In her essay, Andrea takes in the Guerrilla Girls exhibition, “Not Ready to Make Nice,” at Moore College and talks about the history of art world protest from 1969 onward. Concluding that statistics prove that women are not yet equals of men in the eyes of art institutions, she offers an opinion of what is needed for women to achieve parity in the future.
Read MoreIn his essay, Dave Kyu looks at various placements for the contentious Frank Rizzo statue, which the city promised to relocate after angry public outcry. Dave ponders three new locations for the monumental sculpture to the racially-divisive former Mayor and Police Commissioner and one new placement at its current location. The relocation of the Rizzo statue is an important civic conversation that continues to need public input. What do you think is the best possible placement for the controversial statue?
Read MoreArtblog’s new contributor, Mandy Palasik, writes a delightful essay about walking through the late architect Anne Tyng’s house and imagining how the architect lived in the space and how others would live there after her. It’s a very nice essay by Palasik, who is herself an architect. This article was submitted to the Artblog New Art Writing Challenge contest and we are publishing it here with special mention.
Read MoreWhat is an appropriate monument for the current city of Philadelphia? This is the timely and ambitious question that the folks at Mural Arts posed to their 20 selected Monument Lab artists. Imani Roach interviews one of the artists, Sharon Hayes, and reports on her project, installed in Rittenhouse Square until Nov. 19.
Read MoreMatt tries an alternative method of constructing an essay, a playful and visual approach that encourages us to just keep swimming.
Read MoreIn advance of the Philadelphia Art Book Fair coming up on May 5 and 6, we present a think-piece by Vox Populi member Matt Kalasky, who asks, is arts advocacy the same thing as artist advocacy? He argues that the creation of empathy is one of the artist’s most important productions, and that artists’ labor should be oriented more towards people than products.
Read MoreMichael Lieberman and Roberta talk with members of the arts community and report on what arts leaders are doing (or not doing) to respond to the Trump administration’s threats to the arts and to our citizens in general. In their conclusion they ask for the leaders to stand up and do more.
Read MoreWith this constant flux of activity, the capacity to view, look, and reflect about art is rendered significantly more difficult. The upshot to the universalization of endless artistic productivity is a certain prohibition against thinking about the art made and displayed. What matters is not what the art means or does—a judgement that often takes time to work out—but participation as a free-falling spectator in the mad flux of artistic creation.
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