Artblog | Museums

April 17, 2017 by Flora Ward

Finding Africa in the Alps at the Musée Barbier-Müller in Geneva

Artblog goes to Switzerland! Flora writes about the amazing collection of African art at the Musée Barbier-Müller in Geneva, whose future is unclear following the death of the collection’s owner, Jean-Paul Barbier-Müller.

April 7, 2017 by Andrea Kirsh

Embroidery and identity come together in Philadelphia Museum of Art phulkari show

The textiles on view betray a range of technical skill in both the stitchery and designs. Some show a sophisticated ability to render forms and were obviously transferred from patterns, while others seem to have been made up as the embroiderer went along. It is hard to believe that the precision of stitching in the Bagh phulkari weren’t made by professional craftsmen. There is no surviving literature that would indicate how designs circulated–indeed, there is almost no surviving history of phulkari in general, hence the significance of this collection and its catalog.

March 28, 2017 by Roberta

Happy Anniversary RACSO Fine Arts and AAMP, Massive congratulations Eli LaBan, Open House at PMA, Jack Wolgin Lecture, Jennifer Steinkamp on Parkway, and Marian Anderson Historical Society concert

Congratulations are in order for many in this week’s News Post. RACSO turns 2; AAMP turns 40. Plus, Eli LaBan is nominated for College Television Emmy, the Philadelphia Museum of Art opens its doors to show its new proposed Modern and Contemporary plans, and other great news.

March 21, 2017 by Roberta

Taller Puertorriqueño, Pafa feature Artblog; Jayson Musson, Becky Suss, Dona Nelson in NY shows/programs; Whitney Biennial protest; Alex Losett project, David Antonio Cruz at DCCC, Cultural Alliance Action Toolkit, Plus Opportunities!

News of Artblog favorite artists, Jayson Musson, Dona Nelson, Becky Suss, plus a protest of a Dana Schutz painting, some great opportunities and even more news, in today’s action-packed News Post.

March 21, 2017 by Michael Lieberman

Person of the Crowd, contemporary art and flânerie at The Barnes Foundation

Michael Lieberman encounters archival performance art from the streets of the world and wonders about contemporary humans fixated on their cellphones and whether we are growing a population of cyber-flâneurs who are not really connected to the streets at all.

March 20, 2017 by Kathy Cho

On intimacy in the age of technology, Brown Girls, and Dana Schutz’s Open Casket painting in the Whitney Biennial 2017

Kathy Cho considers aspects of art and the artist’s life and brings to the reader’s attention several web projects to explore. We find the question of race in Dana Schutz’s painting Open Casket, based on a photo of the slain Emmitt Till, especially important to ponder. Why did Schutz make this grotesque portrayal (based on a shocking photo of the young man in his open casket)? Why did the Whitney Museum choose to exhibit it in the Biennial, their signature show?

March 11, 2017 by Roberta

Checking in – Ayana Evans’s conceptual aerobics in Person of the Crowd

Ayana Evans is a perfect reverse-flåneur — a women (not envisioned in the 19th Century flåneur concept) and someone whose endurance performances are active, conceptual, aerobic and the opposite of idle. The artist works in prominent locations (the Rocky steps, one time in NYC in the middle of a busy intersection). And she dresses, purposely, in the most “girlie girl,” non-athletic garb imaginable. She will wear the tiger-striped catsuit and black stiletto heels she wore at the press preview in her 10-hour Philadelphia performance on May 6 at locations all around town.

March 8, 2017 by Roberta

Checking in – Virgil Marti’s “Poufs” in Barnes’ Person of the Crowd

When he was approached by the Barnes Foundation to be involved in the Person of the Crowd project, about flânerie (the art of strolling, idling), Virgil Marti thought to himself, I’m not a flâneur, am I? But then he thought again about the idea of walking the streets and thinking and observing and walking some more, and he decided that yes, maybe he was a flâneur — of Fabric Row, the fabric and notions mecca on 4th Street in Queen Village.