In the MediaSharon Butler recently wrote a piece for M/E/A/N/I/N/G: A Journal of Contemporary Art Issues. Her essay Free Love considers why artists are drawn to social media. There are lots of other topics in the journal–worth checking out! Creative Capital has a new blog called The Lab. Former Philly writer and publisher of the The Philadelphia Independent Mattathias Schwartz has made an appearance in The New Yorker with an article about the origins and future of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

A demonstrator from Occupy Wall Street is arrested in lower Manhattan on November 17th. Photograph by Ashley Gilbertson.

World AIDS Day
December 1 is World AIDS Day. Over twenty local organizations, including the AIDS Fund, have banded together to create a community even “It Takes a Village”. The event remembers those lost to the disease as well as celebrates those living with HIV/AIDS. The event will be at Broad Street Ministry, 315 S. Broad Street from 5:30 – 7:30 PM. Philadelphia FIGHT and the Institute for Contemporary Art are spearheading an effort to revive archived images from the early days of AIDS activism. Publications all over the city – including artblog – will be publishing these images on December 1.

Gallery News
You may have heard that after their current exhibit Bleach Jolie Laide Gallery will be closing. This is sad news, but onward and upward. Make sure to check out their last exhibit and stay tuned for an upcoming article about the show by Chip Schwartz.

Left: Stephanie Dotson, "Anacapa Bowline", 2011. Right: Lydia Diemer, "Interstice", 2011.

In other news, David Kesting and Christina Ray have joined forces for a new project space Kesting/Ray in Bushwick, Brooklyn. They will continue working with the same family of artists and within the next few weeks they will transition into their new website and head to Miami for the PULSE and Fountain art fairs to exhibit under their new name.

Philly representing it in Miami
A bunch of Philly galleries are headed down to the warmer weather to participate in various art fairs in Miami including: Bridgette Mayer, Gallery Joe, Gallery 339, pentimenti, and Projects Gallery.

NEA grants in PA
The National Endowment for the Arts has released its list of Pennsylvania grant recipients. Of the 46 locations in PA that received funds, 29 of them are located in the Philadelphia area. See the full list here.

Opportunities

Bill Walton's studio at ICA.

Gifting the Studio – On December 4 at 2:oo PM Institute of Contemporary Art will be gifting materials from the Bill Walton’s Studio to those who stop by. At this closing event for the installation of the late artist’s studio, friends and peers will talk about Walton’s art and life, and those in attendance will be able to take some of Bill Walton’s studio as a remembrance and for further creative uses.

WOOLOO has an open call for entries to their upcoming show in Hong Kong entitled Photo Project: She Blocks the Highway. The project deals with a recent story involving a performance artist blocking a Hong Kong motorway. Visit the open call link above for more details.

Temple University’s Tyler School of Art is seeking an associate professor of photography. MFA and teaching experience required. Experience with digital and traditional techniques preferred. All materials should be submitted to the SlideRoom. Contact djolly@temple.edu for more information.

Artist News

Some of Ditta Hoeber's cell phone captures.

Friend of artblog, photographer and poet Ditta Hoeber told us she’s working on a new series with her cellphone camera. Check out the project so far.

Seven Philadelphia artists will have residencies outside of the area to expand their artistic horizons: CAConrad – Ucross Foundation, Kara Crombie – MacDowell Colony, Ken Kalfus – Ucross Foundation, Tina Morton – The Banff Centre, Tim Portlock – 18th Street Arts Center, Matthew Suib – The Banff Centre, Jamaaladeen Tacuma – Headlands Center for the Arts. All of this is courtesy Pew Center for Arts and Heritage.

Robert Straight will be displaying a group of paintings at Carroll House Gallery in Keene New Hampshire.

Rob Blackson, director of exhibitions and public programs, Temple Gallery

There will be art in Blackson’s gallery, but you might have to ask where it is (it may be the new desk or couch; it might be the drip of calcium-chlorinated water falling from the ceiling; it might be the doorstops–projects on tap this fall.)

But the main focus is about the new and almost unheard-of level of programming — to bring people in who may never have set foot inside an art gallery but who are riled up about issues in the world today and will respond to the gallery’s programs about shale oil drilling; AIDS in Philadelphia; pollution in our soil or historic buildings like Eastern State Penitentiary as entertainments (think “Terror Behind the Walls, ESP’s Halloween program).  Blackson is planning two public programs a week, including a Monday morning coffee hour in the gallery to get the juices flowing and to get people thinking. Good free coffee, “seasonal breakfast bites” and speakers–it could be habit forming (especially if you live or work in that part of town and can get up there on a Monday morning)!

Temple Gallery, from the outside looking in.

And did we say that Blackson sews his own clothes? When we met the Pennsylvania-born director at La Colombe on 19th Street., he was wearing a pair of loose creamsicle-orange cotton pants that he made. There were pocket patches in other fabric. And at the end of the interview when we were still in awe of his sewing skills, he pulled out the handmade shirt he had planned to wear when he met us but didn’t, because it was too hot — a shirt with a tiny repeat pattern of Three Little Pigs dancing. He taught himself to sew, by the way, when he was an exchange student in the winter of 1996 at the Edinburgh College of Art, and found himself freezing in the damp cold conditions, with little money to buy clothes. He bought fabric, used the sewing machines at school and has been sewing his clothes ever since. Blackson graduated from RISD with a BFA and went to Bard Center for Curatorial Studies, where he fell under the influence of Marcia Tucker, originator of the New Museum, who was teaching there. Tucker’s spirit of experimentation and social engagement rubbed off on Blackson.

The large l-shaped gallery, with the sophisticated, heavy-duty lifting equipment for extra large or heavy works

Prior to arriving in Philadelphia, he worked as a curator in galleries and contemporary art centers in England. He told us about his previous job at Nottingham Contemporary, UK, where, as curator of public programs, he did ambitious and wide-ranging programming to bring people into the gallery for discussions, events, screenings and activities about current events. Sounds like what’s going to happen here!

Blackson (36) bikes to work from his home in South Philadelphia and loves living near the the fabric row shops on 4th Street. His fiance, the British artist Ruth Scott, is coming over in two weeks and they are getting married soon after. How he’s going to manage his ambitious program–which begins August 29  – along with a wedding and a houseful of relatives, well we can’t imagine really.

But then, this is not your typical institutional gallery director. For starters, he’s young. That he’s been accepted by the Temple and Tyler powers that be and given free rein to work with his advisory council and with his radical program is a sign that he’s a good salesman for his program and that the program is the right one for this time and place.

We madly took notes while Blackson told us what he had in mind for the gallery. His speaking style is express-train fast and we could hardly keep up with him.

Detail, Advisory Council white board of ideas for Temple Gallery programming

Working with a newly-convened 28-member Programming Advisory Council — which he polled for their thoughts on the really big issues — they came up with a long list of HUGE issues that “raise questions of contemporary urgency to Temple University and the Greater Philadelphia area,” he said. Some of the nine issues selected for programming include the growing AIDS crisis in Philadelphia; urban waste; the social/economic reintegration of our veterans; training of ex-cons; and our fractured relationship to Pennsylvania’s wealth of underground natural resources such as soil, natural gas, and water.

Pie chart showing issues raised by the Advisory Council

Responding to those issues are works by artists Jennifer Danos, Tyler Held, Corin Hewitt, Thomas Hirschhorn (video), Gordon Matta-Clark (video), Ana Mendieta, The Reanimation Library, and Emily Roysdon, whose works will be in the gallery this fall. (The videos will screen in the

In addition, you can look for programs like a foraging expedition in North Philly, leading up to a potluck, with stoves in the gallery; and eating white clay clay from middle Georgia. “I hear It’s delicious,” he said, explaining in a follow up email that “among the locals there it is considered a fine food and part of the culture.

More dirt stuff will include a mud-mask demonstration with Philly mud, and talks about soil. Corin Hewett, who did a seed-and-soil piece at the Whitney, will do something with a root cellar at Temple.

"The iceberg" is what Blackson calls the reception desk with the high wall on it. Staff sit behind the wall, hidden from the public when they walk in. He will replace it with something more friendly and welcoming.

Blackson will bring in Merle Ukeles, the New York Sanitation Department Artist in Residence, the queen of waste disposal art. And he will bring in work by local artist Tim Belknap, who will be an astronaut for his piece. Leanne Foster will auction off the remains of a marriage. Mark Gubb will create a woodcut on the desk in the gallery. Richard Rigg will do the drip piece–stalagmites formed over time.

There will be practical aspects to some of the programming, like the replacement of “the iceberg” reception desk with something more welcoming, and a partnership with Faith Industries and the architecture department to use the gallery as a construction laboratory for teaching ex-cons how to sheetrock and frame out walls. Shades of the ‘60s, there will be a Big Shale Teach-in. When we asked whether this event in particular would be slanted to the standard liberal anti-shale drilling point of view, he said not at all, that everything would be presented in the spirit of neutrality, creating a space for information and questioning all points of view. With the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaching, Blackson said he would be programming moments of silence in the gallery — gathered from audio recordings of past years’ moments of silence commemorating 9/11. And since those audios capture ambient noise and not really silence, Blackson’s “moments of silence” will fill the gallery with sounds like bird calls, airplane noises, and the clicking of cameras of people/press who snapped pictures on those days during the silences.

Blackson takes over a gallery that is perhaps the most technically sophisticated of all the galleries in town–a quintessential white box with tracks for lifting and moving enormous works of art–the sort of place any curator would die to fill. The space will never go dark he promised–the shows will overlap and percolate and interact with the other programing.

Blackson’s optimistic vision of how art can affect the future is big, bold and infectious. We can’t wait to see some of this unfold, and hope people can make up to North Philly to be entertained, engaged and touched.

We just got a list of some more of the juicy tidbits you can sample there — all free (and look for all this information on the gallery’s website soon, he said)

FEAST OF FORAGE
Urban Plant Foraging in North Philly with Nance Klehm and Brooke Sietinsons
Wednesday, September 21
We’ll begin with a foraging for key ingredients in the wild urban vegetation growing in North Philadelphia led by the horticultural consultant Nance Klehm. Foraged local edibles are the staples in this potluck meal prepared by Klehm and artist Brooke Sietinsons. Plants from this forage will be used in Sietinsons’ newly designed kaleidoscopic projection illuminating the meal. Visit our website for foraged plant recipes!

TRUE BLOOD MOBILE followed by Haunted Histories and Secret Cinema
Friday, October 28
Visit Temple Gallery’s collaboration with the Red Cross to donate blood during our vampire inspired blood drive.
Haunted Histories: Eastern State Penitentiary and Pennhurst State School and Hospital
Kelly George and Anne Parsons will speak about the use of abandoned institutions for material gain, especially through marketing efforts that depict those institutions as haunted. Complementing the talk will be rare photographs and testimonies from a range of such institutions. Secret Cinema will be presenting an all-night selection of haunted house classics.
This event is part of Temple Gallery’s Halloween Festivities; our partners are Laurel Hill Cemetery and Rosenbach Museum and Library.

The Big Shale Teach-In
Thursday and Friday, November 3, 4
Join scientists, geographers, artists, politicians and historians for a two-day teach-in exploring Pennsylvania and specifically Philadelphia’s place within the debate of drilling for natural gas. This event is organized in collaboration with the Center for Natural Resources Development and Protection at Temple University.

cofFREE MONDAYS
-your most important meal of the week-
Starting September 12
Join us every Monday morning to learn about the current week’s programs and events over a well-brewed cup of joe. Guest lecturers and seasonal breakfast bites will accompany the gallery’s Monday morning ritual.

Will Haughery and the back of his head in a stele-shaped box as tall as he is.

Haughery, who comes from the Lancaster area, is an amiable young man with a healthy dose of perspective on life as an artist. He gets the p.r. side of things–he sent a personalized email inviting us to see his work, and he was eager to make himself available to walk us through the exhibit.

The most impressive of his pieces, a black wooden sarcophagus/stele with a circular cut-out for a video screen, is a sort of self-portrait–of the back of the artist’s head. A small jiggle indicates the screen is video, and the height is Will’s size. The high-gloss surface is reflective enough to mirror the viewer–without providing intimacy.

As self-portraits go, this one is not giving much away, but the vulnerable neck and the thick tangle of hair provides surprising intimacy amid all the distancing strategies. Tangles of hair and napes of necks are anything but neutral!

When I met Haughery at the Stella Elkins Gallery downstairs at Tyler, he told me he was thinking about a museum display. What I was thinking were thoughts about hiding, death, impermeability, vulnerability, closeness and distance, memory and loss, and time and immortality.

Will Haughery's baby elephant learns a lesson.

The other piece that hit the spot was a stake with a rope, plus a heart-felt image of a young Indian elephant tethered to a stake.  Haughery told me that circus elephants when still calves get tied up like this to train them to stay in place. When the rope is eventually removed, the elephants still behave as if they are tethered. The image, in an aqueous medium on unstretched canvas, has a direct, Roberto Clemente-ish approach to shape and medium.

Like the video self-portrait, the tethered elephant is a self-portrait! But this one is endearing, without the art-world cool. Haughery grew up in a religious household, where he was home-schooled by his mother. He said with wry humor that he is the black sheep of the family–the only one of his brothers who isn’t religious.

Will Haughery, installation shot showing the stake, rope and elephant, and a corner of the third piece, a steel wool egg

Time has help Haughery get to where he is. He’s a couple of years older than his peers at Tyler, having taken time off to work in construction. When he had enough of that he applied to art school. But right now, what really was on his mind was how he was going to pay back his student loans. Art may have to take a back seat, he said.

Seriously Making Fun ran Jan.19 to 22.

“Surface Deposit.” Aluminum plate, paint, fluorescent light. Lead Pencil Studio, 2010

Lead Pencil Studio consists of Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo, who both come from strong architectural backgrounds. They seek out artistic projects that extend across multiple disciplines, but are rooted in spatial conditions and large-scale installations. Surface Deposit is a work that originated from a previous project called Looking at Nothing (2010). Han and Mihalyo utilized Laser Infrared Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) technology to map the vertical surfaces along streets in New York. The team quickly became interested in the realization that the laser scans were not providing detailed images of the architectural surface, but instead, of the items deposited on the structure’s surface. This inspired them to create a work based on those deposits, thereby enabling viewers to reconsider what they view as they walk down the street. This installation is also tied to Tyler in a more personal way, due to some of the interior objects being salvaged from its former campus in the Philadelphia suburb, Elkins Park.

“Looking at Nothing.” Video still. Lead Pencil Studio, 2010

As I entered the gallery space, the monotone selection of gray, with splashes of green, yellow and red, gave the space a deserted, ruined feel. The edges of the objects and forms are punched with holes, causing this non-room to have an evaporating effect, waffling between solid and illusory. Yet, the work still holds an aesthetic quality. I enjoyed the patterns created by often ignored items on a buildings façade. For examples, the pipes cascading from a now invisible roof or the angles created by the railing of a rooftop ladder echoed in a diamond-grated gate. These subtle choices elevate an otherwise bare-boned structure into a curious artistic work. In the screening room, a short film called Urban Fragments I (2010) provides a glimpse into Lead Pencil’s process and original survey renderings. Piled against one wall are some of the reference objects used in creating their unusual space, from chairs and filing cabinets to pipes and signage.

"Surface Deposit" Detail

Lead Pencil Studio had restricted dimensions to work within when creating this indoor, site-specific work.  My initial reaction to the created space was that it was smaller in scale than I anticipated, having browsed their past installations.  However, they did do a great job tailoring their work to the gallery space.  Also, the relocation of the building exterior to an interior space allows the work to act as an art form first, and an architectural structure second.  Yet, it still would be interesting to see and approach this structure in an outdoor environment.  As Lead Pencil Studio explained it, their work is like “architecture in reverse…our projects are everything about architecture with none of its function…spaces with no greater purpose than to be perceived and question the certainty posited by the man-made world.”

On Mondays in January through February, Temple Gallery will be screening films that have been influential to Lead Pencil Studio’s practice. They will include documentaries on the work of Gordon Matta Clark, the early films of Buster Keaton, Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element (1997), and more. On February 2, the gallery will host a panel discussion titled, Beyond the Surface: A Conversation Between Art and Architecture. This will focus on “exploring the work of artists and architects engaged in spatial practices.”

Surface Deposit will be on display until February 26, 2011. The gallery is open Wednesday – Saturday, from 11 am – 6 pm.

*All photos and quotes courtesy of Temple Gallery and Lead Pencil Studio

The Tyler School of Art of Temple University is pleased to announce the appointment of Robert Blackson as the Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs. Robert Stroker, Interim Dean announced the appointment today. “Rob has the ideas, energy and intellect required to expand the reach and creativity of our exhibition series and public programs. He brings to Tyler an impressive track record of truly innovative work. He will be a tremendous resource for our students and for the Philadelphia cultural community.”

Robert Blackson, new director of exhibitions, Tyler School of Art

“It is with great pleasure and enthusiasm that I join the team at
Tyler,” said Blackson. “It is Tyler’s international reputation for
excellence combined with its move and expansion into the heart of Temple University’s main campus that inspired my interest in Temple Gallery from 3,000 miles away. I look forward to working with students, faculty, and the entire Philadelphia community to continue developing the local relevance and international significance of Temple Gallery’s creative program.”

Shayna McConville, who served as the Interim Director will continue to work with the Exhibitions Program, especially in her role as Director of the North Philadelphia Arts and Culture Alliance. “Shayna did an outstanding job in the past months guiding the Exhibitions programs and working closely with our students. We thank Shayna for her willingness to serve as Interim Director and know that she is looking forward to returning to work on her projects for Tyler, ” explained Dean Robert Stroker.

Robert Blackson is a curator, writer, and artist who was previously curator of public programs at Nottingham Contemporary, UK. While at Nottingham Contemporary, the UK’s newest public contemporary art center welcoming over 200,000 visitors in its first eight months, Blackson worked with numerous universities, artists, and writers to develop an eclectic and discursive program of lectures, screenings, performances, and live events. Prior to joining Nottingham Contemporary, Blackson was curator of BALTIC Center for Contemporary Art, Newcastle/Gateshead, UK. Here at the UK’s largest non-collecting contemporary art gallery, Blackson developed exhibitions with numerous international artists including Sarah Sze, Shahryar Nashat, and Matt Stokes. Before moving to BALTIC, Blackson was curator at the University of Sunderland’s Reg Vardy Gallery. As curator of this university contemporary art gallery for over four years, Blackson initiated a public art program, international publishing house, and numerous solo exhibitions with artists such as Jimmie Durham, Minerva Cuevas, Christoph Büchel, Brian Chippendale, Julianne Swartz, Anthony McCall, Harry Smith, and Big Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas Mardi Gras Indian Tribe, Darryl Montana. Blackson has contributed to a variety of catalogues and publications, including Art Journal, Cabinet, and Labyrint, and he has lectured internationally on issues related to contemporary art practice. He is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design and The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.

Little Berlin

“Scene,” an international show organized by Jennifer Woodin at Little Berlin is spare and a little chilly. The grid of ceramic knots held up by wire by Henny Linn Kjellberg (of Sweden) reminded us of how many other grids we had seen that day — at Tyler, up on Amber St. and elsewhere.  Grids are great, but we had trouble conversing with the ceramic knots in the 3-D grid and wondered if the piece had more to say to ceramic artists.

Henny Linn Kjellberg at Little Berlin

Jennifer Woodin, porcelain and copper, at Little Berlin

Jennifer Woodin’s pristine white porcelain urinals all connected via pristine copper plumbing pipes left us hoping for more Duchampian content. But plumbing is definitely in the air since we saw another instance of pipes on the wall at Tyler.

Student work at Tyler with plumbing pipes suggested near the drinking fountain. We think the piece is by senior Colin Magness. If we got it wrong, let us know.

Speaking of echoes, the photo sequence by Ane Fabricius Christiansen at Little Berlin — which flummoxed us but was understandable to the ceramic artists around us — pictured an unfired clay cup slowly disintegrating in water and falling to the bottom of a sink.

A tour member drinking tea and looking at Ane Fabricius Christiansen's photos of a ceramic cup in water.

Later on at Projects Gallery, a piece by Todd Leech, “Drowning” with a figure made of unfired clay lying in shallow water surrounded by medical drip bags showed the real thing — clay in water busy falling apart. We had to flee the scene, whose visual decay and moist almost-noticeable scent did not please.   Likewise, the message about medicine killing seems a bit pat. But folks will disagree, and we note here that at least one of our group thought that Leech’s installation was fantastic.

Crane Arts

Colette Fu, lightbox image from Medium Resistance in the Crane's Icebox

As usual, there was much to see at the Crane. We ran through the place, happy to see a couple of print shows as well as the ceramics.  Medium Resistance — the Southern Graphic Council/Philagrafika print show in the Icebox is very good. We especially love Colette Fu’s light box photo collages which are over-the-top pop culture mash-ups; Carl Pope’s Black power/bad-ass poster wall; and Martin Mazorra’s posters, especially the one riffing on bird poop (ah, pigeons, live in a city do you, Martin?).

Nexus

Michael Beitz, Sofa Legs, cast etching, ink and plaster, about 8" at Nexus -- a print show.

The other print show we saw, Extra-dimensional Printmaking Invitational at Nexus, turned up a couple of cartoon-raunchy drawings on plaster by Michael Beitz. We loved the bent penis piece (not shown-it reminded us of all the plumbing pipes we’d been seeing).

University of Delaware @Crane Arts

Syd Carpenter, in the group show, Catalyze This: Contemporary Ceramic Practices, at UDel at the Crane

Syd Carpenter’s work in Catalyze This at the University of Delaware @Crane space is a knockout.   Carpenter’s compact and abstracted landscapes have virtuoso technique and smoldering content about the past, the body, and the earth.  Our admiration was equalled by the admiration of all the clay aficionados on the tour. The artist has a solo exhibition of related work right now at Sande Webster Gallery and she curated an NCECA exhibit, Fertile Ground, at the Philadelphia Horticultural Center.

Roberta, taking a picture of an interactive, motorized piece by Kenny Delio that cast a dancing shadow.

Downstairs the show has a couple of wonderful mechanical and video works that reminded us that we’d seen smart robotic, mechanical and video works there before — a definite strength of this school gallery.

Affirmation, Adam Abel's computer animation and stop-action animation at UDel @Crane, downstairs.

Bambi

Meanwhile, the boys of darkness, Nick Lenker and Paul Swenbeck, teamed up for a collaborative show at Bambi that proves that unbridled imaginations can often think alike.

Through a mirror darkly at Bambi with Nick Lenker and Paul Swenbeck

The shiny black “mirror mirror on the wall” takes us to Snow White territory as well as to oil slicks and black ice and Elvira, queen of late night tv horror movies.

Nick Lenker, Paul Swenbeck, collaborative work at Bambi

In addition to the predominace of the color black here, and the suggestion of mountains that are castles in the clouds where dark torture takes place (all in good imaginative fun), we love the combination of large installations — and little works that you could definitely buy and take home for your wall or secret wardrobe in the bedroom. Swenbeck also has work at Fleisher-Ollman and as we mentioned earlier, Lenker has a solo show at Pageant.

We were on the tour from 9-2 and covered a lot of turf, but hang in there we’re almost through!

Projects Gallery

Richard Cleaver, Cult of the Tsar III, in To Die For at Projects Gallery

Projects Gallery’s large group show To Die For includes some gems like Richard Cleaver’s altar piece, Cult of the Tzar III, that looks like it may be in honor of rapscallions everywhere. There’s a sense of good old boys standing guard over a precious Faberge egg honoring Marx, Rasputin and …men in beards. We love the piece’s ornate completeness and its odd (to us) subject matter.

Peter Gourfain, Sophie Scholl, 1943

Elsewhere, Peter Gourfain’s muscular statuette, Sophie Scholl, from 1943, breathed like something out of Kathe Kollwitz come to life. Gourfain, an activist artist, made the work in honor of Scholl, who was a Nazi resister.

Wexler

Sergei Isupov, the piece in Wexler's window that we just had to go in and see. There's another complete (female) head on the back.

Finally, back in Old City we’re off to an appointment to see Luella Tripp at her brand new gallery LGTripp, but passing by Wexler Gallery,  a standout ceramic bust by Sergei Isupov in the window drew us right in. The zen/ghetto/putti affect coupled with that intense Krishna-blue skin is quite a winner.  You can’t quite tell the scale but the piece might be 20-30″ tall.  Inside, the piece keeps on giving–there’s a relief bust of a woman.  Nice one.

Irina Zaytceva, Cat's Cradle, 2010. porcelain, handbuilt, handpainted and 24K gold lustre, 4-1/2 x 9 x 10 1/2"

Upstairs we tiptoed through the masses viewing the hotbed of erotica in “The Hermaphrodites,” noticing lots of red gumdrops on the pedestals which we assume means the piece sold.

You may know, NCECA has brought some 6,000 registrants to Philadelphia to talk about ceramics this weekend.   There are many more ceramics exhibits in town and artblog will be covering more of them in the next week.

Imagine therefore how we jumped at the chance to take a bus ride and see lots of the NCECA clay shows on an enforced schedule. Otherwise we would never get around to them, given our propensity to stop and chat and the shows’ short duration.

The Northern Liberties/Fishtown tour Wednesday was just the ticket. Our tour leader, Casey Porter, is part of the Claymobile posse. He was amazing–energetic, resourceful, and gracious. When Libby ran out of batteries for her camera, he dashed off into the streets and found a pack, selling to whoever in the group had a battery emergency.

Casey McDonough's springy piece, "synaptic plasticity," hints at a futuristic cartoon world

Our first stop was the Amber Street studios. The highlights for us were the Multiples of Five exhibit, featuring multiples-based work by five artists–Frederick Bartolovic, Jim Hake, Casey McDonough, Robin Strangfeld, Blake Jamison Williams.

Jim Hake's Fbriend Project uses crockery-inspired media for a contemporary statement about Facebook and other forms of internet networking.

Jim Hake’s Fbriend Project contemplates the transformation of our relationships via the internet, creating portraits of friends via a simulation of pixillation, using one of the oldest methods possible, clay.

Robin Strangfeld, in Multiples of 5. She dips paper labels in clay slip and fires them. The paper disintegrates and the front and back separate becoming two pieces. It's very delicate. The site-specific piece adjusts to the size of the wall she's working with.

From Casey McDonough’s synaptic plasticity, with its cartoon-like suggestion of futuristic life to Robin Strangfield’s Minimalist grid of tags to Blake Jamison Williams’ maximalist floral floor piece to Frederick A. Bartolovic’s landscape/map of a grid of ceramic pillows, this show captured our attention.

Baltimore Clayworks exhibit at Amber St. Lots of pottery on pedestals and these nice stoneware cats by Trish Kyner.

Our bus companions were more engrossed by another exhibit in the same space–work by the Baltimore Clayworks. The techniques here were what held peoples’ attention.

While Libby admired the array of potters wheels at all price ranges, Roberta wanted to buy one of the chunky little kilns--a bright metal boxe on legs -- just to have it. Kilns are pretty nifty and we admire the idea of a home kiln.

From 3239 N. Amber, we walked over to 3245 N. Amber where we discovered an impressive store for ceramic artists, The Ceramic Shop. Well, we don’t know much about what clay artists need, but we were impressed anyway by the arrays of goods.

Here's our tour guide, Casey Porter, left, in the Ceramic Shop where several people bought supplies, like Sherry, from California, who found the perfect portable sponge.

Mark Lueders, who owns the shop and a large clay studio that offers classes, also organized a group exhibit of ceramic work. Even though The Ceramic Shop had contacted us in the past, we somehow never absorbed what they were up to. Now we know! This place is clearly a supply destination.  By the way, we also ran into Nick Lenker who works for the Ceramic Shop and has a studio there.  Lenker, who has two shows open now, at Bambi and Pageant, said his collaborator on the Bambi show, Paul Swenbeck, also has a studio there, as does Shannon Bowser, who made the concrete countertop in the checkout zone of the shop.

Daniel Forrest Hoffman, a non-functioning "film reel" showing the SS United States going nowhere fast.

At FLUXspace we saw two shows. Constructs, with Dylan Beck, Kate Dowell and Daniel Forrest Hoffman, all alums of Tyler’s ceramics program, includes work from Hoffman that isn’t ceramic at all. His primitive film/flip-book-like machines argue about stasis vs. motion. We met Hoffman while we were there, and he explained that his largest piece was about the world’s fastest ship, the S.S. United States, which is permanently docked going nowhere, in Philadelphia. Hoffman’s elaborate piece suggests film reels and motion–and stasis.

Si-Ying Ho, Hero Series no. 1, porcelain, high fire reduction, hand-painted cobalt images, computer decal transfer, terra sigillata, 15.5 x 11.25 x 8.25 inches

Also at FLUX, Si-ying Ho’s work stands out in the downstairs exhibit A Post Production Moment.  Her anti-vases with cartoon-y shapes incorporate Eastern and Western imagery. Others in the show are Jelena Gazivoda, Kate Doody, Benjamin Schulman, Danielle Richter, and Mat Karas.

Daniel Forrest Hoffman, Self Portrait

Dennis Ritter, Untitled, 2010, sagger fired porcelain, salt oxides, soft brick, at Tyler School of Art

At Tyler, we saw a terrific range of work that bodes well for the future of ceramics as an art form. We loved a video of Hoffman adding clay wrinkles to his face. Among the outstanding work there were Dennis Ritter’s saggy little punctuation mark critters, Eric O’Neill’s Frankstein’s Monster, in which the bust of the monster stares down his own portrait–shades of Dorian Grey–and nearby Jason Kusmak’s Jazor the Destructible, a chunky ruin of a futuristic monster.

Matthew Ziemke, Consumption Rendering No. 1, 2010, wood, ceramic, acrylic, enamel, mixed media

We also were impressed by some installations by Matthew Ziemke, including Consumption Rendering No. 1, suggested farmland swallowed and incinerated by the toxic industrial landscape–a nice union of materials, method and concepts.

At Highwire, work by Puneeta Mittal attracted one of our tour companions to buy a piece.  And at Rocket Cat cafe, where we didn’t have nearly enough time to take a coffee break, we visited an array of mugs by local artists that took over one of the walls there.

Rocket Cat was supposed to be our half-way break, but there wasn’t enough time for everyone to order. And there was no hope of a break until the tour was scheduled to end, after 2 p.m. One starving member of the group let everyone know just how much she wanted that Rocket Cat breakfast burrito.

Look for part 2 of this post soon.

Nicole Wilson and Sheila Whitsett, who kindly let me in, described the serendipity of finding the space when they attended a party in the same building–the part of the building that has heat! They labored mightily to turn the raw space into someplace that can show art. It may be cold but it looks pretty good and there’s electricity by some sleight of hand they explained that involved stringing wires great distances.

Conor Fields, Launch Pad

Making use of the roof of the untraditional space, Conor Fields staged an event under the stars on opening night–a faux rocket launch. The moment is captured in the remains now on exhibit–a video of flint being struck; the burnt traces of the fuse, which spells out Here goes nothing; and the unlaunched rocket. Fields has a personal love affair going with the limits of technology. He habitually undercuts the slick moderne vocabulary of space exploration and uses DIY everyday mechanics to bring earnest humor to cool high tech.

Matt Kalasky, Vision (After Gauguin), video installation

Several of the pieces are about nomadism, and that seems like the perfect fit for a show that’s here today, gone tomorrow. Vision (After Gauguin), a video installation by Matt Kalasky, involves a cartoon space-suited man walking across a spotlit blank space. But the monitor rests on the floor, the image is small, and the hero is a cartoon man crossing nowhere. A painting by Fred Frederick, with juicy colors and confident gestures, features a motorcycle rider among horseback riders dressed in flowing Arab robes amid medieval tents, an airplane swooping. It looks festive and out of time. And a photo by David Soffa, Mother and Child, captures a pair inside the back of a U-Haul.

Mindy Lu, Untitled (with a piece of Untitled (painting for Hannah) in the background); the painting is one of three related works

Mindy Lu’s three monotone 3-D wall objects will be finished only when buried in situ. Meanwhile, they are wallscapes.

Cecelia Post, You Made Me, Cotton, video

Cecelia Post’s video You Made Me, Cotton of a woman struggling to throw up (at first I thought she was swallowing hard) made me laugh out loud as it delivers its punch line, and Mike Treffehn printed his punchline on a brass plaque, giving permanence and gravitas to an ephemeral conversation about Charley, whoever he is. Both of these works raise questions of just what’s happening here, and when and why.

Mike Treffehn, Untitled (Willy:)

Several interactive installations are in the show, including Scott Rinehart’s Sprawl, with rules that didn’t quite bring the desired urban landscape–or maybe it did, since it is falling down, just like Philadelphia–and a lot like the gallery’s home.

Scott Rinehart, Sprawl, interactive installation

Whitsett and Wilson are part of a group of 16 students who made the show happen, supported by three bake sales and a party, which together brought in $900. It was organized and juried for an assignment that Ron D’Amico gave his Sculpture, Materials and Techniques Class at Tyler School of Art to create a show, beginnning to end.  The class posted the call on NYFA and at the grad schools. So Penn and Yale MFAs are among those represented here.

Sky Kim, Untitled

Others in the show are Jong Kim, Sky Kim, Elizabeth Hoy, Jennifer Grimyser, Max Doyle (protesting knee-jerk political assumptions), Melanie Fisher, Ben Nelson and Brittany Binler.

Ox Gallery is a few blocks north of the Crane Arts Center. The show is up until Sunday, by appointment only, but Whisett and Wilson say they can spare the time this week. Contact is via email, NotThisArtistCollective@gmail.com

Sheryl Conkelton in Tyler's new building, photo by Roberta

Here are some of the reasons to be disappointed. At Tyler, Sheryl brought some amazing shows–my faves were Empathetic (2006-7), a big-name show that included some eye-opening work from Jesper Just and from Kalup Linsey; Mix (2005-6), featuring some terrific video from Cory Archangel and Frankie Martin, Tony Cokes, and more; and the Phil Collins exhibit assume freedom, in 2005. (Here’s a link to past exhibitions at Tyler).

She brought great professionalism to Tyler’s exhibitions, including keeping up standards for creating good exhibition space over a couple of gallery movies. It seems she would be the one to credit for the high quality of the newest extraordinary gallery space in Tyler’s new building.

Ach. This is sounding like an obit. But it is a loss for Philadelphia. If I find out more, I’ll let you all know.

Temple Gallery had its grand opening last night and we were there to check out the space which we hadn’t seen since our hardhat tour last year.  We also wanted to see the MFA exhibits by Bassem Yousri, Charlotte Rodenberg, Fabian Lopez and Tom Gallagher.

Tyler School of Art, last night before the opening of Temple Gallery.

The new gallery is a big high-ceilinged l-shaped space carved into four parts via petition walls so each MFA student has his or her own solo show.  The works look fantastic in the space and it’s a good strong show.

Charlotte Rodenberg's MFA show in Temple Gallery (detail). The piece has a "Wizard of Oz before the storm" quality that's endearing.I love the couple seen through the bay window of Rodenberg's house. They just happened to be looking while I snapped. It looks like they live in the house and are talking about re-arranging the furniture.

Temple Gallery Director Sheryl Conkelton gave me an update on the gallery’s future schedule.  The MFA shows continue until May then the gallery will close until the fall, when it re-opens with the Wolgin Prize exhibit show at the end of September (no word on what international artist will be honored with that $150,000 prize).  In January, 2010, Temple Gallery’s part of the Graphic Unconscious exhibit begins (a show that’s part of the Philagrafika 2010) with 7 artists including Swoon, Carl Pope, Thomas Kilpper (Germany), Superflex (Denmark), Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries.  Conkelton said she will be doing fundraising and mentioned that you now can become a Friend of Temple Gallery by becoming a member at various levels of support from $25 (artist/student) to $5000 (sponsor).  Conkelton also mentioned a new web project she’s creating called New Urban Imaginaries that will create virtual windows into neighborhoods around the world.  Cities to be re-imagined are Bangalore, Delhi, Durban, Johannesburg and Mumbai.  It’s not live yet but the url is www.newurbanimaginaries.org

Bassem Yousri's MFA exhibit, detail. Tiny ceramic characters, writing on the walls, all done with a light, cartoony touch and a serious video...the multi-tasking exhibit is charming.

Everyone I talked with was happy to be in the new school building and energized by being on Temple’s main campus.  There was lots of chirping, too, about the Tyler Trojan Horses, a runaway project by some advance sculpture students apparently.  Rumor has it there will be a counterattack on Tyler waged during the March 25 Tyler School of Art official opening.  We think an effigy of a certain female body part will be delivered to the school during the ribbon cutting ceremony.  For that alone, I’ll be there as witness.

Tom Gallagher's constructed scrim and wood object teetering on one wheel. Like a crazy-tilt Mondrian skidding on one wheel, the piece towers over you like art history.

Tyler Print Department professor Hester Stinnett with Fabian Lopez's paintings.