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The Colored Girls Museum contains harrowing levels of metaphoric entryways into once traumatized eyes of the black girl. This provincial ghost overcame dishonorable past. Oppressive chains and tyrannical rulers whipped flesh off back and placed choke hold on her mind, body, and soul. Now released yet not entirely freed from damaged control, she tells many stories inherently stretched through visiting artists. Their works adhere to her walls, sleep on her mantles, stand on her floors.
Read MoreNearly any contemporary art excursion around Philadelphia in 2016 is sure to yield a wide range of styles and spectacles, but one persistent–if scruffy–thread is certainly the DIY flavor of many Philly-based artists’ work. At Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery’s exhibit Circa 1995, this commonality is not merely present, it is represented in local art-historical context through objects crafted some twenty years ago. This juncture in Philadelphia’s visual culture would help give rise not only to the ongoing careers of the artists participating in this show, but to a distinctive artist-run flavor that persists in Philly to this day.
Read MoreI lived in West Philly, at 57th St. There was a small ginkgo tree in the back courtyard. It was impossibly hot, I had no money and spent my time at the house, reading, painting, and dreaming of food.
Read MoreBlake reminds us of the artist’s métier with his wide-ranging endeavors–that the work is lifelong, the endeavor is serious and results are surprising reflections of what we’ve buried in our lives, our homes and our collective unconscious.
Read MoreTo say the stairs are steep at the James Oliver Gallery is to say Mt. Everest is high. I have a mind to petition for a rest stop two flights up. The payoff, though, is a few calories lost and a big white cube. A strip of room as long as a bowling lane ends with a spacious bar and a plum view of downtown. Paintings, drawings, sculptures, and assemblage pieces fill most of the wall space. It’s the tenth anniversary show—JOG10, and there’s an installation of wooden birds—a flock in, um, flight.
Read MoreDespite all its problems and despite the efforts of artists, increasing concern about addressing pressing issues in Philadelphia could very well overcome its obsession with the past and become a city of the future.
Read MoreMartin’s striped paintings, such as “Gratitude” and “Untitled #2,” pictured here–soft acrylic washes thinly applied over layers of gesso in pinks, blues, and yellows–are beautiful, tranquil, serene, meditative, pristine, innocent, and exquisitely spare. They fulfill the artist’s intention to evoke abstract positive emotions, emotions “above the line”–happiness, love, and experiences of innocence, freedom, beauty, and perfection. “I would like [my pictures] to represent beauty, innocence and happiness,” Martin said. “I would like them all to represent that. Exaltation.”
Read MoreSize can create competition in some shows, larger works demanding more attention than small, but these more typical relationships were somehow absent from this show. Holes were drilled into the sides of display armatures, perfectly framing a small Fishman sculpture covered in paint, encouraging the viewer to look. You did not get the sense that you were supposed to spend less time looking at the smaller things.
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