene Hracho, Ride 'em. A helicopter made from scavenged kitchen utelsils and household stuff.

Gene Hracho’s endearingly-low tech helicopter, sited around the corner from Jackson’s conveyer belt video, is a great oversized toy that came together in a garage over the last three years, said Hracho’s parents who hovered proudly near their son’s creation (he was expected but not there yet when we talked with them).  

Hracho's use of the four-slice toaster is so unexpected and funny we laughed.

Aluminum jello molds, tin cans, cranks from egg beaters and, the piece de resistance, two, four-slice toasters, try to bridge the gap between kitchen and aerospace-engineering.  The labor of love is not for sale but Hracho pere has been encouraging his son to get in touch with helicopter manufacturers who might just like to display his ur-machine in their lobbies.  

Francine Gintoff, Cassius (left), Ayn (center) and Gort (right), acrylic on hand, approx. 7 inches each. Hand??? What an odd material!

In another take on body and fashion, Francine Gintoff’s hands sport tattoo-like portraits of an unlikely trio–Cassius Clay, Ayn Rand, and Gort (the robot from the film When the Earth Stood Still). We wondered if Gintoff was a student of Susan Moore, whose paintings of tattooed people (real tattoos on real people) are showing at LaSalle College right now. Gintoff’s off-putting hands seem to be about skin and skin color and the future of humankind–we’ve got a dark brown hand for Cassius (aka Cassius Clay aka Muhammed Ali), a tan hand for Ayn, and a silver hand for Gort. All three subjects, not to mention tattoos, can be interpreted as threats by some, but the hands are not in threatening poses.

Sarah O'Donnell, Untitled video installation. The tvs are on their sides and "sitting" in seats.

Faces and extreme attitudinalality are Sarah O’Donnell’s m-o in her untitled video installation with televisions “seated” on theatre chairs, each one showing an arms-crossed young person staring blankly ahead.  A movie theatre audience is suggested but the blank stares and crossed arms also call to mind a room of high schoolers being lectured or individual teenagers receiving some bad news from mom.  Like Andy Warhol’s screen tests, these static vignettes focused on faces are slow-cooked and pretty great. 

Roxana Perez-Mendez, New Espacio, multi-media

And speaking of sci-fi and clothes making the woman, Roxana Perez-Mendez’s New Espacio, a video of herself as the first Puerto Rican space walker, seemed to reach a wonderful new level of visual immateriality and unmoored floatiness in its presentation. The floaty version reflected off a visible video screen–which explained how she created the more immaterial version and somehow doubled the pleasure.

Austin Lee, Impulse Artwork, lowest of the low, a modest charmer.

Finally, Austin Lee’s minimalist Impulse Artwork, red and blue “worms” snaking through holes in the Icebox and Grey Area walls, should win the wallflower prize.  If you didn’t look closely you’d miss this piece sited far below eyelevel and dangling, modestly suggestive.  The piece’s charms lie in its subtle evocation of nature (worms), candy (licorice twists), people (girl and boy) and technology (that mass of electrical cords and cables that are lifelines to grids of electricity, fiber optics and other miracles of contemporary plugged-in-ness.)

The show is up to April 26, 2009.

Tim Belknap’s hand-built ice cream truck with its pineapple greenhouse on wheels at the Fleisher Challenge.

With the exception of shopping mall artist Thomas Kinkade, most contemporary artists have a complicated relationship with beauty. The artists of the first Wind Fleisher Challenge are no exception: None of their works could be considered beautiful by traditional standards.

Solar panel on top of ice cream truck. The artist likes working with other people, letting them contribute what they’re good at and like to do.

But beauty is not always the point in contemporary art. The point is more often a message about an urgent issue or feeling. What’s felt here is anger and resignation. Whether it’s Cheryl Harper’s ceramic caricatures of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Timothy Belknap’s post-apocalyptic fairy tale installation or John Slaby’s hand-painted cigarette packages, this work is fueled by social and political concerns.

FM Transmitter, last in line in this little post-apocalyptic parade.

Belknap’s installation is a theatrical tableau featuring three full-scale fantasy vehicles: an ice cream truck, a mobile greenhouse growing a pineapple and a striped ball on wheels (that doubles as an FM transmitter). In one corner of the room a skeleton in farmer’s clothing kneels in a flower bed while being caught in headlights from the vehicles. On a wall, a small photograph of a child with a horror mask is a macabre family portrait.

Pineapple power. Belknap grew the plant and is hoping it will flower soon.

The very loose narrative, says the artist, is about Mr. Bolt, an ice cream truck entrepreneur at the end of the world and his conflicted relationship with children whom he loves during the day and fears at night. Mr. Bolt is a puppeteer and his truck is a hybrid vehicle, part solar and part diesel. His pineapple plant will feed the children and the FM transmitter—its logo is emblazoned with the words “do not give up”—plays a wan and reedy acapella rendering of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

Do not give up might might be the theme for this slippery narrative that’s a visual art cousin of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.  Belknap – who does not know the McCarthy book but did refer to Mad Max in a discussion we had, built the ambitious set piece himself (with the help of some friends).  The young artist (Tyler MFA 2006) has a dark sense of humor that reflects the times.

Cheryl Harper’s The Teaching Gore, 2007. stoneware, 31x12x12″

Iconoclastic stoneware figures by Cheryl Harper lampoon political leaders and politics. In her artist’s statement Harper says she’s disappointed by people in Washington who could be role models but aren’t. Hillary Clinton is skewered as a scary smiling sphinx; her husband Bill is half rockstar/half businessman and far less noble than the dog next to him; Al Gore is a barefoot messiah and born-again preacher of ecology.

Bill n’ Buddy. 2008. stoneware, dog leash, approximately 27x20x10″ (two figures)

Republicans get theirs too, although the piece focuses mainly on Democrats. There are also two large landscape works, but these pieces are less successful at representing the artist’s anger.

Two of John Slaby’s painted cigarette packages.

Most people wouldn’t look twice at an exhibit of 37 real cigarette packs on a wall. But John Slaby’s trompe l’oeil painted and constructed cigarette boxes are virtuoso works that slow you down and sucker you in. Slaby’s not a smoker but he picks up discarded packs from the street for his models. Whatever the work’s about—anti-smoking or anti-litter, perhaps—these painted pieces raise thoughts about how good design sells bad things.

John Slaby, painted cigarette packages

Wind Fleisher Challenge 1.
Through Nov. 22.
Fleisher Art Memorial, 719 Catharine St.
215.922.3455.

We’re big fans of Tim Belknap, one of the Belknap Brothers, whose performance at FLUXspace in 2007 we loved for its mesmerizing weirdness.

So when he invited us for a gallery walk-through to see his installation at Fleisher, we couldn’t wait. Belknap is one of three artists in the first Wind Challenge exhibit this year at Fleisher Art Memorial; the others are Cheryl Harper and John Garrett Slaby. We’ll tell you about the rest of the show in another post.

You’ll find our photos of the entire Challenge exhibition at Roberta’s flickr and Libby’s flickr.

Here’s how Belknap began:

I’m a scrapper…with my friend Alex. [When they need a little money, they put a scrap-wanted listing up on Craig's list and go in and buy things that would otherwise be thrown out...from buildings being rehabbed].

I found a reel-to-reel player and a bunch of tapes of Martin Luther King‘s death–post-assassination radio reports–on a gospel radio station. …I found it at an old Masonic Temple. Also, at Girard and Master at a school we were dumpster diving we found a Bell Labs record in a box…and sold it on eBay to someone from Japan…for $300.

Public Buildings, if they have a dumpster, you hit’em. If it’s not us, it will end in a landfill. That’s what Tyler School of Art taught me — go through dumpsters to find the treasure.

Detail of Dream Come True. Note the motto “Do not give up.”

Is your Fleisher show scrapped together?
No, this installation is what the scrap was paying for.

What’s the back-story behind in installation? In a nutshell, You’ve got an ice cream truck, a pineapple greenhouse on wheels and a circus-striped Mars rover on tricycle wheels. It’s a parade, but what kind?

Timothy Belknap, The Future is So Bright

It tells a story about Mr. Bolt and Pineapples — a post apocalyptic story about a guy trying to feed the children, but packing a gun, too. He drives the truck, grows pineapples and generates energy. But during the night he’s afraid of the kids. He does puppet shows. [Tim will do a puppet show in the course of the exhibit, but the date is not yet set.]

So is the pineapple really growing, or is it just for the show?
I’m …using apples to off-gas…I read that when gas is produced by decaying apples, the pineapple will flower. It takes two-and-a-half years to grow a pineapple and they produce when they’re 2 feet tall. [His is about 2 feet tall now AND he expects it to flower in about nine more months]. The pineapple is self-sufficient.

This part of the installation is called Leave It To Beaver to Stab the Old Man and Take His Battery.

What’s the audio in the truck?
[The audio is supposed to be in Dream Come True, and broadcast over FM, but his transmitter didn't come from China yet....The audio is Amy Day, a friend, singing Over the Rainbow (acapella). He expects it next week.] when I have the transmitter I’ll have headphones…but it won’t be set to the frequency so people have to tune it…they may be listening to NPR or maybe stumble on my audio…

The parade of vehicles.

How’d you build the truck?
I started with a riding lawn mower and took the engine out and put in a diesel engine of the kind used to run an electric sign board (like those arrow signs on the highway that tell you to move over)…It uses 1 pint of diesel an hour.

You have a solar panel too…so it’s a hybrid vehicle!!!
I wrote my thing for Fleisher and put in lots of references to Great Big Nuclear War (GBNW) and starving children….and Fleisher wrote the press release up like it’s an eco piece. It’s not eco.

I’m not political.

Note solar panel on top of ice cream truck.

Right.
I like the dichotomy of fear and submission in the ’50s–the cheeriness of the AEC brochures. For example, Atomic Energy and You ….it’s your friend. When we get bombed, here are all the things we can test our children and cattle with. Or the ’50s Red scare–duck and cover. There’s optimism in that time…now everything’s a warning. My ex-girlfriend, her grandpa in Texas was [a plane spotter]…just in case the plane came over with the bomb in it.

I wanted to be an astronaut. I grew up in the 80s..there was leftover optimism. Do people want to be astronauts anymore? The last few days I’ve been listening to Martin Luther King. It’s just like…No hate, No fear….you don’t hear that anymore.

Do you paint besides making sculpture?
Why do I make sculpture like this? I do this because I can’t paint.[He doesn't like to face the white canvas]. I feel bad for painters.

Puppets waiting to tell the story.

How do you get the work done? Do you do it all yourself or do you have help?
I have an entourage. My brother Matthew sewed the clothes on the skeleton. He made dresses for the Belknap sisters performance at FLUXspace. virginia Fleming helped with the puppets; Dustin Metz helped with painting the scenery for the puppets; Amy Parks helped mutate the flowers.

I think I’m fun to help out…anything you can do…I’ll get you to help.

How long did it take you to make this?
I got the truck engine a year ago, the pineapple a week ago, the skeleton a month ago, the ball over the summer. I made the flowers a week ago.

I try to keep it simple.

Andrew Jeffrey Wright

Space 1026 founder, AJW, was selling his work and his girlfriend, Crystal Kovak’s work. Here he’s holding one of Crystal’s drawings and wearing a shirt with one of his images on it. He said he never counts the money til the end of the day….it makes it kind of like Christmas he said.

Nick Kripal

Kripal, Temple faculty and co-founder with Richard Hricko of the Crane Arts Building, said they were very happy with their new outside landscaping/finishing project in the back patio space. They can use the space for events like this, and for parties and other summertime soirees (a possible revenue generator for the Crane). Also, stay tuned for news about the Stable, the Crane’s little out-building, which will become the home soon for a high-end architectural restoration company now based in Chadds Ford. The company will actually be restoring the building! Cool.

Ashley Peele Pinkham and Kim Kindelsperger.

Peele Pinkham is Assistant Director of The Print Center, Kindelsperger is with the Arts and Business Council.

Leslie Kaufman

Kaufman, President of Philadelphia Sculptors, is gearing up for PS’s 2008 big exhibit on the theme of Global Warming, which will be held in the Crane’s Icebox. Right now, PS has a call out for work for a November, 2007, show “Tip of the Iceberg” billed as a “warm-up” for the Global Warming show. Iceberg will be at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. Interested in being in Iceberg or Global Warming? email Leslie for the information at lesliekaufman@verizon.net

Gina Triplett and Matthew Curtius, husband and wife collaborating artists.

We’ve seen their work and written about it but never met them. Since they collaborate on painting they were interested in how we collaborate on our paintings.

Genevieve Coutroubis

Coutroubis of Center for Emerging and Visual Artists (CFEVA) also stopped by for a chat. Look for Flicker: A Group Exhibtion at Tower Gallery starting May 31, featuring work from CFEVA members Joelle Jensen, Mark Khaisman, Matt Neff, Binod Shrestha, Amy Stevens, and Jeffrey Stockbridge.


Joan Phillips

Phillips is a Uarts grad and founding member of the student gallery there, Gallery 1.

Dolores Poacelli

Poacelli’s table was right next to ours. The artist was doing a good business with her small colorful affordable collage and painted works. People were buying them by the gross–well a small exaggeration. They were buying more than one at a time, though.

Rebecca Rutstein, Mike Stifel and 7-month old Oliver

Rutstein is a recent Pew fellow who shows at Bridgette Mayer Gallery. Stifel has a show of sculpture at 201 Gallery.

Susan Fenton, Olivia Murphy and John Murphy.

Wiggly kid, wiggly dad, wiggly picture. The place was full of baby strollers and dogs…and their parents….it was like being at a park! Fenton, a photographer whose work is on exhibit at Schmidt-Dean Gallery now has competition from her son, Raphael Fenton Spaid who is in the Nexus Selects show (down the hall from the Icebox.) Murphy is the inLiquid exhibitions director.

Tim Belknap

Belknap is one of the Belknap brothers who performed under those big bobble head doll’s heads last week at Flux Space. Great to meet him–we loved the performance. He said they’re working on a new piece. See post.

Joe DiGiuseppe and Chris Golas

Speaking of Flux Space, these two are two of the three founders of Flux Space and AMMS. They were going back there for the Big Art Show taking place from 6-9 pm.

Becky Wright and Vince Brough

Wright is the owner of Saturn Club hair salon in West Philly. She also was a member of the board of the University City Arts League for many years.

Andrea Kirsh, our artblog pal, writer and art historian extraordinaire, was volunteering at the food concession both days. The sweetheart bought one of our paintings!

Also seen but we’re sorry we don’t have pictures: Richard Hricko, another Crane Arts founder, David Kessler, video guy extraordinaire, photographer Robert Asman, Peregrine Arts Managing Curator Jordan Rockford, Ellie Brown, artist Joanne Bosack who was with ex-curator Debbie Allen (she’s moved on and now is making ceramics), and artist Bobbie Rosen.