What is the role of an artist when their old neighborhood is gentrified by art galleries and the neighborhood doesn’t want them there? This highly topical question, and others, are examined by Guadalupe Rosales in her splendid “Legends Never Die: A Collective Memory,” at Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford College. Deborah Krieger writes a great personal take on the show.
Read MoreThe swirling and vigorous ink drawing on the gallery walls by Atlanta artist William Downs is embellished by long strands of Christmas tinsel that swish and sway when humans move near (or away from) it. The remarkable drawing’s life in the gallery lasts only through Jan. 27. Deborah Krieger spoke to the artist at the opening. Read her pithy and elegant review and get to the gallery quick before the mural disappears.
Read MoreSaba Taj’s current solo show at Twelve Gates Arts deftly combines humor, beauty and violence in speculative collage work that explores earth’s social and biological future from a queer, brown perspective. Deborah Krieger takes in the Durham-based multidisciplinary artist’s subversive “of beast/ of virgin” and reports.
Read MoreDeb Krieger takes an early tour of The Complicit Eye, lauded ceramicist Kukuli Velarde’s first major solo show of paintings in Philadelphia. This provocative body of work, on view at Taller Puertorriqueño through April 30, 2019, reveals Velarde’s long-standing use of self-portraiture as a mode of intersectional feminist critique.
Read MoreDeborah Krieger takes a trip to Rowan University Art Gallery to view Heather Ujiie’s current installation of large-scale digital prints and elaborate sculptural objects. Terra Incognita, with its intense color palette and diverse aesthetic influences, explores sexual identity in relation to a range of both natural and spiritual forces. Catch it before it closes on November 17, 2018.
Read MoreIt’s easy to take the security that shelter provides for granted — until you find yourself out in the cold. Here Deb Krieger reviews “Shelter,” a new show at Davinci Art Alliance, presented in conjunction with Philadelphia Sculptors, which explores the vulnerability not only of our built environments, but of our own bodies and minds. This moving and topical exhibition closes September 26, 2018, so catch it while you still can!
Read MoreDeb Krieger visits “The Contour of Feeling,” Ursula von Rydingsvard’s current exhibition of imposing wooden sculptures and evocative works on paper at the Fabric Workshop and Museum. Read her reflections on process and catch the show before it closes on August 26, 2018!
Read MoreA nice idea — rounding up the rejects from other juried exhibits — produces a show with mixed results and some good moments, says our reviewer, Deborah Krieger. The 40-work salon-style show at Practice Gallery is worth a visit.
Read MoreDeb Krieger visits the Clay Studio’s biannual juried show of American ceramic art, “The Clay Studio National,” open May 26th – July 15th. She reports back on the wide range of practices in contemporary clay, from the abstract to the figurative and from the formal to the political.
Read MoreDeb Krieger is back with a review of Grizzly Grizzly’s current two-person show, “Two Spiders,” featuring work by Jesse Harrod and Chris Bogia. On view through May 27th, “Two Spiders” explores queerness through a variety of media and in relation to a playful mix of bodily and cultural references.
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 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.
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