Lectures and discussions
Temple Gallery is offering a lecture with Philadelphia resident and Creative Time curator Nato Thompson on Thursday, Feb. 23 at 7:00 PM. Thompson will speak about his latest book Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the Age of Cultural Production. We at artblog would love a Creative Time organization in Philly, and as it turns out we have the curator right here! Reserve a seat for Nato Thompson’s lecture at
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2826019701 or call 215 777 9138.  And in West Philly, artist and independent curator Matheiu Copeland speaks at Kelly Writers House Thursday, Feb. 16, 6pm, about his efforts at subverting curatorial practice.

Mark Tribe, The Liberation of Our People: Angela Davis, 1969/2008, Port Huron Project, 5-minute video based on a 10-minute speech, Photograph by David Jung; Courtesy of the artist

[NOTE: We just learned that this discussion has been POSTPONED until Mar. 17.] Meanwhile, this weekend Marginal Utility is hosting a discussion at Vox Populi on the structure, imaging, and personal affects of protest.  The talk, Saturday, Feb. 11, at 6pm, Sat. Mar. 17, at 6pm features Naeem Mohaiemen and Mark Tribe, curator Yaelle Amir, and Slought Foundation’s Aaron Levy and is in conjunction with the MU show Five Acts: Chronicles of Dissent.

Ward Shelley at Pierogi

Ward Shelley, "Teenagers", 2012, Oil and toner on mylar, 61 x 34.5 inches.

Ward Shelley’s show of trippy timeline paintings opens Feb. 17 at Pierogi in Williamsburg. We’re fond of this gallery, and we love Shelley’s work, which traces musical and counter cultural movements (among others) throughout history using colorful, sinewy patterns.

Leo diCaprio teams up with La Colombe
Philadelphia-based coffee roaster La Colombe is joining forces with Leonardo DiCaprio to sell his new coffee line LYON.  All proceeds from sales go to environmental charities supported by the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. Thanks to Ms. Stella Kimbrough for this tasty tidbit.

Kutztown University installation

Onishi Yasuaki, "Reverse of Volume" at Kutztown University Art Gallery

A while ago we brought you the news about the residency applictions f0r Kutztown University, well the last installation is now on display. The resident artist is Onishi Yasuaki, and his work is entitled “Reverse of Volume“. There are no more residency opportunities, according to Kutztown, but you can still submit to the gallery your proposals for solo or group exhibitions. The installation is on view until March 2.

Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival poetry slam
A poetry slam and a screening of the documentary Louder Than A Bomb are part of the Jewish Film Festival at the Gershman Y this Sunday, Feb. 12 at 2:30 pm. The Poetry Slam is courtesy the Philadelphia Youth Poetry Movement.

Coldhearted
Get a peek at the new Philadelphia Sculpture Gym while perusing the Valentine’s arts and crafts fair, Coldhearted, Saturday, Feb. 11, from 11am-5pm.  The Sculpture Gym is Darla Jackson’s Knight Arts Challenge project.

Opportunities

Ladies and gentlemen, but especially, we think, ladies, this is for you. Casting calls are over, but all you beautiful and tool-savvy people can still apply to the upcoming HGTV program All American Handyman until February 17. Email HGTVamericanhandyman@gmail.com with some information about your handiness and telegenic qualities.  We think ladies should apply to this politically-incorrectly titled show.

The Studios of Key West have an open call for 40 month-long residencies for artists, writers, composers, performers, and interdisciplinary artists (via Wooloo.org). The deadline for applications is May 15.

Eastern State Penitentiary is accepting applications for site specific artist installations for the upcoming 2013 season.  The deadline for proposals is June 13, 2012. Find all the details on the program here.

The Siddhartha Arts Foundation has a call for artists for the second annual Kathmandu International Art Festival. Climate change is the topic of this year’s Earth|Body|Mind festival. The application deadline is February 29. You can find the application form here.

Via Leeway –  CalArts is seeking a digital media teacher/artist. You can find more details about the position here.

3rd Ward is seeking innovative and compelling work and will be giving out $15,000 in prizes. More information on the open call page.

Little Berlin is looking for people who want to participate in FLASHFLooD, a “semi-secretive mass public exhibition of rapidly-distributed hidden flash drives containing downloadable exhibitions.”  If you are as intrigued as we are, check out the website for more information.  And if you participate in the FLASH distribution (juried by Little Berlin members, extraextra members and others), you’re also invited to show your work at a BYOBEAMER event First Friday, Mar 2 at Little Berlin.  Apply before Feb. 23.

Writers and editors, this one’s for you. College Art Association has two positions available: an editor-in-chief position for The Art Bulletin and a reviews editor for the Art Journal. The deadline for both is April 2.

Artist News

Andrea Packard from Vista and Strata

Andrea Packard, Director of the List Gallery, Swarthmore College, has an upcoming solo show at The Painting Center in New York entitled Vista and Strata. The opening is on February 28.

Susan Myers has a solo show of her metalwork at the Society of Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh in a show entitled All Consuming. The exhibit opened on February 3 and runs until June 30.

Daniel Heyman, "Do You Remember This Night?"

Daniel Heyman presents Bearing Witness at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY. The show is up now through February 29. On display is Heyman’s Istanbul Portfolio of the Abu Ghraib Detainee Interview Project.

David Kettner, "The Prodigal Son - Rapture"

David Kettner is retiring after 43 years of teaching painting and drawing at University of the Arts — Kudos!!  David’s retirement show, at the UArts Hamilton Hall Galleries, opens on February 24 with a reception on the 29th from 5 – 8 PM.

Christopher Davison, detail of mural painting at Gallery 817, University of the Arts

Davison’s show at Gallery 817 is over, and his mural is now gone, painted over in preparation for the next gallery show. But because the artist took some videos of the piece in progress you can see the mural virtually come alive on the wall — it’s a dramatic 2-minute time-lapse video of a piece that undergoes surprising changes including one that will take your breath away for its savage — but ultimately right — decision.  We loved seeing the mural and asked Chris whether he’d repeat the labor intensive project.  He said yes, and we hope it happens…hello out there, want a really great mural?

Brawler (Time Lapse Drawing By Christopher Davison) from christopher davison on Vimeo.

Over the years, we’ve seen Davison’s work grow in sophistication as it’s grown in confidence. While Chris has always flirted with death and the evil angels, his fascination with human nature and the human psyche is what fascinates us in these seductive works.

Davison has a gallery in New York and a gallery in Los Angeles. It is shocking that he has no representation in Philadelphia–we can’t imagine why.

Warren Angle died Friday
We are sad to bring you the news that Warren Angle passed away on Friday, September 9 after a long battle with cancer. Angle, an artist, was the exhibitions director of the Fleisher Art Memorial for many years. He will certainly be missed by many.  There’s a Facebook page set up as a memorial for Warren.

John Vick is juror for New Wilmington Art Association show

Kim Faler, "Slack Tide", 2011, latex paint, paper, wood, clothing and bananas, dimensions variable. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Former artblog writer and co-founder of Art Workers Resource Group John Vick was the juror for the New Wilmington Art Association‘s current show RSVP 2011. The exhibit showcases 20 artists in a variety of mediums and runs from First Friday, September 9 to October 20.

Print Center hosts lecture by Wooster Collective founders
There is a lot going on these days at The Print Center. Of particular interest is the upcoming lecture by NYC’s Wooster Collective co-founders Marc and Sara Schiller. The topic of the lecture is the complex and controversial relationship between street art and graphic design/marketing. The free lecture takes place on October 14 at 6 PM.

Temple presents 9/11 Moments of Silence
Throughout September the Temple Gallery will be filled with recorded moments of silence from public and private events in commemoration of September 11, 2001. Gathered from newsreels, libraries, and the internet, these moments express a nation’s quiet remembrance and solidarity.

CofFREE Mondays at Temple
The Temple Gallery is also holding CofFREE Mondays starting September 12. Stop by the gallery from 7:45 – 9:45 AM for free coffee and the lowdown on cultural events at the university and around the city. Special guest lectures will also be on the agenda from time to time.

Opposites Attract at UArts

The Blind Tongue by James Fuhrman and Mark Warhol.

Starting September 6 as part of the Philadelphia Sculptor’s exhibit Opposites Attract: Collaborative Installations at University of the Arts, sculptor James Fuhrman and composer Mark Warhol present “The Blind Tongue”, a sculptural installation with video projections of an opera performance. The exhibition will be on display through October 13.

New online publication Hidden City Daily launches

Hidden City Daily, a new Philadelphia arts and culture publication affiliated with Thadeus Squire’s Hidden City project, has just gotten underway. They have a lot of picture-rich coverage of arts and culture and info on some of the more off-the-beaten-track locales around the city. One of the co-editors, Nathaniel Popkin, says the Hidden City Daily is geared up to be a hub of informed, reflective and innovative thinking about the city. It will be very interesting to see how Hidden City progresses in the near future.

Michael Rees lecture at Haverford College
Artist Michael Rees will hold a lecture on September 26 from 4:30 – 6 PM at Haverford College. Rees operates at the intersection of biology, art, and 3D rendering and will be hosting a workshop earlier in the day. If you have an interest in 3D art, sculpture, or contemporary art, this is definitely worth checking out!

Madelyn Roehrig Conversations with Andy

Madelyn Roehrig, Conversations with Andy.

For the past two years friend of Libby and Roberta’s, Madelyn Roehrig, has been videotaping individuals visiting the tombstone of Andy Warhol. Her project will be part of Pittsburgh’s Biennial at the Warhol Museum opening Sept-17 and running to Jan 8, 2012.  Also in the show are photos by LaToya Ruby Frazier and work by Dara Birnbaum. So far Roehrig has taped over 200 individuals with a range of insights and whimsical observations. Follow her project “Figments: Conversations with Andy” on its Facebook page.

Sprint 3D video
It may be a commercial for a phone company, but it’s also pretty fantastical! Check out Sprint’s recent 3D “flash art” video (or in 2D) in which park goers get accosted by  swarms of massive bubbles.

Met finds its funny bone

The Head Ache, a print after George Cruikshank by Enrique Chagoya.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be display works of humor, satire, and caricature in its newest show Infinite Jest. Works range from the Italian Renaissance to present day and offer a wide spectrum of satirical and comical work. The exhibition starts on September 13 and runs until March, so you have plenty of time to catch a few laughs.  One of the featured works is Enrique Chagoya’s “The Head Ache,” a print made when the artist was in residence at the Rosenbach Museum and Library.

Freeman’s Auctioneers record sale
Freeman’s Auctioneers had a record sale of a Chinese imperial-style double dragon white jade seal for $3.5 million. This creates a record for the highest-selling single lot and most successful sale of the company.

Opportunities

There’s an opportunities page set up on the Bartol Foundation website announcing teaching opportunities available to teaching artists. A few groups are seeking requests for proposals and teachers. Check out the details here.

Artist News

Gabe Martinez, "Lemon", 2011, archival inkjet print, 30 x 30 inches (76 x 76 cm

Pew Fellow and UPenn factulty member Gabe Martinez has a show dealing with gay male sexual identity at Samsøn in Boston from September 9 – October 15.

Huston Ripley, "Untitled", 2008, # 8XL1: Ink on Japanese paper: 25" x 19"

Huston Ripley will be displaying drawings at the Adam Baumgold Gallery in New York from September 8 – October 8.

In July, the Woodmere Museum acquired one of Doug Witmer‘s 2008 paintings “How Soon is Too Soon?” for their permanent collection.

Three former Philadelphia area artists – Jesse Greenberg, Nick Paparone, and Walter Benjamin Smith – will have work at the Socrates Sculpture Park on Long Island. Paparone’s solo show also opened at Fleisher-Ollman on September 8.

Dave Kim‘s recently completed project My Best Friend Facebook Forever has a website called My Best Friend Facebook Forever. My BFFF was a month-long performance/experiment where Kim did everything he was asked to do via Facebook.

Julie Courtney and Jennie Shanker will soon be completing their collaborative curatorial project CENTERpieces, affiliated with the Center for Discovery in upstate New York. Stay-tuned for an upcoming event for artist Richard Torchia’s work in one of the center’s geodesic domes.

Richard Campbell, Horses are Pretty, 2008 6 minute short film based on illustrated story.

For all that, the show is full of some wonderful moments by non-country artists looking toward the west and south and piney woods as well as country artists gazing at the culture in which they find themselves immersed.

My favorite videos were Janine Harkleroad’s The Duel and Richard Campbell’s Horses are Pretty.

Janine Harkleroad, The Duel. stop motion video, Annie Oakley's feet and skirt are visible right.

Harkleroad’s The Duel is a shoot-out between two life-size cut-out props, one representing Annie Oakley and one The Cowboy. The competition has feminist Annie shoot off her mouth as well as her piece, amid a quirky stage set that includes quilted backdrops and a mix of drawings and fabrics. Fun to look at, fun to listen to. Plus the story goes contemporary and domestic in its war between the sexes.

A nice contrast is Campbell’s My Little Pony porno. Betty the Nurse wears a Pony-pink wig and an enormous swatch of Pony-pink pubic hair at the base of her belly and at times not much else, in a send-up that plays with pre-teen girls’ obsession with real studly steeds and grown boy sex fantasies of nurses in and out of uniform. Yet somehow the end product is not so much dirty as funny and pleasantly odd.

Mel Chin, Rough Rider, 2001 barbed wire, steel

Marshall Harris, Saddle Sketch #1, detail, 2011 graphite on mylar

Speaking of steeds, the show saddles up twice–with Mel Chin’s Rough Rider, a saddle beautifully crafted of barbed wire and steel (ouch; for cowpokes no doubt), and with Marshall Harris’ tour-de-force graphite on mylar drawing, Saddle Sketch, notable for turning the leather embossing into a romantic Wild West landscape. The contrast between the two is worth some thinking.

Suki Anderson Mr. Nibbles Likes to Wear Hats, 2011, 9 digital photographic metallic prints; these are maybe 8 inches each.

Joseph Girandola, Horse Sense (Father and Son), 2008 duct tape on canvas; 81.5 x 89.5 inches

In Philadelphia artist Joe Girandola’s duct-tape on canvas portrait of a horse watching a televised horse race, the monumental beast of a horse is a humanized and sad creature, tamed in the stable. And humanized animals sporting ridiculous hat fashions in Suki Anderson’s series Mr. Nibbles Likes to Wear Hats goes even further off the beaten path. The nine digital images are amusing, a la poodles in raincoats, but far less conventional and just a little creepy with suggestions of lives of enslavement and bondage for our four-footed friends.

C. Grant Cox, Tense Negotiations

For another fashion statement and then some, C. Grant Cox’s Tense Negotiations is a gizmo with stomping cowboy boots, disembodied but still dancing their way in (or out) of the Long Branch Saloon and their not drunk on sarsparilla. It delights at the same time that it iconifies something already iconic–all those heroic and villainous characters who live and die in their boots in a century of Hollywood oaters. This is a show with lots of boots and lots and lots of gunfights.

Jeffrey Stockbridge, Country, 2011

The only shot in a photo by Philadelphia photographer Jeffrey Stockbridge is from a syringe, suggesting a drug-infused slow death in contemporary rural life. The show does get beyond the conventions of cowboys, and spends a little time on the farm and in the woods, North and South. I loved the Matthew Weddington’s conceptual road sign, too.

Matthew Weddington, Landmark, 2003, Cibachrome print

The show has barns, a still, rope, and other country conventions to poke. I’m not so sure the show achieves a new definition of what “country” means, but it’s having an awfully good time playing with the old definitions, and moving the art conversation out of New York.

The show’s 22 artists come from around the country, and Delaware Center for Contemporary Art Curator Maiza Hixson said she hopes to travel the show some more. For now, it opened in Louisville, and came here. The next venue is still in the planning stage. This is DCCA’s first ever “satellite” show, a DCCA-curated show especially for off-site exhibition.

Young Country
Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery
333 S. Broad Street
to July 29
Monday – Thursday: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Friday: 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Matthew Higgs

“It was the greatest experience of my life,” he said of one of the JD performances he attended. “I knew it was historic.” At the time he was publishing a music fanzine, Photophobia. These days, he himself is the subject of an internet fanzine, The Matthew Higgs Society, based in Philadelphia.

Higgs was speaking to a crowded room at the University of the Arts Wednesday, July 6, the talk a part of a series of summer art talks for the MFA program. Roberta and I were both there to hear Higgs and also to attend the opening of the student show, which we had juried.

The 46-year-old curator, artist, write and publisher spoke so quickly in his English accent that the room was utterly silent with people straining to catch what he was saying. Part of what he said was that he learned was about the importance of community–from how Joy Division shared its royalties among all its members and how they plowed the income back into their club.

Two years later, Higgs became equally passionate about art. At 16, “My interest in art surpassed my interest in music.” His desire to know ever more about whatever he was curious about came through as a fierce intelligence during the talk.

At art school in Newcastle, he had political ideas that seeped into his art practice–when he realized that he could only go so far in art all by himself. “It was clear to me from day one that I wasn’t the most interesting artist in my class.” So he adopted collaboration and community as his way of coping.

Here he dropped a name. New York gallery owner Gavin Brown was in his class. Higgs continued to drop names from his generation in the course of the talk–Jeremy Deller, Elizabeth Peyton. At 22 in London, in an art scene he termed moribund, he saw new artists starting to make things happen for themselves. “For me it was just interesting to be putting art into the world.” So he published about 60 quirky, hand-assembled book/objects he created with artists, including Deller, Peyton and Martin Creed. One he singled out in the talk was Stewart Home’s Cunt Lickers Anonymous, in which Home outed as straight the fey duo artists Gilbert and George.

Jeremy Deller's Valentine's Day message, part of Higgs' project to put art in a public context.

He submitted messages by fellow artists into the Valentine’s Day personals in the newspapers. Deller’s personal (above) was lyrics from a song by the Smiths, offbeat out of the song’s context. Higgs called it an “attempt to make work in the public domain.” Both the books projects and the Valentines personals he paid for out of his own pocket, while working as an administrative assistant in a London ad agency. (He noted at this point in the talk that he has curated a Jeremy Deller show coming up at Hayward Gallery (London) next year.

Higgs made his mark curating shows that demonstrated the YBAs weren’t the only game in town–an almost political sort of thing breaking up the Saatchi cartel-approach to art. (Higgs has curated more than 100 shows all in all).

After the London ICA he moved to San Francisco as curator of the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art at California College of Arts and Crafts where among other things he placed art in non-art places like bulletin boards in hallways, and showed work that played with language, both persistent themes in his career. And since moving on to White Columns, he said he has redefined what the space is doing–tons of shows, publishing a fanzine every couple of months (another example of consistent interests through the years), and releasing records on occasion. “The idea is to be idiosyncratic,” he said, now that so many other spaces are serving as incubators for new talent, which was White Columns’ original defining role.

The line dancers at Young Country show. The horse painting (right rear) is really made of tape--by Joe Girandola.

Hixson, who just stepped into the role of curator at DCCA, told us at the opening that she quite by accident got into a conversation with a bartender who said he was part of a line-dance group, and so a deal was struck. The line dancers, with their upbeat music, stomping and hand-clapping, turned the art party into a party party. The group was terrific.  We’d love to tell you more about the exhibit but with the crush of flesh, the dancing, and our desire to hob-nob we didn’t absorb the art.  We’ll have to go back.

Young Country curator Maiza Hixson getting her own country on at the opening

Meanwhile, in Hamilton Hall across Broad Street, people were celebrating Cosmic Bodies, an MFA show we juried.  We celebrated too–the show looks great!  Before both openings, we were part of a full auditorium of eager listeners for White Columns‘ Director Matthew Higgs, who speed-talked his way through a slide show about his career (pretty darned interesting).

Erika Baca (l) and Lindsey Baker at the Cosmic Bodies party

With all these great confluences of talent it seems essential to point out that Joe Girandola is the cosmic force behind it all. He brokered the deal to have the show at Rosenwald-Wolf, which is otherwise closed during July.  And as the MFA program director, he organized the Food For Thought lecture series (with Matthew Higgs and others) and was the impetus behind the juried MFA exhibit.

Here’s our jurors’ statement about Cosmic Bodies, plus some pictures:

Erika Baca morphs himself with Gary Coleman, fandom with clowndom

Orbs and bodies are age-old artistic motifs. Their depictions have been used to trigger narratives about the human place in the cosmos, and to raise issues about time, connectivity, life cycles and our earthly realm’s place in the universe. Cosmic Bodies raises these human and cosmic issues, sometimes with humor and other times with dead seriousness.

Kristine Strawser's wood-carved clean-up woman with glow sticks

Figurative works by Sarah Nguyen, Kris Strawser and Erika Baca tease personal and universal meaning from imagery that’s both old and new. Nguyen’s nude child in a dark, threatening interior portends a coming trouble. The image is a haunting reminder of human vulnerability. Strawser’s mini 3D superhero stands ready to face the terror of the deep blue night with only a bunch of glowsticks at her command. Erika Baca’s Warhol-esque grid of Gary Coleman faces with sardine can mouths is funny at the same time that it’s full of sadness for this child actor and perhaps for humans everywhere. We all face death by playing the clown, and face the pitfalls of life, flaming out early and having no control over what our bodies and our circumstances do to us.

Lindsay Baker, still from her Sad Club series of videos, a mashup of lachrymose singing, real music videos and drawings

Speaking of sad, Lindsey Baker’s Sad Club videos grasp pop culture by the throat and wrestle with the annoying side of overheated emotions in music videos.

Janine Hughes' orbs overwhelmed the front gallery space with the scent of cotton candy

Gina Herrera's piece infused the back gallery with the scent of ground coffee and coffee dripped all the way down the wall

Harry Hukkinen's cast concrete pieces channel time passes and orbital phases

Orbs in the sculptural installations of Gina Herrera, Janine Hughes and Harry Hukkinen mark time’s passage and elicit thoughts of connectivity. Hughes and Herrera use sensual raw materials (cotton candy; coffee grounds) that trigger Proust-ian journeys into personal experience.

Virginia McKinney's biomorphic interconnectedness in clay

Virginia McKinney’s biomorphic forms, too, are connected — physically to each other and metaphorically to biology–macro and micro. All these connectivities are temporary and all mimic human life’s rhythms and bespeak the cycles of life, death and rebirth.

Lorenzo Triburgo, Tranquil Dawn (Burton). digital print. Photo courtesy of the gallery

Like all contemporary portrait photographers, Triburgo, the documentarian, owes much to Cindy Sherman, whose faux-realist costume-drama self-portraits took the genre into a realm it hadn’t been before. Her photographs have always served to reveal a larger truth behind the image.

Like Sherman’s works, Triburgo’s “Transportraits” have an element of tall-tale telling—Paul Bunyan-style. There is truth here but it’s steeped in irony: Each portrait captures a likeness, but taken as a whole, the pictures are actually quite fantastical. And what’s refreshing about “Transportraits” is that it focuses on heroism, not pain.

Lorenzo Triburgo, Lake in the Valley, (KC). Photo courtesy of the gallery

Triburgo’s 14 archival digital prints at Gallery 1401 in Center City present a group of transgender men, each of whom pose in front of a painted, nature-centric background. The men are captured from the waist up, dressed casually, each in a mock-heroic stance—eyes trained upward and focused on a point in the far distance. No one looks at the camera; no one smiles; and there is no attempt to deliver each person as an individual beyond the surface of hair, piercings, tattoos, ear plugs and clothes. They are one man, every man, every transgender man.

Lorenzo Triburgo, Sunset Aglow (Glenn), digital print. Photo courtesy of the gallery

It’s the kitschy backgrounds—the purple mountains majesty, bursting sunsets, glorious deep forests and waterfalls, the pumped-up nature you find in cheesy greeting cards and wallpaper backgrounds for your K-Mart or Sears portrait studio pictures—that really clinch this show. Triburgo successfully pokes fun at the American Dream by combining these transgender heroes with images of nature at its most sublime. Even the titles of the works serve as punchlines in this wry, Steven Colbert-like opus: “Tranquil Dawn (Burton),” “Sunset Aglow (Glenn),” and “Valley Waterfall (Erin).” Triburgo’s point about the truth beneath the picture is as clear as can be. The American Dream is valid for these men even if it doesn’t comply with the red-state vision of heroism.

Lorenzo Triburgo, Valley Waterfall (Erin). digital print, Photo courtesy of the gallery

Harris Fogel, curator of Equality Forum exhibits at University of the Arts for the last nine years, says that Triburgo—himself a transgender man—has a sense of humor about the works. “The works are kitschy, wonderful and vibrant … and the students love it,” Fogel says. He adds that the goal of Equality Forum shows is to showcase the best LGBT artists, some of whom deal with gender issues in their works (Triburgo), and others who don’t (Imboden).

Connie Imboden, untitled 04-14-09-462. archival pigment print. Photo courtesy of the gallery

And speaking of Imboden, the artist and longtime teacher at Maryland Institute College has been photographing nude models in the studio for 25 years. Imboden, who follows in the tradition of nude photography that dates back to the camera’s invention, shoots digitally with studio setups that include color gels, strobe lights, mirrors and water. She achieves multi-hued effects, which are both beautiful and slightly scary. In her archival digital prints, figures are set against velvety black backgrounds that suggest the depths of Hades. The figures twist and turn like elves and fauns and move, half in water, half out, or duplicated in part by an unseen mirror. Like characters from a Caravaggio painting, the figures seem to pop out of the inky background and threaten to invade your space. In these poetic works, beauty is fragile and fleeting; life and death are very close partners.

Framed well and printed beautifully, these two shows span the range of what’s being done in contemporary photography. You may respond to one body of work more strongly than the other, but both shows are full of heart.

Read this at Philly Weekly. More photos at flickr – Lorenzo Triburgo Connie Imboden

Lorenzo Triburgo: Transportraits, Through May 1. Gallery 1401, 211 S. Broad St. 215.717.6300.

Connie Imboden: Reflections, Through May 1. Sol Mednick Gallery, 211 S. Broad St. 215.717.6300.

We don’t know if he’d agree but we think the highpoint of his activist curating, the peak endeavor — on which he toiled for years — is Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists 1958-1968, the exhibition and catalog–and the movie. This roundup of the art of long-overlooked women artists from the Pop art era, has been getting acclaim high and low. The show traveled from Philadelphia to the Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln, Nebraska, to the Brooklyn Museum and finally to the Tufts University Art Gallery where it will be until April 3.  Every step of the way the show has gotten deserved kudos. We’ve written about it here.  Ken Johnson in the New York Times weighed in on the Brooklyn Museum iteration. Art in America reviewed it; the Christian Science Monitor reviewed it; ditto the Financial Times.  In addition, on March 14 the U.S. section of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) will award the show first place in the category Best Thematic Museum Shows Nationally.  And the show’s beautiful catalog was cited by the New York Times as one of the top art catalogs of the year!

"Green Triptych" by Marjorie Strider, 1963, from the Seductive Subversion exhibit. acrylic paint, laminated pine on masonite panels, 105 x 72 inches. The image is a mix of 2- and 3-D. Courtesy of the Artist/Collection of Michael T Chutko, Photography by Randal Bye.

And that’s one of the things we want to tell you about here–the great exhibition catalog, a formidable piece of research and argument by Sachs and Kalliope Minioudaki who co-edited the book and each wrote a fantastic essay.  Fleshed out with more essays and personal accounts by some of the women artists and others who were witnesses to the Pop age, the book is not only a good read much of the time, but it’s beautifully designed, generously illustrated, and important as a document that fills in many gaping holes in the historical record.

Rosalyn Drexler standing in front of her painting Home Movies, 1963, in the Philadelphia show.  oil and synthetic polymer with photomechanical reproductions on canvas Courtesy Hirshhorn Museum and 
Sculpture Garden, this picture and those that follow by Libby

Is it possible for a catalog essay to be a bodice ripper? Oh, we guess that would be an inappropriate designation, given the feminist roots of this show. But honestly, Sid’s essay, Beyond the Surface: Women and Pop Art 1958-1968 is certainly a pulp-fiction kind of page turner–at least as catalog essays go. He paints a sweeping tableau in plain non-art-speak language of a world in which Pop emerged in response to its time and in succession to the macho excesses of Abstract Expressionism.

Amidst a popular culture and an art culture that dismissed women, women artists created a Pop vocabulary of their own. This book

The power of this catalog, this show, and the accompanying full-length DVD, Seductive Subversion, Women Pop Artists by Glen Holsten, is that they not only brings into focus excellent work by women of that era who had 15 minutes of recognition, only to disappear from the culture and its collective memory. It also brings into focus the failure of art historical story telling, which was unable to transcend its misogynist cultural roots and see the forest for the trees.  These ladies were all showing art in the 60s.  Some of them showed at Leo Castelli Gallery.  Some of them had success.  The fact that they were left out of the record until now is pitiful.

Beyond resurrection of the art works, the catalog and movie provide moving individual stories–like that of Pauline Boty, who was dismissed for her beauty; or of Patty Mucha, whose then husband Claes Oldenburg took full credit for his soft sculptures, which she both suggested and then sewed. Marisol’s witty Pop sculptures first earned admiration and then rejection as too slight and too female.  And like Boty, she too was dismissed for her beauty.

Pauline Boty, Big Jim Colisomo, c. 1963 oil on canvas, Collection Bridget Boty, Kent

It wasn’t only male critics who did this. Lucy Lippard–one of the biggest feminists of them all — also dismissed the work, according to co-editor Minioudaki. Minioudaki’s essay, although filled with the thorny language of feminist political philosophy, makes a strong case against Lippard and the critical art history boys. The book includes essays by art historians Linda Nochlin, Bradford R. Collins, Annika Ohrner, and Sue Tate. Artist essays are by Martha Rosler and Patty Mucha.

The reproductions of work by 24 overlooked women artists in the catalog on their own create a powerful argument not only for a female presence in Pop but also for a broadening of the male-centric definition of Pop, which virtually excised the women’s vision from the argument.

"John Wayne" by Marisol, detail, 1963, mixed media, 104 x 96 x 15 inches Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, Art © Marisol Escobar/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

This is a book that belongs in all college libraries.  It belongs in your library as well.  And the DVD, with its montage of footage from the Pop era and interviews with some of the artists now broadens and humanizes the discussion.  That it’s taken the women of pop 50 years to get into the record is sad. But Sid Sachs’ curatorial activism, which made it possible, is a championship story of pluck and determination in the face of nay-saying and roadblocks. Give this guy a MacArthur award please, right now.

Read the reviews:

Edward Sozanski in the Philadelphia Inquirer

Ken Johnson in the NY Times

Shannon Smith in the Daily Nebraskan

Ariella Budick in the Financial Times

Anne Wehr in Time Out New York

Carol Strickland in the Christian Science Monitor

Saul Ostrow in Art in America

about the catalog

Tom Capelongs in Art Museum Journal

Ken Johnson in NY Times holiday art book guide

#9 on the NY Times 2010 Gift Guide for Art Books

How to purchase

On Amazon:
Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists 1858-1968
Sid Sachs and Kalliopi Minioudaki, Co-Editors
University of the Arts, Philadelphia
Abbeville Press Publishers, New York and London
Cloth, 248 pages
127 Illustrations, 92 in full-color
Published 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7892-1065-4

Or contact University of the Arts to purchase a catalog and the DVD:
Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery
The University of the Arts
333 South Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
215-717-6480
ssachs@uarts.edu

Mohammed Kazem, an artist from Dubai, arrived in Philadelphia last June as the first Artist-in-Residence in the UArts low-residency MFA program.  Last month, a group of 12 UArts MFA students traveled to the United Arab Emirates to exhibit work in the juried Emirates Fine Arts Society’s 29th Annual Exhibition at the Sharjah Art Museum, as part of the exchange between UArts and the Dubai-based Emirates Foundation.  One of those students, Lauren McCarty, wrote this report about the cross-cultural exchange.

UArts MFA Group in the United Arab Emirates.

This was the first trip to the Middle East for all of the artists in our group. Admittedly, I knew very little about the culture and history of the United Arab Emirates outside of what I had learned by talking with Mohammed during his residency in Philadelphia.

This journey afforded us the opportunity to be shown a glimpse of the nuances of a place that many of us never expected to see and speak with individuals who have already changed us. In one day we visited the Barjeel Foundation (in Sharjah, another of the emirates), traveled to the desert, and visited the tallest building in the world (in Dubai).

On Sharjah television: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toOXp2lZwzk

As visitors we were touched by the generosity and kindness of our hosts from the Emirates Fine Arts Society: Mohammed Kazem, Curator of the Exhibition Layla Juma Rashid, and Emirates Fine Arts Society Administrator Osama Motalib. At the Sharjah Museum we had a spectacular installation team, who incidentally are all related and trained by each other.   It was a privilege to discuss our work at the opening reception with Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah, H.H. Sheikh Dr. Sultan Bin Mohammed Al Qassimi.  And the exhibit is accompanied by a beautiful catalog, with an essay by UArts MFA Director Joe Girandola, who created and fostered this cross-cultural exchange.

SharjahNews Coverage of Exhibition with MFA Students Carrice McKinstry, Michele Kishita and AJ Bredensteiner

Unlike the dwindling attention given to the arts by the United States’ press, newspaper and television coverage of the exhibition was extensive.

The Flying House

The Flying House Art Center

Dubai is becoming an international art hub but the history of fine arts there is short. The first art exhibition in the UAE was in 1971 at the Emirates Fine Arts Society. The current generation of home-grown artists, many of whom are training in masters programs around the globe, are pioneers. The Emirates Fine Arts Society was founded by Hassan Sharif, member of the Flying House, a collective of Emirati artists and a force in contemporary art in the UAE and abroad.

Hassan Sharif at his Flying House studio

We visited Hassan’s studio in the Flying House collective. Hassan continues to produce a staggering quantity of work while also writing prolifically about philosophy, his own work, that of his Flying House peers and students, and the modern and contemporary artists that have informed his work, like Marcel Duchamp and Sol LeWitt.

Images from Window, by Mohammed Kazem (2003-2005)

My understanding of the UAE began with a work called Window (2003-2005) by Kazem, a photo and video work exhibited last summer at the University of the Arts. Kazem was born in 1969, two years before the UAE was established as a nation and eleven years after oil was discovered in the Emirates. He has personally experienced the rapid development of the now famed metropolis, Dubai. Window uses photography and video to trace Kazem’s witnessing of the construction of a hotel. We see his window that once framed blue sky is now filled by one of many luxury hotels in Dubai.

Artspace Gallery, Dubai

There’s been an explosion of private galleries recently in Dubai. We visited a bunch in the Dubai International Finance Center and spoke with Maliha Al Tabari of ArtSpace Gallery and Bashar Al-Shroogi of Cuadro Fine Art Gallery. Cuadro was especially notable, showing examples of outstanding contemporary Arab artists. The design of the large gallery itself was innovative. Al-Shroogi explained his intention to provide multiple autonomous installation spaces. One space features swiveling walls. The poured concrete floors of the gallery actually have a soft material underneath that is meant to cushion the feet of gallery goers. Al-Shroogi has also begun an artist-in-residence program that includes a cultural education component, giving artists an understanding of the region that can then inform their work.

Sharjah

The Barjeel Foundation, Sharjah

An exciting development in contemporary art in the UAE is the very new Barjeel Foundation which we toured with gallery manager, Mandy Merzaban. The galleries are brand new and excellent and show works by members of the Flying House alongside other accomplished contemporaries from around the Arab world.

Abu Dhabi

The construction of the Louvre, Abu Dhabi in progress

This contrasted with what we saw in Abu Dhabi, another emirate, in our visit to Manarat Al Saadiyat, the cultural visitors’ center on Saadiyat Island. Like the Barjeel Foundation, everything was brand new and the design of the building arresting. But unlike the Barjeel Foundation’s emphasis on local talent, the Manarat Al Saadiyat showed non-Arab works –the current exhibition has works from the private collection of Larry Gagosian, works by Rauschenberg, Ruscha, Serra, Twombly, Warhol and Christopher Wool.

The construction of the Gugenheim, Abu Dhabi in progress

Also in Abu Dhabi, we toured the construction sites for the new Louvre and Guggenheim Museums as well as the soon to be completed five-star hotels and luxury villas on the artificial extension of Saadiyat Island.

It’s been a privilege to be part of this creative and cultural exchange. See images from the exhibition at the Sharjah Art Museum and more commentary about the trip at the blog we set up.  In addition to Uarts professor, Joe Girandola, here are the Uarts MFA students who were able to travel to UAE to be part of this exhibition: Eric Abaka, Marjorie Albano Renno, AJ Bredensteiner, Carrice Chardin McKinstry, David Chatfield, Harry Matti Hukkinen, Michele C. Kishita, Guy Loraine, Lauren McCarty, Kristine Sullivan Strawser, Andrew R. Walker, and Taegyun Yoon.

Colin O'Neill, whose art work is pictured at the end of the post.

The gallery is a few blocks north of the Chinatown gallery zone, at 12th and Spring Garden. You probably have noticed the building in passing.  It looks like a mausoleum and has the world “Finney & Son” carved into the marble facade; it used to be a show room for grave markers. PhilaMOCA opened in October.

Nicholas Maimone showed his controversial portrait of Carpenter's Union chief Ed Coryell Sr.

We could not have been happier with how our own students’ work looked on Friday, opening night. Pretty darned professional if you ask us! And we don’t think we’re exaggerating or being kind here.

Stephen F. James showed a conceptual sound sculpture

Besides, they are a good-looking crew, so we thought we’d share some pix of some of them as well as of some of their art work.

Tyler Held and Brittany Papale

Tyler Held's pimped out stove

Pavia Burroughs' pink piggy chair

Colin O'Neill, Trans Tools. The trompe l'oeil tools are made of plaster.

Today is the last day of the show.  Congratulations to all!  And more pictures at Roberta’s flickr and Libby’s flickr.