Leah Gallant, Artblog’s 2017 New Art Writing Challenge winner, is back, and this time she’s visiting the Penn Museum’s Asia collections. Here she ponders the Dowager Empress, a Qing Dynasty Chinese quartz crystal sphere of largely unknown origins and history. Gallant slows down to uncover the source of its continued allure, even in our digital age.
Read MoreAndrea writes about the pioneering light artist, Thomas Wilfred, whose use of electricity and projected light in the early 20th Century was an influence on artists of later eras, including James Turrell. Wilfred’s works were on view recently at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in a show (closed Jan. 7) organized by Yale University Art Gallery. The works are difficult to conserve and that may explain why the artist fell out of circulation, as his works sat in storage waiting for tune-ups or fixes. The Museum of Modern Art owns one of Wilfred’s seminal works and Andrea thinks MoMA should bring the piece back for a new audience.
Read MoreNew Artblog contributor, Naveena Vijayan, speaks with the newly-appointed executive director of The Delaware Contemporary, Joseph Gonzales. Gonzales aims to make the museum a gathering space for the public, even while maintaining its reputation as a happening spot for contemporary art.
Read MoreThe Fabric Workshop and Museum, founded in 1977 by arts visionary Marion “Kippy” Boulton Stroud, is celebrating its 40th birthday with a major retrospective exhibit. Process and Practice: 40 Years of Experimentation hilights archived ephemera from the institution’s famed artist-in-residence program that has been preserved for decades in “artist boxes.” Artblog’s Imani Roach spoke with Susan Lubowsky Talbott, the Museum’s Executive Director, about exhibiting “failures,” engaging the public, and her legacy. What was the most surprising thing she discovered in those artist boxes? Listen to find out. Imani interviewed Susan at the Fabric Workshop and Museum on January 9th, 2018; the podcast is 30 minutes long.
Read MoreEvan gives props to the famous New York portraitist, Chuck Close, for being a virtuoso of photo techniques (everything from daguerrotypes to large-format Polaroids). But in a show of 90 prints, all very well executed, some of the works — and especially the celebrity photographs — fail to ignite empathy or excitement, he says. NOTE: This post was written prior to the sexual harassment charges against Close were made public. The article is about the artist’s photographs and does not deal with his behavior towards women.
Read MoreAndrea Kirsh runs down to Richmond to check out the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and touch base with its Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Art and Education, Michael Taylor. We at Artblog remember Michael fondly when he was Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the PMA! It looks as if he’s brought some of his Philly love to the VMFA with acquisitions of works by Tristin Lowe and Daniel Heyman! Andrea reports.
Read MoreJust for you, we offer this annual curated list of notable people, groups, books, and other art world stuff from the outgoing year: The 2017 Liberta Awards!
Read MoreOver the summer, Roberta and her husband, Steve, and their friends, Chuck and Iris, visited the marvel of construction and decor, Fonthill, in Doylestown, PA. Her report — and Chuck’s pictures — highlight the concrete castle’s details and its maker’s obsession with creating both a home to live in and a showpiece for his tile-making enterprise. Sometimes, Roberta says, the best trips are hiding in plain sight in your own backyard.
Read MoreArtblog’s Andrea Kirsch reviews an inspired exhibition at The Modern Gallery, Museum of Modern Art, which she discovered on her recent trip to Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana. “The Heritage of 1989. Case Study: The Second Yugoslav Documents” is a recreation of a 1989 exhibit, which after nearly three decades allows audiences to witness a transitional moment in Yugoslavia’s history with a new lens.
Read MoreArtblog was at the opening of Philadelphia Assembled at the Perelman Building of the Philadelphia Museum of Art last weekend. We talked with lead artist Jeanne Van Heeswijk about her vast 4-year project brewing in the community and now assembled in the Perelman Building, with art, conversations, programs and workshops. Jeanne told us she will be in attendance each day the show is open (to Dec. 10) to greet people, talk with them and serve coffee. Go, and be sure to talk with this amazing artist and her collaborators. The show encapsulates conversations — including uncomfortable conversations — that have taken place so far. They are now looking for you to come in and talk. Thanks to Artblog’s new Community Intern, Carly Bellini, for this great 3-minute video overview. We hope you enjoy.
Read MoreRoberta talks about Documenta 14 and the two tours she took with members of the “chorus,” people trained to facilitate discussion and ask questions rather than answer them. The quinquennial art festival is up in Kassel, Germany, until September 17, 2017.
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Support for Artblog has been provided by The Philadelphia Cultural Fund.