John McInerney, head of publicity at the ICA wrote to tell me that the museum’s very fine Polly Apfelbaum retrospective was on the cover of January’s Art in America. Cool.So today when I got the magazine in the mail I saw that not only was there coverage of one Philadelphia show in the last art magazine in the universe without a real website but that there was coverage of two big Philadelphia museum shows. In addition to the Apfelbaum article by Stephen Westphall, there’s a feature by Miriam Seidel on the Warren Rohrer retrospective at the PMA. Score two points! (image, top is Rohrer’s “Settlement Magenta,” 1980)
In other insidery news from McInerney, the Apfelbaum show received an award from the International Association of Art Critics. According to artnet, the show shared the award for second place in the category “best monographic museum show organized nationally.” The other second place winner was the “Thomas Struth” show from the Dallas Museum of Art.
Also from artnet, I learned that ICA curator Ingrid Schaffner, who also does freelance curating, won an IAAC award for her exhibit “Gloria,” a show she co-curated with Catherine Morris. “Gloria,” the great revisiting of feminist art from the 1970s, won the “best show in an alternative or public space” award. Schaffner and Morris organized the show for White Columns. Someone at Moore College of Art and Design had the good grace (and money) to bring it to Philadelphia. (If you missed it, check out the White Columns link for images) Score two more! (image left is Eleanor Antin’s contribution to “Gloria,” “The Wonder of it all, from the King of Solana Beach, 1974-75)
