artblog

Saturday, May 03, 2003

Up in arms in Old City

 

Just when you were yearning for some thoughtful work with war themes to reflect our times, what should pop up all over Old City this month but plenty war. Bekhyon Yim's gorgeous colors, scratched into with images of soldiers, brutality and everyday life, (see "Seoul, Korea" detail, left) are at Nexus. Watch for Yim in the gallery starting a performance piece, drawing or 10 days and then erasing for 10 days, completing the erasure on 6/1.
To get to Yim's work, you have to pass through another statement on war. Dina Wind's "Hanging Gardens of Babylon" is without a doubt the best-named show vis-a-vis war.
And upstairs at Nexus' Community Gallery, Kevin Reay's "Army of One" installation is, well, dark. Just before his show opened--with its plastic and duct tape, its army-green walls, its heavy metal soundtrack, its surveillance video (pictured right) of Reay giving himself an army haircut--the Brit had some things to say about the whole war propaganda machine, marveling at the downloadable U.S. Army training game, the hype about homeland security ("We're more at risk from other people living here than from terrorists."), and the threat to individual rights. His saw a dangerous "rift between reality and the images of reality" in the media, he said.
Not everything showing in Old City on First Friday was about war. Linda Cordell's ceramic spliced beasts, like "Goat Squirrel" (left), at the Clay Studio, had people pressing their noses to the window, eager for a better look.
And over at Gallery Siano at 309 Arch St., Penn MFA candidate Mark Pease's disorienting "Ultra muir" (right) was an office tower shiny and untouched by the turmoil of terrorism. Across the street, at Gallery Joe (see below), contemplative works gave retreat from the noise of war.
permanent link  libby 10:02 PM
Comments? Let us know. 

First Friday: alive on the page in black and white

 

Mark Sheinkman's "2-23-2003" (detail right) is just one of a number of terrific pieces at Gallery Joe's Graphite and Paper show that opened yesterday. Sheinkman's pieces all suggested a microscopic world made visible and 3-D. Dean Smith's "florescence" drawings, which looked like iron filings arranged by a magnet, Stefana McClure's barely-visible glyphs on graphite paper, and James Nelson's topographic business card drawings also had graphite gravitas. Check it out.
permanent link  libby 12:04 AM
Comments? Let us know. 

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Mural mystery solved

 
A beautiful drawing was going up on an unlikely lilac ground on the side of the Leidy School on Belmont Avenue. Then, one day, the drawing disappeared and it was back to lilac. A few days passed, and a whole new drawing seemed to be going up. How odd.
Luckily, a week or two later, I found artist John Lewis (he's the tiny figure in the upper left) up on the scaffolding, busy working on drawing number two. "It's the same drawing," he called down to me. But the previous version was reversed, left to right. He was so high up I would have had to shout some more to continue our conversation. So in a sense, the mystery still isn't solved, because I didn't want to shout my follow-up question--How do you get your own drawing backwards?
permanent link  libby 5:07 PM
Comments? Let us know. 

PAFA buys a big one

 

Money from recent deaccessioning of 50 works of art by Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts bought the Academy a big painting that will beef up its collection of contemporary American art. The purchase: PAFA grad and Academy instructor Vincent Desiderio's "Pantocrator," (image) an oil on linen triptych from 2002. The museum paid $135,000 for the 8-ft. tall, 17-ft. wide, "Pantocrator," said PAFA's Shelley McCaffrey. The title, from the Greek, meaning "ruler of all", refers to a category of iconic paintings with the Christ figure in the middle. Don't look for the painting to show up in the flesh for a while. It's scheduled to appear when PAFA's new gallery for contemporary art in the Samuel Hamilton Building opens in 2005.
permanent link  roberta 10:42 AM
Comments? Let us know. 

many are called, few chosen

 

Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative which helped bring to Philadelphia shows like
Wall Power and Valie Export, just announced its 2003 grant winners. Of 14 institutional applicants, four received exhibition awards and one received a planning grant, for a total of $726,500. And the winners are: Moore College of Art and Design ($181,500) --the first American solo exhibit of German artist Jorg Immendorff ; Main Line Art Center ($150,000) --four site specific projects including one by Brooklyn phtographer and sculptor Bob Braine, known for paddling around in home-made boats to document the man/nature interface (image); Institute of Contemporary Art ($180,000) -- retrospective of work by sculptor and installation artist Barry LeVa; and the Fabric Workshop and Museum ($200,000) --a project exploring the influence of film and video on art. Taller Puertorriqueno received a $15,000 planning grant for a show of Pre-Columbian Taino art. With this round of grants, PEI has awarded close to $5 million over the last six years. ICA, Moore, and the Fabric Workshop are three-time PEI grant winners. This is Main Line's second award.
permanent link  roberta 7:29 AM
Comments? Let us know. 

Monday, April 28, 2003

Other notable shows

 

Jim Houser (see image)has a good show that opened last week at Spector Gallery.
Also, get your ticket for the Project Room fundraiser May 10. Tout le monde will be there, we bet. For $20 in advance, $25 at the door, you get plentiful goodies to eat and drink (provided by Standard Tap, Las Cazuelas, Yards Brewery, and more), great music, and art to look at, like Virgil Marti's chandelier, worth the trip in and of itself. And buy a $10 raffle ticket for the limited edition portfolios, that include works by Pepon Osorio, Matthew Suib and others.

Posted by Libby and Roberta

permanent link  roberta 3:02 PM
Comments? Let us know. 

First Friday openings

 

Not to be missed this First Friday (May 2) is Mark Shetabi's "Palace at 4 a.m." installation (left) at Locks Gallery. Roberta has a preview of this coming up on Wednesday in the Philadelphia Weekly.
Another promising opening is Bekhyon Yim's political art (no image available) at Nexus, 137 N. 2nd St., Philadelphia, PA 19106, 215-629-1103.

Posted by Libby and Roberta

permanent link  roberta 2:54 PM
Comments? Let us know. 

Bimbo art

 
One of the strongest tributaries in the big art stream has always been the sex tributary. Over time, there's been lots of hard nipples and rape scenes and pink flesh washed down this tributary and fished out by collectors who want it. From perpetrators of old like Rubens, Boucher and lesser lights, to more modern sex artists like David Salle. Matthew Barney and Lisa Yuskavage, the lesson learned is that sex art sells.
permanent link  roberta 9:08 AM
Comments? Let us know.