With our reviews, we lead the discussion about what is valuable and why.
Our writing team covers exhibitions and performances in Philadelphia and elsewhere. We also cover books and movies. We look, take notes, ask questions and listen. We take pictures, make video and audio recordings. We think about what we see and have opinions. And we write our hearts out, every day.
Katerina Lanfranco, Artblog’s new NYC correspondent, visited The Studio Museum’s exhibit, “Firelei Báez: Joy Out of Fire,” on view at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture May 1-November 24. Part of the Museum’s itinerant “inHarlem” programming, “Joy Out of Fire” thoughtfully pairs Baez’s expressive mural-scale paintings with historical ephemera from the library’s own archives.
Read MoreIn Part One of our 2-part coverage of the new documentary, Roberta gives a brief overview of the film and says it’s not a bio-pic but a history flick about an era in which Basquiat was a player who turns out to be major. The film opens today at Ritz at the Bourse. Stay tuned for Imani Roach’s review coming up soon!
Read MoreIt’s graduation season, and one thing we’re mighty proud of here at Artblog is being the first publication to cover many of our region’s newly-minted BFAs and MFAs. Here Naveena Vijayan visits the University of Delaware’s MFA thesis show, “Cadence,” on view through June 3rd at The Delaware Contemporary.
Read MoreJessica Rizzo attended the Lightbox Film Center’s recent retrospective of French filmmaker Philippe Garrel’s evocative body of work. Here she traces the arc of his career and recounts highlights from the month-long survey, which included a number of films rarely screened on this side of the Atlantic.
Read MoreOur new contributor, Jessica Rizzo, sees the 10-hour, marathon performance of EgoPo Theater’s Lydie Breeze trilogy and says it’s worth spending the time with John Guare’s flawed Civil War-era characters, whose tragedies, loves, jealousies and losses are humanly relatable. The sets get a shout out as bringing the action to life, as does the atmospheric music. and Guare’s vision, rooted in the past, seems oddly relevant today. The three play marathon is a monumental accomplishment, says Rizzo. The last performance is Sunday, May 6, 2018.
Read MoreOlivia Jia visits Marginal Utility’s current two-person show, “#WEHAVENOPRESIDENT,” featuring work by Sarah McEneaney and LeRoy Johnson. Here she admires the devotional diligence of their projects and explains why all anti-Trump art is not created equal.
Read MoreDeb Krieger is back with a review of “Victoriana Reimagined,” on view at the Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion Victorian House Museum and Garden through September 1st, 2018. This multi-room installation features three female contemporary artists who use craft to uncover the history and politics of the domestic sphere.
Read MoreImani is still thinking about her trip to Volta last month. In particular, she reflects on “The Aesthetics of Matter” — this year’s curated section by Mickalene Thomas and Racquel Chevremont, which featured artists Tomashi Jackson, Troy Michie, Devin N. Morris, Christie Neptune, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, David Shrobe, Didier William, and Kennedy Yanko. While their work mines the political potential of collage across a variety of media, the surrounding context of the fair raises important questions about the political labor that African American artists and curators perform in the global contemporary art market. Volta NY 2018 was on view March 7th-11th at Pier 90 in Manhattan, NY.
Read MoreMichael visits “Space Invaders,” on view through April 19th at Rutgers Camden’s Stedman Gallery. For this collaborative group show, artists have been commissioned to produce new works in dialogue, not only with the interior of the gallery itself, but with each other. The result is a show that pushes the boundaries of medium, combining sculpture, projection, sound and lighting to suggest the complexity of the ties that bind objects in memory and in the world. “Space Invaders” includes work by Elizabeth Mackie, Andi Steele, Kaitlyn Paston, Joanna Platt, and Jacintha Clark.
Read MoreArtblog’s Paris correspondent, Matthew Rose, is back with a review of Steven Rifkin’s retrospective at Les Douches La Galerie. Comprised of square format black and white photographs from the 1970s and 80s, this show reveals Rifkin as a master observer of form both natural and man-made. “Steven Rifkin: Au Fil du Temps” was on view January 20th – March 3rd, 2018.
Read MoreNew Artblog contributor Deborah Krieger visits Maria Dumlao’s latest solo exhibition at Vox Populi Gallery, “History in RGB.” Comprised of densely-layered, multi-colored posters set amongst draped mosquito netting and potted tropical plants, this work imagines colonialism (in Dumlao’s native Philippines and beyond) as a cacophony of myths and half-truths. Colored film viewfinders, installed along the gallery wall, approximate a kind of worldview by allowing visitors to literally filter their experience of work and its histories. “History in RGB” is on view through April 22, 2018.
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