January 26, 2022 by Corey Qureshi

Neon in an intimate space creates ‘Electric Caverns’ at Hot-Bed’s Micro Gallery

Using hand-bent neon sculptures, artist Alissa Eberle installs a warm, candy-colored electric cavern into a small gallery space at HOT•BED. Our contributor Corey Qureshi’s review plays with the ideas of an intimate space treated with what are typically public and extroverted sign materials, and says the installation will put you in two different moods that feel loose and enjoyable. The show is up til Feb. 19, 2022.

January 20, 2022 by Andrea Kirsh

Sex, aging bodies and the human condition, Joan Semmel’s overdue first solo museum show, at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Feminist artist Joan Semmel’s first solo museum exhibit is long overdue. Our contributor Andrea Kirsh says that Semmel “…breaks taboos about the depiction of women, their bodies and their thoughts.” The show is at PAFA through April 3, 2022. Be sure to catch it.

January 11, 2022 by Kate Brock

Transparency, opacity and the limits of human understanding in Jennifer Packer’s “The Eye is not Satisfied with Seeing,” at the Whitney Museum

New Artblog Contributor Kate Brock reviews ‘Jennifer Packer: The Eye is Not Satisfied With Seeing,’ a retrospective of the painter’s radiant portraits, interiors, and funerary bouquets. “The lack of dimensional representation of Black people, especially Black women, in the history of painting… leaves the eye unsatisfied… Packer’s vision reveals the historic absences,” Kate says. Catch the show at the Whitney before it closes April 17, 2022.

January 6, 2022 by Susan Isaacs

‘Afro-American Images 1971’ exhibit is restaged by Delaware Art Museum in a museum mea culpa

“To write about the Black presence at the Delaware Art Museum is to recall the absence of curators, exhibitions, and artists,” says art historian and artist Simone Austin in the catalog for the re-staging of the exhibition ‘Afro-American Images 1971,’ now at the Delaware Museum. Our contributor Susan Isaacs gives the story of the current exhibition and its historical predecessor, and says, “The show is very important.”

January 5, 2022 by Alex Smith

Impassioned creativity plus awareness of being watched, in ‘Dark Sousveillance’ at Vox Populi Gallery

Alex Smith reviews Logan Cryer’s latest curation ‘Dark Sousveillance,’ inspired by Simone Browne’s research on Blackness and surveillance. The group show features Black and predominantly queer artists, examining “wanting to be seen by each other, and wanting to hide from the violence of hypervisibility.” The exhibition is on view at Vox Populi, by appointment, thru Jan. 16, 2022.

December 17, 2021 by Andrea Kirsh

Amber Robles-Gordon’s anti-colonial quilts and personal histories at American University Museum at the Katzen Center

An artist’s visit to her mother’s birth place in Puerto Rico awakens her to the complexities of immigration and family – and to the dubious socio-political actions and inactions by the U.S. government in its far-flung territories. Our reviewer Andrea Kirsh is moved by the powerful collage works and double-sided quilts of Amber Robles-Gordon. The show closed Dec. 12.

December 15, 2021 by Susan Isaacs

Powerful show of art by women and non-binary artists working in the region today, at the Delaware Contemporary

Regional women artists of all ages ply various media, from plaster and paint to fibers and installation, in a show that is a demonstration of women and non-binary artists’ power to create. Our reviewer Susan Isaacs says: ‘Given the particularly fraught moment we are facing now regarding… voting rights and control of women’s bodies and those with a uterus, “Fields and Formations” is an especially important statement about the creativity and commitment of women and non-binary artists. “ We encourage you to see this exhibit, up now to January 7, 2022.

December 13, 2021 by Janyce Denise Glasper

Quiet, beautiful and atmospheric, Jennifer Packer’s people and funerary bouquets at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Filled with saturated color and light emanating from unexplained places, Jennifer Packer’s atmospheric works suggest a “provocative harmony,” says Janyce Denise Glasper, in her review of the artist’s solo show at LA MOCA. The show is up to Feb. 21, 2022. Packer also has a solo show at the Whitney Museum right now, on view til April 17, 2022. Be sure to catch this rising star, whose approach to figuration is truly new.