Artblog | Features

March 27, 2017 by Beth Heinly

March 23, 2017 by Kitty Caparella

Magdalene Odundo, at The Clay Studio, channels ancient clay forms in beautiful, quirky works

An artist travels the world studying ancient techniques and translates her knowledge into evocative contemporary works. Magdalene Odundo, OBE, is in residence at The Clay Studio until April, 2017. Artblog contributor, Kitty Caparella interviews the artist, who will speak about her work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Saturday, April 8, 2017.

March 20, 2017 by Beth Heinly

The 3:00 Book

March 20, 2017 by Kathy Cho

On intimacy in the age of technology, Brown Girls, and Dana Schutz’s Open Casket painting in the Whitney Biennial 2017

Kathy Cho considers aspects of art and the artist’s life and brings to the reader’s attention several web projects to explore. We find the question of race in Dana Schutz’s painting Open Casket, based on a photo of the slain Emmitt Till, especially important to ponder. Why did Schutz make this grotesque portrayal (based on a shocking photo of the young man in his open casket)? Why did the Whitney Museum choose to exhibit it in the Biennial, their signature show?

March 17, 2017 by Dave Kyu

Art Commission check-in

The landscape architect of Rail Park’s Phase 1, Studio Bryan Haynes, traded manicured beauty for artfully rusting cor-ten steel beams to preserve the site’s legacy. “Dawn Chorus” also works with its Rail Park site, embedded with an ethos of rehabilitation, not reinvention.

March 15, 2017 by Matthew Rose

Bridges, bottles, and Madonnas – Postcard from Venice

Chicago-based painter and sculptor Himmelfarb’s recent projects consist of drawing, painting and assembling trucks–both toy-sized sculptures and actual vintage pickups loaded with an assortment of rusted objects and found detritus. His works are a kind of history on wheels, sojourners in time. And Venice, with its pronounced absence of cars–and wheels in general–proved an interesting place to uncover the essence of our attachment to motion and John’s current interests.

March 14, 2017 by Beth Heinly

The 3:00 Book

March 11, 2017 by Roberta

Checking in – Ayana Evans’s conceptual aerobics in Person of the Crowd

Ayana Evans is a perfect reverse-flåneur — a women (not envisioned in the 19th Century flåneur concept) and someone whose endurance performances are active, conceptual, aerobic and the opposite of idle. The artist works in prominent locations (the Rocky steps, one time in NYC in the middle of a busy intersection). And she dresses, purposely, in the most “girlie girl,” non-athletic garb imaginable. She will wear the tiger-striped catsuit and black stiletto heels she wore at the press preview in her 10-hour Philadelphia performance on May 6 at locations all around town.