So the fall lineups are trickling in and it looks like it’s going to be a girl power season, people.
Time to show R E S P E C T.
Here’s my list of must-sees, in random order, all worthy.
1. British “Sensation” Gillian Wearing, singer and poet Patti Smith and wallpaper guru Virgil Marti at the ICA. [see post 5/30/03 for more] This three-part pairing will feed the eyes, ears and soul. Smith and her band will perform an evening of music and poetry at the Zellerbach theater Oct. 16. Tickets $15. Call Penn Presents, 215-898-3900. (show opens Sept 4 and runs to Dec. 14)
2. “Fiber Friends” at Spector. Four artists, two women, two men, ply their needles and threads in rugs, weavings, quilts and dolls. Whitney Lee’s hook rugs of porn stars in flagrante, including one reclining nude that measures 6 ft. by 4 ft. are required viewing for all who followed last week’s thread about old and new porn [posts 7/19/03, 7/21/03]. Lauren Ashley’s “red work” quilts, Eric Steinberg’s weavings and self-taught doll maker and painter Brian Bazemore, making his gallery debut, round out the crew. (show opens Sept. 12 and runs to Oct. 3)
3. “Gilding the Lily: Ceramic Wallpaper by Rain Harris,” at Temple’s Tyler Gallery in Elkins Park. Harris, 1999 Leeway award-winning local ceramist known for her sensual, biomorphic vessels encrusted with faux gems and often covered with flocking will install the space with Victorian-affect floral patterning, both 2-D and 3-D. (show runs Sept. 9 to Oct. 11)
4. “Surface Tension” and “LURE” at the Fabric Workshop and Museum. Hello videophiles, this is your show. A compendium of video projections onto non-standard surfaces by local artists, Nadia Hironaka and Peter Rose and by Nicole Cohen, Camille Utterback, and Tony Oursler. The night of the opening, local artist Aaron Igler’s LURE group (known for nocturnal, exterior projections) will screen new work — artist-designed screensavers — outside the FWM. (show opens Sept. 5 and runs to Nov. 14)
5. “drawings and installation by Astrid Bowlby” at Gallery Joe. Bowlby, 2002 Leeway award winner whose work moves between big, labor intensive ink on paper installations (like last year’s “Leaves of Grass” at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) and small, labor-intensive ink drawings will cover it all here, filling the front gallery and the vault space with her black-and-white visions. Bowlby is an artblog contributor. (show opens Sept. 5 and runs through Oct. 25)
6. “Brighter Death Now” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Video Gallery. Local artist Jennifer Macdonald’s hand-drawn animation (283 drawings) tells a metaphorical story about love and obsession seen through the games played by a boy and a bunny. Featured in last year’s “A Closer Look” exhibit at Arcadia the one minute, 15 second video is a stunner for its flat affect — and surprising emotional range. (Aug. 26 to Sept. 14)
All this and more will be yours if you make it through the month of August.
