Olivia 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 MoreArtblog’s Leah Gallant speaks with artist Shona McAndrew about censorship, the male gaze and discovering paper mache. “Moira,” McAndrew’s current show of sculptures and digital collages at Pilot Projects, is on view (by appointment) through Friday April 20th.
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 MoreFor years, multidisciplinary performer Martha Stuckey has commanded stages in a brightly-colored wig and stilettos as the lead singer of Red 40 and the Last Groovement, Philadelphia’s premier clown-funk-cabaret band. Now she is preparing to strike a more personal note in her upcoming commissioned show, Due to Sensitive Nature, on view April 12th-14th at the Kimmel Center’s SEI Innovation Studio. She speaks with Imani Roach about taking risks, growing up singing in Lutheran church, and what it means to be a woman in charge. How did kettle corn and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit help to shape her performance trajectory? Listen to find out. Imani interviewed Martha at Moore College of Art and Design’s TGMR radio station on April 3rd, 2018; the podcast is 51 minutes long.
Read MoreWhen multi-media artists Lucia Alber and Katie Rauth first met as interns at Vox Populi Gallery, they recognized in each other a shared interest in the performance of gender and an attraction to similar forms and materials. Since their earliest collaborations in 2016, they have continued to build a powerful friendship both inside and outside of the studio — a friendship which served as an important source of support during Lucia’s recent experience being stalked by a man who serviced her car at a local Jiffy Lube. Here they speak with Matt Kalasky, about Leave Worry Behind, the body of work that emerged from that harrowing experience, on display at Practice Gallery beginning Friday, April 6th. This work, created by Alber and curated by Rauth, uses French boudoir aesthetics to examine the sexual politics of car culture. What is a “sulking room” and how much self-care is too much self care? Listen to find out. Matt interviewed Lucia and Katie at Moore College of Art and Design’s TGMR radio station on April 4th, 2018; the podcast is 20 minutes long.
Read MoreAs the first of the March, 2018, Noreasters hit Philadelphia, Roberta and another hundred or more souls crammed the PAFA auditorium to hear artist Amy Sherald talk about her life, her art and, of course, painting the portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama, which debuted at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington earlier in the year.
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 MoreThough still in her early-30s, local renaissance woman Lauren NeFesha has already lived many lives. Now this former fashion student (and nationally-ranked boxing champion) is making a name for herself as a songwriter and mosaic artist. She chats with Artblog’s Imani Roach about speaking up for the most marginalized among us and allowing curiosity to be her guide without judgement. What do a mosaic and a boxing match have in common? Listen to find out. Imani interviewed Lauren at Moore College of Art and Design’s TGMR radio station on March 16th, 2018; the podcast is 33 minutes long.
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.
Read MoreMandy Palasik visits Spanish-born architect and industrial designer Patricia Urquiola’s first solo exhibition stateside, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through March 18th. “Patricia Urquiola: Between Craft and Industry” celebrates Urquiola’s innovative use of familiar forms and traditional techniques to activate both mind and body.
Read MoreArtists 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.
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