Artist, Pew Fellow, and 2016 Guggenheim Grantee Eileen Neff makes photographs and prints them large, small, framed or unframed, and, recently, shaped–like her photo of a leaf is shaped like a leaf, which appeared in her 2015 solo show at Bridgette Mayer Gallery, which represents her.
Read MoreBefore arriving at PAFA, Jodi Throckmorton was Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Wichita State University. Prior to that, she lived in the new media mecca of Silicon Valley, where she was Associate Curator at the San Jose Museum of Art for eight years. Now at PAFA, Throckmorton is bringing her considerable energy and wide-ranging interest in contemporary art to integrating edgy contemporary art with PAFA’s traditional strong suits of figuration and realism.
Read MorePerhaps you stopped by Reading Terminal last Friday and saw the pop up bookstore on Filbert Street? Ulises is the name of the store, and Gee Wesley and collaborators are the founders. The alternative/experimental bookstore project will open a more permanent home in October in a converted garage space at 31 E. Columbia Ave. Phila 19125.
Read MoreFrancis Kéré is a Burkina Faso-born, Berlin-based architect known for his adaptive use of vernacular materials in structures like schools and other gathering places, especially in his native land. The Artblog video shows Kéré’s passion for community participation in his projects.
Read MoreEarlier this year, I was invited to curate a week of content on Curate This, the peppy new online arts publication whose mission — like Artblog’s mission — is to tell the whole wide world that the Philadelphia art scene has great art and artists. Curate This, started by writers/artists Amanda Wagner and Julius Ferraro, is now almost one year old, and I sat down with them recently to talk about how their publication is coming along and what they’re excited about. Curate This is a platform for artists and writers to speak their minds about issues involved in the arts (yes, there is some complaining).
Read MoreRoberta interviews Pap Souleye Fall about his unique body suits, stitched up while he is wearing them. Pap is also a wonderful maker of sculptural installations, and he’s a dancer. Give a listen!
Read MoreEd Bronstein’s brushy, expressionistic paintings capture scenes — au plein air — that include buildings, parks, dogs (lots of dogs), trucks (lots of trucks) people and more. Ed was instrumental in founding Art in the Open, and if you visited that festival recently you may have seen him out there with his paints and easel chronicling the beauty that inspires him.
Read MoreArtblog contributor and editor, Flora Ward, talks with me about her recent reviews of two exhibitions that intrigued her greatly. We also talk about her journey to Philadelphia from South Carolina, Toronto and elsewhere. Listen to the 18-minute conversation we had at the lovely Radio booth at the Galleries at Moore.
Read MoreJennifer Zarro talks with photographer Shawn Theodore, alias _xST, about his work–including why he shoots in large-format and how people react to his photos.
Read MoreKrimes seems to humanize art theory by putting it through a process of deep reading, personal reflection, and even letting the words suggest alternative readings. His current body of work, on view at the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery at Drexel University, is the result of this approach, his intuitive pathfinding, and chance.
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Support for Artblog has been provided by The Philadelphia Cultural Fund.
Irish artist Elaine Byrne makes work that uses Dante, James Joyce and other heady source material for her works with political and social commentary on contemporary issues. In one case she is calling out an Irish bank scandal, using Dante’s Purgatorio and a pilgrimage location in Ireland called St. Patrick’s Purgatory; in another she’s raising issues about anti-Semitism in the context of Joyce’s Cyclops section of Ulysses. The videos are captivating, and give so very much to chew over. Elaine’s Irish accent is part of the treat of this 38-minutes long podcast.
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