Composer and electronic music pioneer George Lewis (a MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowship recipient) took it upon himself to continue the dialogue he shared with the late artist, performer, and multi-instrumentalist Terry Adkins in the way he knew would be most appropriate–a recital.
Read MoreBremermann has lived in Santa Monica, New York, the Virgin Islands, Paris, and most recently Berlin. Not merely an itinerant artist, she has, among other things, worked sail boats and opened a restaurant. Her artwork feels both disciplined and free spirited: it is at once lyrical and whimsical.
Read MoreIn their opening concert, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia created a wonderful bridge between the Classical Period and the present, showing how Mozart’s legacy lives on. Haydn once wrote of Mozart that “posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years,” and he could well be on the money there. What the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia has accomplished as a consolation is to show us that the soul of Mozart continues to pour into music, no matter what period or style.
Read MoreResonance–visual, musical, thematic–characterizes Darkwater Revival: After Terry Adkins, the current exhibition at the Arthur Ross Gallery. Conceived as an homage to the late revered University of Pennsylvania professor, who died tragically of a heart attack in 2014, the show contains work by Adkins as well as eleven young artists who trained with him. Adkins’ absence haunts the exhibition, but his presence is felt in each work.
Read MoreWhen Jean Tinguely unpacked his “Hommage to New York” in 1960 and turned it on in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden at the Museum of Modern Art on March 17, 1960, the sculpture did more than self destruct–it exploded, caught fire, and was drowned by the New York Fire Department. But art history was made amid the shattering bottles, smoke spumes, and firey blow up. Tinguely had brought his kinetic junk to the world of art and succeeded in spectacular failure.
Read MoreWhether it was intended or not, “The Battle of Algiers” provides a visual blueprint for urban warfare. Its sympathetic portrayal of the guerrillas celebrates the freedom fighters but does not show a path beyond urban warfare and into peaceful resolution. I can only hope that new viewers of the film will understand the lessons it has to offer and not just absorb the blueprint.
Read MoreAll five artists’ work collectively covers (porously) the surface of the gallery itself. In fact the physical space itself becomes a porous “skin” to uphold the show. The success here is that Porous Coverage is porous itself, i.e., hardly a conclusive statement at all. Rather, with ample opportunity for flexibility and expansion, we are reminded to examine the intrinsic fragility of the nature of “wholeness” in the realm of our constructed objects, spaces, and selves.
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