Our series sponsor is Fleisher Art Memorial.

Two new print publications expand the writing about art in Philadelphia. We talk with Rachel and Trevor Reese of Possible Press, a zine of writing and projects by artists; and David Dempewolf and Yuka Yokayama of Machete, a critical commentary publication.  The two couples, who have not met each other before, find out that they all use the same printer in Long Island City, Linco. Both couples also run project spaces where they show edgy interesting art.  Rachel and Trevor run Possible Projects and David and Yuka run Marginal Utility.

Rachel and Trevor Reese (l) and Yuka Yokayama and David Dempewolf, before our talk with them, held at Marginal Utility's office

Below is a 41-second sample of the interview. Below that is the full 15-minute interview:

Download audio file (zinespromofinal.mp3)
Right click to download 41-second machete and possible press sample

Download audio file (zinesfinal.mp3)
Right click to download full 15-minute zines podcast

This episode is edited by Peter Crimmins. The music is by Eric Biondo. Thanks to the Knight Foundation and our series sponsor, Fleisher Art Memorial, for their support of this project. Thanks to WHYY NewsWorks for partnering with us. You can subscribe to artblog radio on iTunes.

Below is a 41 second sample clip from our talk about zines.  Listen next Monday to the entire episode.

talk about art zines

A Philly-made video fest at the Painted Bride

Join us for a video trip to visit some great art tonight.

The video shows off Joshua Mosley‘s and Anthony Campuzano‘s shows at ICA and also the micro film-sets of the Quay Brothers at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery. Video artist David Kessler created this episode of our video series Look! It’s Libby and Roberta in 2009. It  will screen at the Bride at 5:30 p.m., and we’ll be there, too, hanging around until 6.  Look! is the first in an evening of screenings by PhillyCAM that will include work from Big Tea Party, Scribe Video Center and Termite TV.  There’s also a film on Harvey Finkle, and film on women klezmer artists. Sigh! We’re in such good company. The program runs 5:30 to 8 p.m. We plan to be there 5:30 to 6. Here’s PhillyCAM’s full schedule.

PhillyCAM has a phone feedback line, 267 639 5483. I’m not sure what this means but they asked us to let our friends and fans know that they can use the number to call in with comments.

Publication party alert

Yet another print publication about art, Possible Projects, has burst on the Philadelphia art scene.  Zine publishers Rachel and Trevor Reese are having a party tomorrow night (Saturday, Sept. 4), 7 p.m. to maybe 11ish to celebrate their second issue–so come and get your free zine. Contributors to this issue include Alex DaCorte, Regina Rex and more. The party is at the storefront at 873 E. Thompson St., Philadelphia.

Our Picks

For new readers (or old forgetful ones), the newest shows–plus Our Picks, the shows and events that especially intrigue us this month– are up on maps&listings. You can also subscribe to receive future monthly Our Picks newsletters in your email.

Roz, by Burt Barr at PAFA’s Morris Gallery.

“Rich Text” at Fleisher-Ollman Gallery is a roundup of lusty contemporary word art that’s a smile from start to finish.  And across town, the video by New York artist Burt Barr at PAFA’s Morris Gallery is also a great word piece — serendipitously scheduled —  a rumination on what words mean when mouthed by a person who doesn’t get their meaning or doesn’t care.

 
Justin Quinn, Chapter 71, or 8466 times E” (2005)

Rich Text has a couple of stupendous cut paper works whose intricate and abstract scissors play is wed to equally fine word play.  Jina Valentine and Justin Quinn have exacto’d their way through books which they cut and paste back on to their cut paper basketry.  Quinn’s love of Moby Dick (or at least Moby Dick’s words and letters) shows in his collage piece “Chapter 71 or 8466 times E” (2005) a starburst spray of the letter “E” that’s like a foghorn sounding in the night. Valentine’s “Poisonous Books” and Natasha Bowdoin‘s two works with hand-lettered words use words as visual cacophony. 
 
Natasha Bowdoin detail Untitled (Trickster Series) 2008. pencil and gouache on cut paper. 30×22″

The 21 artist show includes a number of pieces that are descendants of Jenny Holzer, an early practitioner of word art.  Holzer’s aphorisms (“a man can’t know what it is to be a mother”) with their underlying anger at the world’s injustices make them instantly endearing. 

Jayson Scott Musson, My Million Dollar Idea. The piece is about a reality tv show idea where a white person is put down in a black neighborhood in an undisclosed city and given $3 to take public transportation and find the nearest white neighborhood.

Jayson Scott Musson, Anthony Campuzano, Alex Da Corte all make works that riff on society’s ills.  Using a variety of means (Musson works digitally; Campuzano paints and draws; and Da Corte sculpts) the messages are earnest and delivered with urgency. 

Mark Mahosky, detail, 41 small sculptures out of cardboard, paint and wire on scavenged shelving 2000-2009

Mark Mahosky and Trevor Reese use words in sculptural settings to create quasi-autobiographical works that are tender and playful.  Bob and Roberta Smith (aka Patrick Brill) make beautiful scrap wood sign boards with funny shaggy dog stories emblazoned in lovely letters. 

 
Wayne White, Tinted Lard, 2009. acrylic on offset lithograph. 18 3/4×25″

And Wayne White paints free-associative nonsense words (“tinted lard,” “invisible ruler”) on found thrift store paintings with results that resemble Grade B movie posters.  That’s just the tip of the iceberg in this show.

 
Roz by Burt Barr. The piece opens with Roz opening her mouth to emit a long puff of smoke. She then begins to sing.

Meanwhile, PAFA’s Morris Gallery has been turned into a screening room for the next 6 months for a new video series.  Burt Barr’s Roz (2004) shows a young woman lip synching Otis Clay‘s version of “The Banks of the Ohio” while standing under running water in the shower.  Whether Roz knows the song is about a brutal murder of a young woman or not and what she thinks about that are a mystery.  The short piece loops and the repeated words tumble out of the young woman’s mouth like so many bubbles, meaningless.  Love, death and remorse go on forever, and do we, like this young woman, care or not?

Trevor Reese, Untitled (sorryimlate) 2008. stool, lights, wood, plaster 42x17x24″ 

Happily, word art in 2009 is nothing like it was back in the 1970s. Today, artists use words as just another tool in the toolbox and word art is rich with color, shape, texture and narrative, all of which engages the viewer.  It’s a great time to be making word art—and these two exhibits show the range of exciting work out there.

Rich Text, through Feb. 21, Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, 1616 Walnut St., Suite 100. 215 545.7562

Roz, by Burt Barr, to Feb. 22. PAFA, Morris Gallery. Furness Building, Broad and Cherry Sts. 215 972 7600

Ed Ruscha at the Fabric Workshop last Friday night

Ed Ruscha was looking like a little leprachaun in front of a packed audience at the Fabric Workshop’s new space last Friday.  The 2nd floor gallery space — which makes a great lecture hall — was certified for only 200 people with a live feed downstairs for the big spillover crowd.  

Ruscha and his slide of the Barnyard Rembrandt

According to Ruscha, who was showing slides of his influences and a few of his own work, Barnyard Rembrandt Chuck Byers (sic–it’s really Clark Byers, see obit) said, “‘I never passed up a good roof.’”

Ruscha went on to say of Byers’ work, “It reminds me of those wraparound videos on buildings today”  (referring to moving billboards and the moving news ticker around Times Square).

We had a great time laughing at Ruscha’s wry humor.  He was full of notable quips including:

Jasper John‘s Flag was my atomic bomb.

Muhammed Ali. My hero, he was outrageous in almost every way.  He’s worth getting choked up about.

Harold Edgerton‘s photos are frozen still lives.

Renato Bertelli‘s endless [Head of] Mussolini.  That’s my Mona Lisa.  It says everything about our time.

I like the ambiguity of monosyllabic words.

Maybe I’ll live in a Standard [gas] station.  Park the car and just go in.

Accidental Ed Ruscha. Outside the FWM on Arch Street.

This light box on Arch St. caught our friend Susan‘s eye.  She immediately dubbed it an “Ed Ruscha.”

Jamie Dillon’s Monomelon at Copy

We heard it moaning like a beached whale before we saw it–Jamie Dillon‘s Monomelon at Copy Gallery.  It’s a sound installation following up his sound installation last month at Vox.   People loved this melon.  They were hanging out trying to hear what the oracle had to say next.

Trevor Reese, installation at Space 1026, has audio and video and plants!

Space 1026 has a terrific show by two artists, Trevor Reese of Brooklyn and Sighn (aka Matthew) of Chicago.  Words, wood, plants and video.  It’s one of the best shows we’ve seen there in a while — unexpected and provocative.  Fun, too.

Sighn at Space 1026. 

Sighn’s “ITSOK” wall.  Hand-cut bass wood.  1,000 pieces, cut with a jigsaw, which explains Sighn’s aching back.  Individual units of ITSOK in bamboo or bass wood available for $20!

Marisa Olson’s video at Vox Populi

We made a video of Marisa Olson’s video at Vox to try to give you a sense of the action in the subtle piece.  Well, YouTube rejected our video as “content inappropriate.”  So here’s a photo. The action is:  this woman is tied with pink strings.  She’s wiggling to get out of her predicament.  Over time you see she’s got a razor in her hands.

Xiang Yang’s installation at Vox Populi.

Xiang Yang was at the opening, showing a new body of work — deconstructed chairs.  He scavenged the chairs from the streets of New York where he lives and lovingly sanded them to new abstract beauty.  Zhang also has an installation opening Oct. 17 at the Liao Collection piece –a room filled with Chinese furniture.  It reminds us of Mari Shaw‘s encounter with some Chinese art in Germany.  

Gossip

William Pym, former gallery director at Fleisher-Ollman Gallery,  is now living at Jersey City with his girlfriend and writing for Village Voice and Artforum. We got this from John Ollman, who told us while juggling a glass of wine and a copy of the PMA’s hot-off-the-presses James Castle catalog. Fleisher-Ollman’s upcoming Castle show is running in conjunction with the upcoming PMA exhibit. Ollman, by the way, is featured in the Castle documentary movie that’s part of the PMA’s exhibit.

Anthony Campuzano is having a solo show at ICA’s project space, opening Jan. 16. We heard this from Ollman and then ran into Anthony at Vox and he confirmed. He seemed calmer than us. We’re very excited about this. He’s working with ICA’s new curatorial assistant Kate Kraczon. Anthony told us another Philly art star, video and clay animation virtuoso Josh Mosley, will be in the large upstairs gallery at the same time.

Pepon Osorio told us he’s in a great-sounding group show opening October 19 at PS I in New York. NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith is co-organized by The Menil Collection Many of the artists in the show we’ve followed for years and love — including Philadelphia artist Terry Adkins. Here’s who else is in the exhibit:

Janine Antoni, Radcliffe Bailey, José Bedia, Rebecca Belmore, Sanford Biggers, Tania Bruguera, James Lee Byars, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, William Cordova, Jimmie Durham, Regina José Galindo, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Hammons, Michael Joo, Brian Jungen, Kcho, Marepe, Ana Mendieta, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Adrian Piper, Ernesto Pujol, Dario Robleto, Betye Saar, Gary Simmons, George Smith, Michael Tracy, Nari Ward