July 20, 2017 by Andrea Kirsh

Mohamed Bourouissa, Urban Riders at the Barnes Foundation

Andrea writes an in depth and topical review of “Mohamed Bourouissa; Urban Riders” at the Barnes Foundation. The must-see exhibition features work from the Algerian artist alongside many of our very own Philadelphia artists, which together shape a project that began in 2014 in North Philadelphia when Bourouissa first visited the US.

June 13, 2017 by Andrea Kirsh

Doug Wheeler’s soundless desert at the Guggenheim

Andrea immerses herself in Doug Wheeler’s “PSAD Synthetic Desert III” from 1971, currently on view at the Guggenheim. Wheeler created a soundless environment inspired by the deserts of northern Arizona. Unfortunately, she writes, the 10 minute slot allotted to visitors isn’t quite enough to feel the full sensory effect of this remarkable piece.

May 26, 2017 by Roberta

Ron Klein’s cosmic chaos and order at Abington Art Center

Ron Klein is an artist, a sculptor who thinks big, travels the world to research and find materials, and whose works evoke the cosmos and thoughts about the place of humans in a bigger context. Ron’s got an installation at Abington Art Center now through June 23. Don’t miss it.

May 18, 2017 by Kitty Caparella

Dreams of escape, tales of survival, and voyages to the afterlife at Eastern State Penitentiary

Kitty immerses herself in the 3 new site-specific installations at Eastern State Penitentiary–Unconquerable Soul by Piotr Szyhalski and Richard Shelton, Hakims’s Tale by Erik Ruin and Gelsey Bell, and Sepulture by Jared Scott Owen. These 3 installations explore themes of surveillance, survival, and mortality that resonate with the original function of this 19th-century prison as well as our contemporary criminal justice system.

March 2, 2017 by Roberta

Rose Luardo on humor, comedy and her first solo exhibition

Rose Luardo is a performer, singer, comedy sketch artist and artist. You may have seen her with Andrew Jeffrey Wright in the New Dreamz or as a singer with Sweatheart, the alternative rock band. In her first solo exhibition at Practice Gallery (over Feb. 26), she has created a theatrical tableau with several big elements, one of which involves the viewers climbing into a psychedelic-patterned coffin in the middle of the gallery space.

October 13, 2016 by Andrea Kirsh

Chicago Shine – The Freedom Principle at the ICA

Over the past couple of decades, almost all American art museums have claimed a mission to reach out to “underserved communities,” yet none of them have acknowledged that these communities have their own well-developed aesthetics of art and material culture. They differ from the mainstream, and the institutions have not been willing to embrace aesthetic values beyond their own. The first part of “The Freedom Principle” is remarkable for doing just that: exhibiting art–and music–that was selected by a group of artists largely excluded from the mainstream of their period, who developed a different set of aesthetic aspirations and standards.

September 24, 2016 by Andrea Kirsh

Between Text and Textile – Ann Hamilton’s “habitus”

Hamilton always invokes more than one sense with her work; here it is the sight of the swirling fabric, the oddly musical sound of the pulley mechanisms, and the touch of the pulleys–which visitors are encouraged to operate–as well as the physical sense of wind on the body from both the swirling fabric and the river breezes.

July 22, 2016 by Andrea Kirsh

Ephemeral Bodies – Reassessing the Art of Carolee Schneemann and Joan Jonas

This monograph is an invaluable record of Jonas’ work. Along with that on Schneemann, above, they offer two crucial pioneering artists’ solutions to a very current question: the ephemerality of performance art and the possibility of extending the life of the form without distorting the artist’s ideas.