There’s no art page in the Weekly this week so my review of the Anne Seidman/Susan Hagen exhibits at Schmidt-Dean Gallery will appear next week. (thumbnail review: excellent, run right over!)
In the Listings is my review of Anne Minich‘s show at Philadelphia Cathedral. My 2004 studio visit with Minich is here and Libby’s post on the show is here.
“Anne Minich: From the Head Series”
Through Oct. 10. Philadelphia Cathedral, 3723 Chestnut St. 215.386.0234.
Anne Minich’s exhibit “From the Head Series” at Philadelphia Cathedral tells a universal story. Minich’s 13 painted wood icons, each depicting a human head and shoulders in dark silhouette, are the epitome of strength, vulnerability and mystery. Sited between the stained glass windows of the high-ceilinged Cathedral, Minich’s carved, colored, oiled and buffed works, imbued with a sculptor’s love of materials, repeat their solitary motif and have a cumulative effect like the Stations of the Cross or a ghost jury sitting in witness. Minich, a Leeway Foundation grant-winner (1994, for excellence in painting), has been sorely underexposed in Philadelphia. Her symbolist works, restrained and elegant and tinged with sadness, remind me of Philadelphia’s other great symbolist artist Thomas Chimes. Chimes’ works have a literary obsession (the symbolist poets are his muses), and Minich works from a spiritual and personal perspective, but both artists are big-picture thinkers who make haunting works that take a stab at the meaning of life. Minich has toiled without local recognition for far too long. Her work is a perfect match for the spare spiritual aesthetic of the Cathedral. It’s so powerful, it’ll elevate any space it’s in.
(image is two works from Minich’s “Head” series. the shot was taken in the artist’s studio)
minich, anne
