Walter Edmonds

We are sad to bring you the news that Philadelphia Artist Walter Edmonds, 73, died of a heart attack on June 12th.

He was well-known for his murals inside the Church of the Advocate in North Philly which were painted along with artist Richard Watson. From 1973 – 1976 the pair painted 14 of the murals on for the Episcopal congregation.

Prince Twins Seven-Seven

African artist and musician Twins Seven-Seven died on June 16th after suffering a stroke back in April 2011.

One of the original artists of the Oshogbo School which rose to prominence in the newly independent Nigeria of the 1960s, he participated in shows around the world. His work is part of many private and museum collections including the Smithsonian and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Other News

Maiden voyage of Midnight St. Claire

A new artist-run digital publication, The Nicola Midnight St. Claire, has just released its first issue! Half ocean-liner, half experimental digital art outlet – the Midnight St. Claire will be released on the second Friday of every month.

Pittsburg Biennial

The Pittsburgh Biennial had its opening reception on June 16th. The exhibition showcases Pittsburgh’s art scene through a global lens at three venues around the city. This surely raises some questions as to why Philadelphia does not have its own biennial. In a city as large as Philadelphia with such a robust and diverse art community, why hasn’t such an exhibition been organized?

Spiral jetty in jeopardy

The iconic Utah earthwork by Robert Smithson has run into legal trouble.

The New York-based Dia Foundation was late on its annual $250 payment (yes, $250!) for the land where the jetty exists. According to Utah state officials, the Dia Foundation also failed to respond to an automatically generated notice in February that its 20-year lease had run out. While this doesn’t directly endanger the earthwork, it does place its future scarily in limbo.  The state of Utah now owns the Spiral Jetty.

ICA appoints Alex Klein as new program curator

The Institute of Contemporary Art has appointed Alex Klein as its new program curator. An artist and writer originally based in Los Angeles, Klein will aim will be to foster multi-dimensional programming and a more integrated website as part of ICA’s future.

Opportunities

Vox Populi will host writer Becky Hunter on June 26 at 6 PM as the first of a series of free workshop geared to help artists write and communicate about their work. Other workshops in the series include “An Artist’s Guide to Blogging: Setting up your blog, what to write & getting noticed by Google; An Artist’s Guide to Critical Writing: Step by step constructing a thoughtful exhibition review; An Artist’s Guide to Statements & Bios: Tailoring your “about me” text to various audiences.”

Vox is also accepting applications for solo or small, curated group exhibitions. The deadline is July 15, and you can find all the details on their submissions page.

Skywards Future Artists Competition is seeking applicants for it’s 2011 search for new artists. Prizes include $5,000 and a showcase of their art at the upcoming Art Dubai. The deadline is July 14.

Artists

Tristin L0we: Under the Influence will be opening at the PMA in October. On display will be Lunacy, his moon-like sphere constructed from felt and measures 12 1/2 feet in diameter.

Bridgette Mayer Gallery welcomes its new artist Arden Bendler Browning, and announces her participation in the upcoming show Urbanism: Reimagining the Lived Environment at PAFA.

Fuckurs V (From the Handjob Series), 44.5 x 58 inches, photographic print.

Near the entryway, and throughout the show, hang a multitude of large – between two and four foot – photographic prints. They are heavily abstracted, and glow with strong highlights and shades of red and pink. It takes quite a bit of analysis (and maybe even an explanation from the artist) to determine that the subjects are close-up images of hands in various contortions. The images are very inviting and comforting to look at and their soft qualities are due in part to the fact that they were captured by a simple cell phone camera. They exude human warmth even without the knowledge of their source and contain undertones of the womb, of sexual embrace (appropriately part of the “Handjob” series), and of vitality in general.

Comet: God's Particle, 120 x 32 x 32 inches, neon/glass/aluminum

Complemented by the hues of the photos, and illuminating the entire show, is the radiant centerpiece: a huge, three-dimensional comet constructed from twisting, red neon tubes. It is 10 feet long, and the focal point of the show in both placement and magnitude. When asked why he chose a comet, Lowe began a lengthy barrage of images and anecdotes, making it clear that his seemingly disconnected works and thought processes were actually quite scientific, while at the same time rather associative. From the very Carl Sagan-like assertion that we are made from star dust, to the visual similarities between comets and sperm cells, the life of the photos, the energy of the neon tubes, and the cosmic themes all begin to fall into place.

Near Miss, 20 x 19 x 11 inches, felt on ethafoam

Lowe’s felt pieces serve as the midpoint, at times both soft and celestial. While not all of the objects fit as neatly into these categories, for instance a door or a pair of jeans, most have obvious parallels: a relief sculpture of the moon hanging high on the wall, a meteorite pockmarked with craters, and a pair of binoculars. The novelty of seeing these items made from fabric (with the exception of the jeans) highlights Lowe’s quirky humor. Where the visual play doesn’t quite fit, he tailors his wordplay to make the themes snug. The pants, entitled: Genes: Standard Model, introduces the biological tie-in which brings the show thematically full circle.

An artist this engaging for so many reasons is a rare find. Tristin Lowe’s show is smart, funny, and varied; it asks big questions about who we are and where we come from in a multitude of pertinent ways, but it does so with a wry charm. Microcosmic as well as stellar, this show is pretty nearby for being so out of this world.

Billie Grace Lynn, Miami, FL "Mad Cow Motorcycle", 2008, metal, cow bones, (kinetic sculpture), 36" x 96" x 24"

Billie Grace Lynn on her mad cow motorcycle. Photo courtesy of West Collection.

We loved the low rider’s fierceness and were sorry we didn’t get to see the artist ride in on the thing, which we were told she was going to do in a cow-suit costume at the Thursday night announcement. As part of her project, she will be modifying the bike so she can ride it farther, touring the beef industry states.

Billie Grace Lynn, Miami, FL "Mad Cow Motorcycle", 2008, detail

Stoetzel, who ushered us through the exhibit while several of the artists were still installing, shared with us their reasons for choosing the winner: They wanted to support projects that brought the art beyond the studio into the real world–that were activist. And that’s exactly what Lynn will be doing. With the help of engineers at the University of Miami (where Lynn teaches sculpture), she is transforming the motorcycle engine into a hybrid that could travel farther on a tank of gas, and then she will be making a movie of her ride, touring the South and the Midwest. The movie is not funded by the prize, only the performance itself.

Also big news:  The collection purchased Tristin Lowe’s Mocha Dick, which will be an anchor in their new space in Philadelphia, wherever that will be.

Joshua Mosley at Site Santa Fe

Joshua Mosley, film still from dread, animated film. 6 minutes. Photo courtesy of ICA which showed the piece last year

Artist of sublime and philosophical clay animations with lovely soundtracks, Joshua Mosley was in the last Venice Bienale.  This summer his work is included in another international biennial, Site Santa Fe.  I’m not sure what film Mosley will be showing.

Here’s who else is in that big show: Robert Breer, Paul Chan, Martha Colburn, Thomas Demand, Brent Green,
George Griffin, Ezra Johnson, Bill T. Jones & OpenEnded Group, Mary Reid Kelley,
William Kentridge, Avish Khebrehzadeh, Laleh Khorramian, Maria Lassnig,
Jennifer & Kevin McCoy, Joshua Mosley, Oscar Muñoz, Jacco Olivier, Raymond Pettibon,
Robert Pruitt, Christine Rebet, Robin Rhode, Hiraki Sawa, Berni Searle, Cindy Sherman, 
Federico Solmi, Kara Walker, with historical works by Edison Manufacturing Company,
Fleischer Studios, Lotte Reiniger, and Dziga Vertov.   The biennial is curated by Sarah Lewis and Daniel Belasco and runs June 20-Jan 2, 2011. More about the biennial here.

Tristin Lowe in orbit at RISD Art Museum

Tristin Lowe's new felted piece, Lunacy, at the RISD museum

Fresh off tackling a felted inflatable sculpture of the world’s largest mammal, Mocha Dick the mythic whale, Tristin Lowe has gone celestial, sculpting a room-sized felted ball with craters and an orbiting space capsule. The piece, called Lunacy,  just opened at RISD museum.

Tristin Lowe, Lunacy and Visither 1 at the RISD museum. All photos of this work courtesy of the artist

There are fourteen sections sewn together and hand worked, and Tristin said in an email that the piece is 12 ft 6 in in diameter and made of wool felt.

Visither 1

“But it’s not stitched form work, like Mocha was,” he said.

[Ed note:  Mocha Dick, which showed last summer at the Fabric Workshop and Museum, has been traveling.  Here's a video of Lowe installing the work at Williams College in Massachusetts.]

Lunacy, detail of craters

“I used tweezers and sculpted and brushed the felt over a sealed-air (no fan) silent inflatable armature of clear pvc  (that you can see into, thru a few craters, in spots).   RISD ceilings are almost 20′ and the neon piece I made with my uncle Dean Lowe (Visither 1) is roughly 50″ l x 22″ h x 31″ w)  with Argon gas and aluminum frame. ”

Tristin Lowe: Under the Influence, May 28 through Oct. 24 (closed in August).  More information about the installation here.

Purtill Family Business  designs Qwangju Biennale sourcebook

Qwangju Biennial sourcebook designed by Purtill Family Business

Did you know we have a powerhouse art catalog designer in Philly who has worked with major museums like the Whitney and has just finished the alternative/supplemental catalog for the Qwangju Biennale? Purtill Family Business, run by Conny Purtill (ICA curator Jenelle Porter’s significant other) is the designer. The new book is a daunting 572 pages with 400 color images, the tome is a research compendium for the biennale with information about the artists. It sounds a little like the book for the Younger than Jesus show at the New Museum–an outtake meant to be a kind of directory of facts and figures.

I’M NOT THERE
Edited by Massimiliano Gioni
Publication Advisors: Defne Ayas (ArtHub Asia)
Davide Quadrio (ArtHub Asia / Far East Far West Ltd)
Managing Editor: Cecilia Alemani
Designed by: Purtill Family Business
Paperback, 7 x 10 in., 572 pages including over 400 color reproductions
ISBN 978-89-87719-11-5
U.S. $20.00
Distributed by DAP More information on the 8th Gwangju Biennale

I’m Not There is published as a satellite research project of the 8th Gwangju Biennale. Separate from the exhibition
catalogue.  I’m Not There will be released June 16, 2010 in Basel, Switzerland.

Margarita Cabrera, Hummer, 2006. Photo from West Collection website

Among other things it was great to see Alex DaCorte’s huge pile of snakes and Margareta Cabrerra’s stitched fabric 1:1 scale Humvee in the “wealth” area (SEI is a financial services company) and the patchwork mutant sharks made of scrapped rubber tires by Yong Ho Ji, in an airy corporate glass cubicle.

Yong Ho Ji, Shark tank at SEI. They built the tank and installed frosted windows as part of the piece.

Also hanging in one of the big sunny atriums were Norm Paris‘ installation of Michael Jordan trying to save the world from nuclear war, Tristin Lowe’s great big slingback chair (a prop waiting for a movie), and, around the corner, the Dufala brothers’ Ice Cream Truck.  (See the artists of the West Collection here.)

Tristin Lowe, Folding deck chair, 2004

It’s always amazing to see all this crunchy art in the workplace and to hear Stoetzel’s stories about the joys and tribulations of having your art audience so close to you. This year, he said, he had several people who were so into the art that he was letting them curate their own show for a hallway near their work area!

Sharon Levy, Cookie, 2007. Faux tree trunk made of painted canvas and foam. Lee Stoetzel moving it into place in the finalist's show.

The West Prize is in its second year of purchasing $10,000 of the work of 10 emerging artists and awarding a $25,000 cash prize to one of them. It bears mentioning that the competition was created as a response to the recession’s very big impact on the collection, which forced them to cut their art buying and limit it to an annual $125,000 budget. Still and all, what an opportunity for an emerging artist–the finalists get recognition, get collected, and get some dough. Plus their work gets seen by an engaged public–the employees of SEI.

Leah Bailis, Fence, 2007. Finalist for West Prize. Fence made of paper and cardboard.

It’s too early to tell whether this new, lower-cost approach to acquiring art for the collection will change what’s being bought.

What has changed is how Curator Paige West and Stoetzel review work. Instead of going on studio visits and seeing art in the real world they now jury from electronic submissions made to the website. We’ve all looked at jpegs and then seen a piece in the real world and had that “aha” moment when something–the size, the color, the texture–becomes clear that was not clear in the jpeg image. It’s a very different way to look at art, and we wonder if in the long run two-dimensional work will be favored over installations or large sculptures, which don’t always show well in jpegs.  Time will tell — among this year’s finalists are four artists who make sculptural installations.

We are still in a recession and the West Prize show (on view now — make an appointment with Stoetzel to see it) did look a little bit wan and tamped down. Actually, we’ve seen a lot of “wan and tamped down” of late.  That could describe the Whitney Biennial and all the art fairs we’ve been to in the last 6 months.  It’s the economy baby — the art world is depressed.

The 2010 West Prize winner

Ryan McLennan, Work Ethic, 2009. Photo from West Collection website.

The winner is Ryan McClennan, whose drawings are big, pristine and illustrational. They posit a world of endangerment where everything in nature is a mess. The pieces we saw are virtuoso drawing, but both the concept and the oceans of white space denoting the void are pretty expected in 2010, reminding us of other white-background kids like Marcel Dzama and Ben Peterson.

Ryan McLennan, another piece on view in the finalists show

Last year the $25,000 prize went to the Dufala brothers for their Ice Cream Truck — a truly wild piece of art and a risky choice for the winner, both because it conflates ice cream, childhood, capitalism and war, but also because it’s a rough-around-the-edges piece that is anything but beautiful. Prizes are awarded for many different reasons and speculation is pointless. While we were impressed that the prize couldn’t be typecast as going for only one kind of art, we thought this year’s choice was less risky than last year’s — although it sure does affirm certain threads running through the West Collection — like their interest in art about the ecological mess we call earth and their consistent love of finely-crafted and beautiful drawings.

Revital Falke, plasticine figure in finalist's show

If they’re going to collect in depth (something the West Collection is noted for) we’d like to suggest they buy more Revital Falke. This artist is a surprise and frankly we hadn’t seen work quite like hers before in the collection.  Not only does it play with cartoons and pop culture but it has a kind of outsider’s obsessive take on things.

Revital Falke, from the "Lost" TV series

Revital’s plasticene pieces mix the utterly believable with the utterly unlikely. She took this wheelbarrow, a scenario from the TV show Lost, out on a beach somewhere and allowed people to touch the figures, Stoetzel told us, giving random people a kind of authorship of the piece. Stoetzel told us they thought that was really special and we agree.  Falke’s interest is in the everyday.  Bringing the Lost characters into the real world on the beach makes them lost — and found — without losing their Lost-ness.  We love that.

Revital is one of seven women in the final 10 this year. The others are NaTalica, Leah Bailis, Sarah Kabot, Sharon Levy, Julie Weitz and Miyo Yoshida. The men are David Almeida, Kevin Cyr and McLennan. This mix is an unusual state of affairs and bespeaks getting beyond mere tokenism for the ladies. While we’re working the stats, three of the artists live and work outside the U.S. (in Italy, London and Israel), two live and work in Florida, and one (Bailis) is from Philadelphia. The winner, McClennan, is from Richmond, Va.

Sarah Kabot, detail of a life-sized paper replica of an SEI workstation.

The exhibit favors trompe l’oeil–trompe l’oeil sculpture and trompe l’oeil drawings. Trompe l’oeil is a delight, in and of itself.  And the collection is strong in it.

The exhibit also favors tight and white, as in crisp, clean lines and no floppy, sloppy workmanship and blindingly blanche neige color schemes. David Almeida‘s C-prints of dime store replicas of natural objects are pristine, Audubon-like taxonomies on white backgrounds. Sarah Kabot’s white paper sculpture of an SEI Corp. work station — it could be a workstation from anywhere — is a ghost of a thing.

Leah Bailis's iceberg of a house (l) and Adam Cvijanovic's iceberg mural.

Leah Bailis’ suburban house fragment is iceberg-ian and situated nicely near Adam Cvijanovic’s iceberg mural. Julie Weitz‘s paintings of guys (or girls) in scary balaclavas feature voids of white space behind them — kind of like blowups of catalog items for sale at a hipster LLBean.

Anyway, congratulations to McLennan and the other 2010 winners, and keep on applying all you artists out there!  The prize will continue next year.  And congratulations to the West Collection for supporting — and continuing to support —  emerging artists.

More photos from our visit at Roberta’s flickr and Libby’s flickr.

So it’s not surprising that these were thoughts I had when I went to Wimpel! Wrapped Wishes, a small fiber-based show of 12 works at the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art in Rodeph Shalom Synagogue on North Broad Street.

Polly Apfelbaum, detail, 5 wimpels in one 2009, magic marker on synthetic rayon silk velvet, 43 x 87 inches, courtesy artist and Locks Gallery

Curators Matt Singer and Wendi Furman invited 11 artists–from the internationally acclaimed Polly Apfelbaum to the Philadelphia-based Lance Pawling–to make contemporary art wimpels inspired by the traditional German-Jewish ceremonial cloth, a sort of scarf talisman used at life ritual events like circumcision ceremonies, bar mitzvahs and weddings.

Polly Apfelbaum, 5 wimpels in one, 2009, magic marker on synthetic rayon silk velvet, 43 x 87 inches, courtesy artist and Locks Gallery

Apfelbaum’s 5 wimpels in one anchored the back wall and thereby the whole exhibit with its explosion of color and velvety texture. The gorgeous lineups of marker colors and patterns–each mark a mini-Rothko–reminded me of knitted winter scarves, perfect for the gray wintry day that I stopped by. The out-of-line edges turned the “scarves” into well-used objects or people with quirks. They had a tenderness to them as well as a joy in their exuberant, saturated colors.

OK, so it’s easy to love Polly Apfelbaum, you say. What about the others in the show?

Esther Kessler Yarinsky, Dor L'Dor--From Generation to Generation, 2009 fiber, printed stitched appliqued and embellished, 7 x 84 inches

Well, since you really want to know, Estelle Kessler Yarinsky’s Dor L’Dor–From Generation to Generation, has an utterly different art historical background. Whereas Apfelbaum’s explosive colors and repetitive lines bring a feminist conversation to art historical traditions like Minimalism and Post-Minimalism, Yarinsky is working both in Judaica and women’s craft traditions–sewing, applique, decorations. She has created a wimpel that names her grandchildren and their individual accomplishments, represented in buttons, pins, images, embroidery, all held together with a sculptural stuffed red tube that becomes a cartoon thread or artery reaching across the generations.

Esther Kessler Yarinsky, detail, Dor L'Dor--From Generation to Generation, 2009 fiber, printed stitched appliqued and embellished, 7 x 84 inches

At the top, sits the grandmother admiring her handiwork. She’s a stuffed doll well-dressed in a skirt and high heels , at once chic and grandmotherly, doting and smiling. This wimpel, teeming with life and love, begs to be fingered and pored over. And the Hebrew, indecipherable to most of us mere mortals, seems like no impediment to understanding what this piece is all about.

Leslie Sudock, detail, Seyag ha'shoshanim (Hedge of Roses), 2009, knitted and fulled wool and mohair, china silk and silk organza, 10 x 31 inches plus cords approx. 75 inches long uncoiled

A very different craft tradition generated Leslie Sudock’s Kamia Lilith (Lilith Amulet) and Seyag ha’shoshanim (Hedge of Roses). These felt wimpels, which look like torah bindings (a traditional wimpel function), are also from a craft and clothing tradition–the making of felt. But where Yarinsky’s wimpel is ebullient and juicy, Sudock’s are austere and stern, with their raised Hebrew lettering and thorny sculptural shapes challenging to fates to be kind. Again, tactility and beauty and mystery won the day–these had both.

Leslie Sudock, Kamia Lilith (Lilith Amulet), detail, 2009, knitted and fulled wool and mohair, china silk and silk organza, silk cord and thread, red coral, copper wire, 9 1/2 x 40 inches

Again, it seemed to hardly matter that words here were in Hebrew, although the wall labels did translate.

I wasn’t so intrigued by the more literal interpretations of wishes and Biblical passages. Nor was I intrigued by fabric that seemed so separate from bodies.

Daniel Heyman, Tender Wrapping, 2009, Sheep casing, 10 x 15 inches

Daniel Heyman sidestepped fabric altogether by using strips of sheep casing. In so doing, he avoided the necessity of making fabric objects that are touchable. Yet he implies touch and vulnerability in his terrifying Tender Wrapping. The skin quality of the material refers to the lost bit of tender skin taken at circumcision as well as to a diaper (wimpels were often sewn from circumcision swaddling cloths) and the Torah, written on sheep skin. The piece was the surprise of the show, using its hands-off framed presentation to emphasize the sense of something precious being taken. The coherence of this piece (I could barely look at it because it is so effective) is shocking.

P. Timothy Gierschick II, Quiver, 2009, block print, latex, enamel on canvas, 7 x 70 inches

Others in the show are P. Timothy Gierschick II, Kym Hepworth, Tristin Lowe, K. Pannepacker, Lance Pawling, Alexander Stadler, and Jane Trigere.

Tristin Lowe, The Wimpel Effect 2009 silkscreen on Felt 63 x 21 inches. This draws on Kabala cosmology and contemporary cosmologies

Execution is essential to understanding. The way in which an idea is conveyed, a picture made, or an installation constructed greatly influences the viewer’s interpretation of the piece. This is true regardless of artistic intents or aesthetic penchants. Even with supplemental information, such as wall text or artist’s statements, poorly executed work will be neither convincing nor appealing.

The limits of our curiosity and imagination require craft to make up that deficit.[1] If viewers are not stimulated by what they see, they will struggle to form a relationship with the work. Viewers must also be able to translate sensory stimulation into some sort of meaning, be it independent of or in harmony with the artist’s motivation for creating the work. If this translation does not happen the viewer-object relationship becomes only a passing fling.

Of course, successful execution is highly subjective. Artists spend entire careers refining their craft. They repeat subjects and replicate styles endlessly toward perfection. Aesthetic and cultural trends change over time, making that search for ideal execution all the more difficult. These unfavorable odds aside, Philadelphia currently boasts several exhibitions that rather successfully assert the merits of good execution and its place in contemporary art. Among them are Tristin Lowe’s Mocha Dick recently at the Fabric Workshop and Museum, the work of Myra Mimlitsch-Gray at Wexler Gallery, and Lee Stoetzel’s Big Bike at the Galleries at Moore.

Mocha Dick is a white sperm whale 52 feet in length. That Tristin Lowe, working with the FWM studio, built the whale with industrial felt, thread, zippers, and an internal vinyl support system changes little. Mocha Dick is still a whale. The fibrous felt really appears to be blubbery skin. Cleanly stitched lines meander the body like scars and wrinkles. Appliqued barnacles pock the surface, as do the inset holes and protruding bumps that make for convincing wounds and healing tissue. Overall, each curve and contour, volume and mass, is true to nature. Even the zippers, functional necessities for joining separate pieces of felt around the inflated core, create a texture that, if not anatomically accurate, at least follows the animal’s structure with graceful subtlety.

Tristin Lowe, Mocha Dick, industrial felt over inflated form

Lowe’s attention to detail makes viewing Mocha Dick feel like an encounter with a whale. To marvel at the artist’s skillful work is to contemplate the bodily equivalent each stitch represents. It is an experience more authentic than seeing Damien Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, which consists of an actual dead tiger shark in formaldehyde. (As Hirst’s shark continues to decompose, that comparison will only become truer.) No, the felt whale is not real, but Lowe allows viewers to suspend disbelief and imagine that they are confronting the leviathan that tormented sailors in the South Seas and later inspired Meville to write Moby-Dick. The emotions or thoughts this interaction might generate – be they panic, intrigue, compassion, or loss – are precisely what Lowe seeks to elicit.[2]

Myra Mimlitsch-Gray’s altered kitchenwares at Wexler Gallery combine recognizable objects with improbable shapes. Bowl and Saucer is made of “given silver by Sharon Church” set into a silver base. Suspended at irregular angles, the bowl and saucer seem truly wedded to the slick pool below. Other objects, all cast in iron, resemble hearty cookware deformed beyond belief: twelve elongated Brat Pans hang neatly in a row on a wall; Freestanding Skillet sits upright on its one flattened, stretched edge; Four-Handled Skillet merges (or splits) two two-handled skillets, themselves total oddities.

Myra Mimlitsch-Gray's Bowl and Saucer, courtesy of Wexler Gallery

Myra Mimlitsch-Gray's Brat Pans, courtesy of Wexler Gallery

Myra Mimlitsch-Gray's Four Handled Skillet, courtesy of Wexler Gallery

These conundrums of silver and iron straddle a boundary between real and absurd that is mitigated by expert treatment of material and proportion. Bowl and Saucer is in fact an actual bowl and saucer made for Mimlitsch-Gray by another artist, but the silver dishes have been arranged to produce curious effects.[3] The scene is in one sense magical, the instantaneous transformation of molten silver into finished goods, and back again. Yet it also illustrates the mundane task of washing dishes. Meanwhile, Mimlitsch-Gray’s iron objects, which are entirely custom cast, seem somehow utilitarian despite their lack of function. The Brat Pans almost beg viewers to fry up foot-long sausages, or find three friends to help make a big omelet in Four-Handled Skillet.

Big Bike, by Lee Stoetzel, is a fixed-gear bicycle unlike any other. As the name indicates, it is massive, roughly twice normal size. From stem to crank and wheel to wheel, Big Bike is also built entirely of wood. The inclusion of so many small details – from the individual chain links to the rear tire’s air valve – might propel viewers to climb on and ride away. If only they were so tall. Stoetzel’s choice of wood, though, is of equal note. Fractured mesquite, a natural degraded wood, has a grain marked by irregular holes and grooves. In Big Bike, such material inconsistencies translate as the grime and wear expected of a city bike. They also streak across the object like lines simulating motion.

Lee Stoetzel, Big Bike, fractured mesquite, up until July 4 in the Window on Race

Because Stoetzel has modeled his giant wooden bike so perfectly after its smaller, mostly metal relative, the difference in material and size are all the more evident. Were the wheels not true nor the frame correctly proportioned, this would not be so. But since such inaccuracies do not cloud the viewer’s engagement, they may instead contemplate how Stoetzel’s use of wood and enlarged scale influence the object’s reading. Is Big Bike just fantasy, a once functional but now deteriorating relic of an extinct superhuman race? Or is there a socially relevant parallel between the natural materials and cycling’s environmental benefits? Perhaps a more physical reading is instead expected: the bike, though ostensibly fragile, is sturdy, a powerhouse both on the streets and in our imaginations.

Taken as three separate examples, the work of Tristin Lowe, Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, and Lee Stoetzel together exemplify how careful execution can be the foundation for expressing abstract and transcendent ideas. They also point to the use of illusion as a key device for instigating a deeper art experience. More accurately, they maintain altered illusions, wherein normalcy is upset in limited ways. Flesh becomes fabric with Lowe, Mimlitsch-Gray disfigures familiar cookware, and Stoetzel replaces one part metal and rubber with two parts wood, but other variables remain constant. The unchanged and recognizable characteristics end up being the viewer’s introduction to the work.

This modified illusionism, and the degree of precision requires, also highlights each artist’s use of materials – fabric, metal, and wood – traditionally assumed under the heading of craft. While such usage in contemporary art is nothing new, craft remains a tricky word. It refers to a set of practiced skills, a process by which something is made, or even the visual qualities of a finished product. It also identifies certain categories of objects and specific historical movements. Most provocatively, and somewhat perplexingly, craft is regularly used as a foil to art, implying that since craft is very focused on materiality, then art asserts meaning beyond itself.[4]

This belief is prevalent, however generalized it may be. Art is commonly understood in terms of broader concepts, as most exhibition labels, artist statements, and art history books will attest. Craft, on the other hand, seems contently introverted, focusing on physical characteristics to the point of fetishization. This dichotomy is flawed, though. Not only does it allow art to be sloppy and permit craft to be dull, but it encourages polarized camps of allegiance. Worse, it ignores artists like Lowe, Mimlitsch-Gray, and Stoetzel who, in refusing such definitions, create work that is both intellectual provocative and visually striking.

John Vick is a curatorial fellow in the Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He has a Master’s degree in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania.

Notes:

[1] Our busy and distracted lives and interactions are also limited factors – see the May 22 posting “One Quiet & One Loud.”

[2] More of Lowe’s finely made, full-scale felt sculptures were on view at the Fleisher/Ollman Gallery. The works there relating to Mocha Dick prompted similar feeling of unlikely confrontation. Lowe’s quotidian objects, such as a chair and whiskey bottle, also on view, emphasized the beauty of his handiwork and suggested a softer, even tired, version of reality. Also see Libby’s review of the FWM show.

[3] Such usage is reminiscent of Robert Rauschenberg’s 1953 Erased de Kooning Drawing or Martin Kippenberger’s Modell Interconti, a 1987 table made from a Gerhard Richter painting.

[4] Note for further reading: The recent book Thinking Though Craft, by Glenn Adamson, does a lot to address the complex interplay between art and craft. It is excellent in both content and organization. Rather than try to precisely situate one term against the other, Adamson considers general perceptions of craft and gives examples of where such principles intersect with modern and contemporary art. A more thorough review and summary of the book can be found in the September 2008 issue of Art in America.

Ryan Trecartin’s video projections are the wildest thing to come to the Fabric Workshop and Museum since Virgil Marti’s black-lighted Bullies Wallpaper appeared in the men’s bathroom in its old space in the Gilbert Building. Trecartin’s three lengthy narratives (clocking in at 68 minutes, 50 minutes and 31 minutes) are installed in separate prop-strewn screening rooms that mimic the colorful chaotic worlds in the videos.

Ryan Trecartin, image from one of his videos, now playing at both the New Museum and the Fabric Workshop. I took the photo when I visited the show at the New Museum.

Collaborating with an ensemble of friends adorned with garish makeup, Trecartin—who plays multiple roles in the videos—is the charisma that holds the works together. He vamps his way through the videos, a gender-ambiguous and childlike cipher trying to negotiate the world of bitchy people, screwy relationships and, most of all, a slippery cyber reality.

Characters talk at a furious pace and the sound is sometimes distorted to the point of incomprehensibility. Some of what you can hear is pretty chilling in its mimicking of the earnest sales pitches we often hear on commercials. “I’m really young and post-device and everything’s in me,” says one young woman. “Destruction of our values should not be seen as a failure but an opportunity,” says another.

Ryan Trecartin speaking with Libby at the FWM opening. He leaves his cherubic looks behind when he immerses himself in his video personas..

One of Trecartin’s personas wants to edit the Constitution by removing the words “people” and “humanity” and replacing them with “situation” and removing the word “God” and replacing it with “Internet.” It seems funny, but the message about our topsy-turvy world of economic hucksterism and debased values is on point. We’re cooked, these videos scream.

Trecartin’s videos are also featured in the New Museum’s “Younger Than Jesus” show and they’re the best things in that 50-artist roundup.

Tristin Lowe, Mocha Dick, a splendid beast, on the 8th floor.

Meanwhile, in the eighth-floor gallery, Tristin Lowe’s 52-foot white felt Mocha Dick, made in collaboration with the FWM, is a perfect summer piece, evoking the ocean, history and author Herman Melville’s cosmic battle between good and evil. The whale’s dense white massiveness dominates the room, yet the object retains a childlike appeal, like a stuffed animal you want to hug.

Peter Rose speaking in front of one of his videos at the opening. This is not the spooky one. That other is in a separate screening room.

Elsewhere on the eighth floor, Peter Rose’s sound and light videos have horror-movie magic and in the first-floor gallery, Virgil Marti’s swanky installation—with curtains of golden bones, bone-light fixtures and fur-upholstered settee—is perfect.

Virgil Marti's installation with fur-covered lounge-seat and shimmery golden bones curtain.

Tristin Lowe, Virgil Marti, Peter Rose and Ryan Trecartin: Through the summer. $3. Fabric Workshop and Museum, 1214 Arch St. and New Temporary Contemporary, 1222 Arch St. 215 561 8888.

Tristin Lowe, Mocha Dick, industrial felt over inflated form

But Lowe’s whale, Mocha Dick, which debuted at the Fabric Workshop and Museum Friday, swims well beyond the limits of body metaphors. Lowe’s bad-boy charm of deliberately frayed construction and abject, self-deprecating forms of macho has been replaced here by a Blake-ian respect. Mocha Dick is like William Blake’s Tyger, at once admired, feared, and wondered at. Yet Mocha doesn’t pretend to be divine in the way it was fashioned, but rather was made by basic fabric and sewing.

Mocha Dick’s scale–based on the real-life scale of today’s sperm whale population (a 52-foot monster, considerably smaller than some of the 85-foot whale skeletons that we have from the past, according to Lowe, who is up on his whale facts as well as his Melville), turns us humans filling the gallery into an army Lilliputians. And like all armies, we have wreaked destruction with our dominance.

Tristin Low, Mocha Dick, view of barnacles, zipped seams and zigzag-stitched wrinkles

Lowe’s white whale is a thick-hided creature of industrial-strength felt. The hide covers an inflatable designed by Lowe. The covering was designed like a dress pattern, with zipper seams providing a means of dressing the balloon as well as delivering a sense of form and style.

Tristin Lowe, detail of barnacles, Mocha Dick

Terraced scars are carved into the felt, and zig-zag in stitches across the body. Beautiful barnacles are appliqued, flowering across the old survivor’s skin in colonies.  In Melville and in Lowe, it is man’s nemesis, man’s alter-ego, and the engine of man’s greatest folly.

He is named in part after Mocha Island, near where the original inspiration for Moby Dick terrorized whalers. I suppose we can also presume, given Lowe’s sense of humor, that the Dick part of the name was retained as a salute to the whale’s maleness. By the way, if you haven’t read the In the Heart of the Sea, by Nathaniel Philbrick, which retells the facts behind Moby Dick as it examines the 19th century whaling industry, check it out. It’s full of shocking details as well as a warty picture of a society’s time of prosperity–and the price it paid.

Tristin Lowe, Mocha Dick, front view showing eye and fin

Another fact from Lowe’s compendium of whale facts (he’s like one of Melville’s cetology chapters once you get him going), which he shared at the opening night artist’s walk-through: The whale has a 20-pound-plus brain. Now there’s a metaphor for you. We and the whale, for all our braininess, are out of our depth!

“The whale is not beached,” said Lowe on opening night, Friday, explaining that he was trying to create an experience of The Other. Me, I can see that, but I can also see that he has created an experience of The Other in ourselves.

So in this Lowe has created with the Sublime of the whale that same sort of self-horror that inhabits the other extreme of his art-making.

Tristin Lowe, Alice, 1998, image from XConnect, ccat.sas.upenn.edu/xconnect/v4/i3/g/lowe2.html

This is the Philadelphia artist’s second FWM collaboration. The other, in 1998, resulted in a giant, fan-inflated naked, blue girl named Alice, with one giant eye for a face.

In addition to the Fabric Workshop creation, Lowe will also be exhibiting other works about the folly of what it means to be human, also in felt, at Fleisher/Ollman in a show with Paul Swenbeck, opening May 14.

Openings are de rigueur in the art world. But this spring grand openings trump all as Tyler School of Art launches its flagship space, Temple Gallery, in the school’s new building at 12th and Norris streets in North Philadelphia.

Sheryl Conkelton, Director, Temple Gallery, seen at the grand opening last week.

Temple Gallery’s large space—with solid concrete under beautiful wood floors—is an L-shaped, high-ceilinged, state-of-the-art gallery and four times bigger than their previous digs on Third Street, says Gallery Director Sheryl Conkelton. It’s a unique platform to showcase bold contemporary art.

First up at the gallery are the Tyler MFA thesis shows with work by graduating artists in glass, painting, sculpture, fibers, printmaking and photography. Stay tuned for what comes next—programming is not locked down yet, though one show is certain. The artists who win the Wolgin Prize, Temple’s new $150,000 international art award, will show their work in the space next fall.

Nadia Hironaka, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. Part of Chinatown Influx. Here's what Nadia says about her piece: "The piece is inspired by P'U Sung-Ling's collection of stories (with the same title) from the Quing Dynasty. The loop is a playful interpretation about the shifting nature of contemporary asian-american culture. As for the location, the piece will be shown in the evening on the front windows of AAI."

A few blocks away at 12th and Vine streets, Asian Arts Initiative—displaced by the Convention Center expansion—opens its new home with a weekend of art activities on Fri., April 3 and Sat., April 4. Events include an open house, free live performances and the kickoff of four temporary art projects sited in public locations in the neighborhood all dealing with the future of Chinatown.

Tristin Lowe, Felt Chair. Image courtesy Fleisher-Ollman Gallery. The artist has been working in felt for a few years. This is one sample.

It’s not a grand opening but starting Fri., May 1, the Fabric Workshop and Museum will have some grand new art on display by Tristin Lowe, Virgil Marti, Peter Rose and Ryan Trecartin—all known for inspired art that comments on contemporary issues. Lowe’s Mocha Dick—a life-sized inflatable of a 50-foot albino sperm whale out of white felt—is P.T. Barnum big and Captain Ahab odd, a great combination.

Trecartin, master of candy-colored teen angst video “dramedies,” will debut an as-yet-untitled video filmed in Miami. Marti’s new flocked wallpaper and Rose’s new video triptych round out what’s shaping up to be a great show. One question: They couldn’t have found a lady to include?

Quay Brothers, Street of Crocodiles, at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery

Speaking of guys, April is a big month for two guys talking about their art and receiving awards. On Wed., April 1, the experimental filmmakers (and identical twins) the Quay Brothers receive the Silver Star Award from their alma mater University of the Arts, and on Fri., April 3, they receive the Vision Award in Filmmaking from the University and the Philadelphia Film Festival and CineFest 09 which is showcasing their films. An exhibit of the Quays’ miniature film sets is at the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery until Thurs., April 9. The Quays will be speaking several times during CineFest week.

 

Zoe Strauss, Toast from Window. New photo for this year's Under I-95 exhibition May 3.

 

On the distaff side, don’t miss Zoe Strauss’ “Under I-95” exhibit and sale of her beautiful and gut-wrenching photos on Sun., May 3. Strauss will be closing down this 10-year project in two years so if you haven’t partaken of the I-95 experience, get down there. The artist is already anointed as a contemporary giant of street photography and she’s often said that this exhibit is the work she’s most proud of.

Mentioned in this post:
Spring show
Through summer. Fabric Workshop and Museum, 1214 Arch St. 215.561.8888.

MFA exhibitions
Through May 9. Temple Gallery. 2001 N. 13th St. 215.777.9139. 

Chinatown InFlux
April 3-Aug. 2. Opening reception: Fri., April 3, 5:30pm. 1219 Vine St. and locations in Chinatown. 215.557.0455. 

Dormitorium: Quay Brothers
Through April 9. Closing reception: April 3, 5–8pm. Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, 333 S. Broad St. 215.717.6480. 

Vision Awards Ceremony
Fri., April 3, 9:15pm. Prince Music Theatre, 1412 Chestnut St. 215.569.9700. 

Zoe Strauss, Under I-95
Sun., May 3, 1-4 p.m. Front and Mifflin sts.