Artists James Bouche, Jared Rush Jackson and Devin N. Morris explore individual experience through the prism of mass culture in Punctual Reality, a group show currently at High Tide gallery. Contributor Olivia Jia praises all three artists for handling the subject of identity with the subtlety it so urgently requires. Punctual Reality is on view through March 17th.
Read MoreMichael visits “How Wide is the Gulf?”, a timely group exhibition now at Gravy Studio + Gallery. Presenting a thematically-tight cluster of three artists who address North America’s migratory past and present, curator Rebekah Flake highlights the power differentials that exists between nations and the (brown) bodies that navigate them. Not to be missed, “How Wide is the Gulf?” is on view through March 13th.
Read MoreCarl(os) Roa previews the Power Street Theater Company’s production of “Las Mujeres,” a new play by Erlina Ortiz, running March 9th-17th at West Kensington Ministry. Supported by a pantheon of feminist icons from Latin American history, “Las Mujeres” adapts the unorthodox structure of Caryl Churchill’s 1982 working-woman play, “Top Girls,” to the complexities of contemporary Latinx life.
Read MoreImani Roach ponders “Went Looking for Beauty: Refashioning Self,” an exhibition of photographs by Deborah Willis currently at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. On view through April 29th 2018, this partial retrospective shows thematic highlights from Willis’s decades-long journey documenting the richness of black aesthetic and cultural practices, and demonstrates her continuing evolution as an artist.
Read MoreSeventeen years after the feature documentary, “Rivers and Tides” debuted, Director Thomas Riedelsheimer brings back to the screen British artist, Andy Goldsworthy and his magical, shamanistic works with nature. Roberta says the new film, “Leaning into the Wind,” is a film poem, and a loving embrace of this unique artist who paints with leaves and with rain and whose humble affect masks a life of hard work, repeated failure (and triumph) collaborating with a tough and changeable Mother, Nature.
Read MoreAndrea reviews an exhibit by Jacqueline Hoang Nguyen that critiques the Stockholm Ethnography Museum and its “collecting” of non-Western, cultural artifacts and stories. Many museum goers are already aware of moral and ethical problems underlying ethnographic collections. For those not aware, this exhibit will be valuable, Andrea says.
Read MoreNew Art Writing Challenge winner Huewayne Watson is back with his reflections on Ten Days Before Freedom, A Hymnal, Kara Springer’s current show at The Galleries at Moore. This evocative photo-installation looks to the remote Bahamian community of Fox Hill, and its annual celebration commemorating the news of emancipation from slavery arriving some ten days after its decree. Ten Days Before Freedom, A Hymnal will be on view through March 17th, 2018.
Read MoreA short 2016 movie seeks to rewrite art history to include Black artists who have historically been left out of the American art history canon. Roberta says it’s a compelling piece of filmmaking that shows some progress but a lot of work still to come for an equitable inclusion to be achieved.
Read MoreSometimes a show can be too big. Andrea talks about the new, 277+-work exhibition combining outsider and mainstream art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and says it includes many gems that are wonderful to see, but that the show breaks no new ground and winds up overwhelming even the hard-bitten art lover. She provides a few tips on what’s not to be missed.
Read MoreThe Cuban-American artist Anthony Goicolea presents a photo, drawing and prints exhibition that is a moving reverie on the rupture of displacement and migration on families and abandoned homelands. Michael reviews.
Read MoreCarl(os) Roa sits in on a rehearsal for Tiger Style!, a comedic play, written by Mike Lew, about two Chinese American siblings coming to terms with their upbringing on an inter-continental voyage. Running from January 26th through February 4th at the Louis Bluver Theatre at the Drake, this will be Philadelphia Asian Performing Artists’ first full-fledged production since their founding three years ago. Roa also speaks with key members of the PAPA community about what makes their organization so vital.
Read More“High Maintenance” is a web series that debuted on Vimeo in November 2012 and was picked up by HBO in 2016. The second season of “High Maintenance” premieres on HBO on January 19, 2018. New episodes will be released every Friday.
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