Sam Brown sees a provocative show at Second State Press of printed posters made by the group “Prints for Protest.” He appreciates how many different ways artists in the show connect with protest issues alive today.
Read MoreLevi Bentley examines the complex melange of past, present and future in Alexis Pauline Gumbs’s book, “M Archive,” a work of speculative fiction that argues that Black feminist thought holds the “connection and knowledge and care of the earth and its people together through all time,” as Bentley says in their immersive review.
Read MoreWhat is the role of an artist when their old neighborhood is gentrified by art galleries and the neighborhood doesn’t want them there? This highly topical question, and others, are examined by Guadalupe Rosales in her splendid “Legends Never Die: A Collective Memory,” at Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford College. Deborah Krieger writes a great personal take on the show.
Read MoreSarah Kim visits the exhibit at the William Way Center and views art whose materials defiantly separate it from traditional mainstream art. Altars made with found materials; altered photo-portraiture; drawing installations and collage, made by six artists, the art is metaphorical and symbolic of the state of being in flux, in transition. Kim’s powerful writing leads you through the exhibit, adding insightful commentary and insights. After considering this show about fluid states of identity, Kim concludes that ultimately, selfhood is the experience itself, and art, which is based in objecthood, can point the way.
Read More“Charting a Path to Resistance,” a new Percent for Art mural at the Philadelphia City Archives is an abstract representation of the struggles of African Americans in Philadelphia and their resistance to injustices perpetrated upon them. The new commission by Talia Greene uses a gridded timeline supplemented by written material available via tablet in the Archives space. Michael Lieberman notes that the new mural’s graphic display, while not self-evident in meaning, becomes clearer upon reading the copious research material provided by the artist in the tablets. The educational value of the mural is clear, even if the graphical interface is not.
Read More“Cornucopia / Urn” is a show at Spillway Gallery that features work by Nora Chellew and Suldano Abdiruhman. Samuel writes about the interplay between these two artists and how they create a dream-like space that evokes the fragmentation of memory and the nostalgic feelings we have towards the past. He also reached out to the show’s Curator, Babs Weiss, to learn more about the thought-process behind the exhibition’s conception. The show closes on February 9th, so make your way on over!
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