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Posted by libby

Contemporary New York sizzle got doubled Wednesday at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Whitney Associate Curator Shamim Momin's wonderful talk and slide show (image, Momin before her talk began).




Momin came to speak about New York artist Ellen Harvey, whose elaborate installation, "Mirror," now dominates the central hall at the original PAFA exhibition space and inserts Modernism into the elegant old building. A petite woman dressed in a black dress and wrapped in a white shawl, Momin unkotted her hair to have her picture taken. Somehow, she remained erect through her talk, balanced on killer shoes (right, a detail view of one side of Harvey's "Mirror").

Momin is a powerhouse at the Whitney, not only curating the Altria off-site space, but also serving as co-curator of the last Whitney Biennial. She organizes about 5 or 6 shows per year for new artists and curated the POP show at the Whitney, said Alex Baker, who curated "Mirror" for PAFA, introducing Momin.

Momin, helped put "Mirror" in the context of Harvey's past work for the crowd of about 40 (average age 60, with maybe 6 people under the age of 45).

She began her talk by quoting Harvey: "'I really like to give people what they want. ...But it's like that saying, be careful what you wish for.'"

After being invited to create an exhibit as part of the annual series, Contemporary Artists on Contemporary Art, Harvey went through the current collection catalog, which includes 394 works as compared to the entire Whitney permanent collection of 14,000 works. This set her thinking about the process of selection--that the catalog is the institution's portrait of itself, reflective of a particular moment in time. (At this point in the talk, I myself started thinking about Aaron Levy's "Beehive" installation about archiving, which is much the same sort of process. See post here.)
(image from slide show: gold-framed entry into Harvey's Whitney-Altria installation).

Harvey, she said, was also thinking about the desires of the viewer to see the whole museum when they wander into the offsite Altria space. So she decided to give the viewers what they were expecting--the 394 scaled-down replica paintings of the ones in the Whitney catalog (right, from slide show: a couple of the walls of the installation).

To enter the space, the viewers had to step over the bottom edge of a gold frame that Harvey installed around the entrance to the Altria space.

The installation also included seven small cut-outs in the wall, peepholes through which to view seven new acquisitions that postdated the catalog publication.

The 394 images were painted directly onto the wall panels, raising the question of whether they are the real object and how much that matters. "Ellen's work represents the idea of representation," Momin said. There's the original object, the photo of it in the catalog, and then Harvey's painting as a copy of the photo, and at the same time as a real painting (left, from slide show, a detail of some of Harvey's paintings in the Whitney installation).


Harvey's also made her own version of the collection catalog to which she added all the new acquisitions (the seven behind the peepholes plus four that were excluded for conservation and other reasons). Harvey's hand-made catalog was still another translation of originals and copies, yet a new original. Momin quoted Harvey saying that the catalog was "one of the most insanely derivational works of all time'" (image right, slide of Harvey's version of the catalog).

I will continue working on this on Sunday. harvey, ellen

permanent link   libby 2:12 PM
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Posted by roberta

meeting of the presidents
Originally uploaded by sokref1.

This just in from Dominic Mercier of Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts -- a photo of PAFA president Dereck Gillman with GWB and LB, receiving the MOA at the WH yesterday. (See Libby's post for more on the MOA.) The caption should read: President George W. Bush and Laura Bush stand with Dereck Gillman, President of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, who on the academy's behalf, was presented the 2005 National Medal of Arts, in the Oval Office Thursday, Nov. 10, 2005. White House photo by Eric Draper. And a picture here is worth a thousand words.

permanent link   roberta 10:47 AM
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Posted by roberta

pmadiana
Originally uploaded by sokref1.

Libby and I were at the PMA last night for the press preview of the Beauford Delaney exhibit. (Highly recommended -- including many great additions to the travelling show to flesh out the artist's local connections.) We'll have more on Delaney's exhibit, which proves the artist's wonderful paint handling and engagement with the world of art and music (he lived 1901-1979). But this morning I just want to give a little eye candy -- a photo of the backlit "Diana" sculpture in the PMA's great staircase.

permanent link   roberta 8:33 AM
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Posted by libby

What do the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Dolly Parton have in common? Why they are both recipients of the 2005 National Medal of Honor, announced this week by the NEA, for making "significant and enduring contributions to the artistic life of our nation."

Congratulations! By the way, the Academy in its press release did not mention Dolly. They did mention past honorees Robert Motherwell and Louise Bourgeois. This year, no fine artists made the cut.

permanent link   libby 12:10 PM
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Posted by libby

[When I saw Susan Fenton's show, "Fatima," now at SchmidtDean, I wondered whether she was thinking thoughts about the intersection between race and culture when she made the photographs. Her answer is, not exactly, and certainly not primarily. Here's what she had to say about the work]:


LR Why did you choose Fatima as a model?

SF I was looking for a dark skin tone because I was going to do this body of work in black and white.

In Japan, I really liked the way their dark skin tone—caramel—looked with my dark backgrounds. Once I had Fatima [as a model], I became fascinated with the effort it took to differentiate tones within those darks. I wanted something someone was going to have to make some effort to see.

In my hand-painted work, there's color and it makes it more like candy for the eyes…

LR Why no hand-painting now?

SF This was the first time I really set aside a project and said I'm going to do this. I always printed in black and white in my previous work, but it was conceived as a hand-painted image. That opened up the temptation to do work that would remain black and white. I also teach black and white, and I was jealous of my students [at. St. Joe's].

Today, I just made my first digital print in black and white. I think I need to be prepared for that possibility that I will have to work digitally at some time in my career. The really large paper that I printed on is no longer easy to get. I have the digital print side by side with a gelatin silver print [from the same negative]. Ultimately I will get something I will be satisfied with. I do like the gelatin silver print better, but I'm not sure how much better. I may be able to get a closer match.

Dialog with the model

LR In working with a model, is there any kind of dialog that goes on in the process?

SF I always felt that way. Working with a model is a dialog or a dance. There is a certain amount of relinquishing the lead. And then there's a dialog that takes place with the finished print and the audience and viewers. Fatima is the first model I've ever worked exclusively with.

LR I'm not sure what you mean by exclusively.

SF The only person I photographed for eight or nine months. Usually I use three or four models in that period of time. This time I felt that the continuity was necessary. It was a breakthrough for me.

LR How was it a breakthrough?

SF The black and white print and using the same model, using the light to paint with instead of pigment.

Victorian decorations and darkness

LR I was startled by the image of the collar of flowers around Fatima's neck. What did you have in mind when you used that?

SF There was nothing profound in it at all. I had been working with flowers for a long time, more intensely in the late '90s, the year 2000, deliberately using them to make frames that went around the face, head and shoulders of a model in the portrait format. Then I was thinking of the elaborate Victorian framing, either the decoration on the frame itself or the decoration vignetted around the portrait. I still have some of those flowers, wreaths and frames. I just included them as one of the props I played with, the light color of the flowers a conscious choice because of the darkness of the setting.

LR The first thing I thought of was a horse [draped with a similar-lookimg garland in the winner's circle]. It made me uncomfortable.

SF Oh [pause]. I never thought of that. One thing I thought of was a lei. Or the May Day type garland.

LR I guess I was wondering what you meant by it.

SF It was not an issue for me. The only reason I wanted the black body was I had a dark background and I wanted a monotone.

One of things, I wanted, was Fatima wrapped in a white cloth, also with a white hoop; the glow of the white against all that darkness was phenomenal. I've never quite seen that before! It is captured in those prints, the strobe reflecting off the white surface. At another time I had white wings—the white objects actually created a halo around themselves. But it might look to anyone who wanted to see it, black versus white. But I was just interested in the skin tones. [Fenton did not include some of these images from the series in the show].

The body in fashion and ritual

LR When I saw this body of work, I thought about Mapplethorpe and how he sometimes used black bodies, how he lit them, and how he had a fashion component. I think of your work as raising issues about fashion.

SF I'm not sure what you mean by fashion.

LR I mean the look of the photo, the photograph isolating the body and what is on it against a plain backdrop to reify the clothes and the body.

SF If you mean fashion photography, I could say I played with some of that. I think it probably goes back to a time when I was just interested in somewhat artificial poses, Egyptian wall painting, the stiff poses that were a motif ; to me it was ritualistic imagery. My roots are there in images about ritualistic procedures. I saw it in Italy in Roman wall paintings, Etruscan, Greek wall paintings, Egypt in the tomb paintings. Then I came back to the United States in the mid '80s and continued those very formal-type poses.

Then in the mid-'90s the fashion concept became something I was interested in, in and of itself, and the ritual was secondary. The last show, it was at SchmidtDean, was actually about how fashion covers the body and when you take it apart—when you cover some places, uncover others—you send a different message, accordingly. There's something about the body adornment and the practicality of covering it, and I've always been interested in how the two play with each other and compete with each other. It can go into a sexual kind of thing. That interests me. I think I could say a titillation with fashion has always been there for me. Even the effects of the industry on people's body image. I would like to do work addressing different kinds bodies.

LR Would you say ritual was part of the Fatima poses?

SF In some of the poses, the choices of the objects, simple basic forms. You mentioned the wreath as laurels in a way, and I guess one could see the hoop that way as well as jumping through hoops. There are vases, urns. Those suggest libations to me. Cloth over the arm, around the shoulders, the head, even over the entire figure has always been in my work because of its relation to ritualistic tradition.

I don't believe in anything anymore but I still like to watch how it's carried out—a procession, a bridal march, picking up an infant. There's something that changes in the body, certain things in life that we handle with more care and certain transitions that we take more seriously. And we have rituals around those things that I find very fascinating. Death is one of them. Even the tea ceremony. You know I lived in Japan for three years. You sit a certain way, you turn a certain way, you pick up the vessel a certain way, you turn it… there's something ludicrous but also something fascinating about it. It raises the act to a very different level, puts it on an altar.

Fatima's input

Fatima, when I started working with her, it was not my plan to keep the same model for the whole time. She is from Nigeria, came here when she was 18, and has a lot of tradition in her background. She was raised Muslim. There's still a lot of tradition in her, too. She does yoga regularly. It was easy for her body to do the kind of things that I want to photograph. It was easy for her to move with me. That's what I mean by a dance, with sometimes getting more out of me and sometimes more out of her.

LR More out of her?

SF One big print of her over a pedestal, and she has her arm draped down over the pedestal, her foot on the bottom (image, above right). There's another where she's symmetrically, strategically placed behind the pedestal (that one was mine) (image, below left). We took a break and she shifted her pose to this more casual, elegant stretch, and we photographed it.

I think of it as a back and forth kind of think. I photograph [the models] once and see how they work on film. I did have to learn to work with Fatima's features, and to work so exclusively with one model, I had to learn what I could do with her body, her movements. …The skin tone was what I was looking for. The rest came with that particular individual. We had a very good working relationship. She understood what I was trying to do and I understood what she could do, and that helped me get ideas of what I could do. I got to know how she naturally moved her body in front of a camera, how it fit in the square.

I typically start with sketches first. This is where the metaphor comes in. I go into the studio and make that happen. With Fatima, it wasn't quite so necessary for me to do the drawings first, because I understood what she looked like within the square and how I could work with her.

Incidental metaphors

LR Was there a metaphor with the Fatima series?

SF In previous work that was maybe more metaphoric than this, I'm constantly thinking of a given concept —from a sensation to an idea—and trying to turn it into something visual. No, I was just playing with the formal issues of composition. Sometimes things would just happen. But I didn't sit down and think that I want to create an image of climbing up the back of an entire race of people, but when I brought the ladder to the studio and started playing with it, I thought this could suggest blah, blah, blah.

LR What's next for you?

SF I spent the last three years photographing still life objects in low-light conditions, at night and during the full moon, using the moon as a light source. I'm excited about having the opportunity to finish that as a project. So far I have about 80 roles of film. Shooting opportunities are limited—a full moon, clear sky, be at home, get up in the middle of the night. I don't know what I'll edit it down to. The editing is a big factor in my work. To get 20 images, I will shoot 100 rolls of film.

LR How many did you shoot for Fatima?
SF I think I shot about 80 rolls—eight months, 10 rolls a month. I go through a lot of film.

LR How many do you print?

SF I shoot 12 images on a roll, medium format film, so 960 images. I would probably proof (a 5" square enlargement), I would do a proof of maybe 1/3--maybe 300, 250--that I'm looking at more closely. From that I do an 8 by 10 inch proof (8 x 8 really on 8 x 10 paper) on fiber paper, which is what I'm going to do the bigger prints on. At that point, its more that just a proof; I'm burning and dodging. It's less than half, maybe 80 to 100, and from that, I try to get it down to 20 or 40 prints. With Fatima, I ended up with 25 or 26 final prints.

LR How many of the shots duplicate one image?

SF Each roll is a given idea or pose. I would have been playing with the same toys no matter who the model was.fenton, susan

permanent link   libby 10:24 AM
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Posted by libby

(Colette Copeland's art criticism writing class at the University of Pennsylvania went to November's First Friday in Old City. Here's what some of them had to say:)

Mouse tales at Carbon 14

Rodents are generally perceived as creepy, overly abundant and unnecessary creatures in today’s city life. Usually, they are not featured as subjects or objects in art works. Artist Chris Bergen does both. By putting mice in an apartment-like boxed space, equipped with actual miniaturized IKEA furniture and cardboard packaging boxes, he asks the viewers to question their assumptions about these creatures.

Bergen’s "Mice" exhibition at Carbon 14 gallery drew in an interested and mixed crowd of viewers. His installation piece included 25 feeding mice roaming in a glass box in the middle of the gallery floor various obstacles to interact with in the box. The mice were videotaped and recorded and the sound and video was projected on the wall (right above, installation shot of "Mice").


Bergen commented that he didn’t want to scare off some people from his artwork by using live animals and so he explained to every viewer that came in that the mice would only be up for that Friday and Saturday and then the installation would come down. Even though he was using live animals in his work, he seemed concerned with their well-being and with the audience’s knowledge of his concern (left, detail of "Mice" installation).

The gallery gave off a chill, come-in-and-check-this-out sort of vibe. The artist and a bunch of his friends were sitting around outside the steps of the gallery and inside on a couch, just talking to the crowd. This created a very open, relaxed atmosphere which allowed the viewers to go over and interact with the mice, picking them up, laughing and pointing among themselves about how cute and silly these little
animals were.

Perhaps Bergen was noting here how displayed and watched our commercial lives are, living in plain view of everyone. Here, the lifestyles of the mice are the same as our own – we run around our apartments with our cluttered furniture and recorded lives – from security cameras to cell phone conversations, everything we do is taped. And here, people were amused at how displayed and silly the behavior of the mice was even though we live the same way. Through Nov. 30th. Carbon 14 Gallery, 123 N. 3rd St. Call for gallery hours, 215-923-2352.

--Post by Anastasia Kouriatova


This year's print invitational

This year's Philadelphia Invitational Portfolio from the Philadelphia Print Collaborative presented eclectic and quirky prints by some well known artists. The work is on exhibit at the Silicon Gallery.

Maximillian P. Lawrence’s piece was probably my favorite – he very cleverly put together different objects to form two different faces. In his print, the face on the right was constructed out of people, and what looks like some sort of plant in the background. The face on the left was a collection of flowers that forms a face (left, Lawrence's print--see post on related work here and here).

Natasha Pestich took a completely different approach with her print, "Trojan." This piece seems more like a comic, and is more analytical than Lawrence’s piece. Pestich humorously substitutes a giant beaver made out of wood for the Trojan horse. The text at the bottom states, “He came to realize that the struggle was not ‘out there’, IT WAS WITHIN HIS OWN SELF” (right, "Trojan").

The diversity of the prints made this exhibit fascinating, which also included work by Katie Baldwin, Daniel A. Heyman, Dennis Lo, Tristin Lowe, Diane Pieri, and William Smith. The prints successfully functioned individually, while collectively complementing each other.


The exhibit also included prints from past years' portfolios, inluding a print from Virgil Marti, "Bunny Multiplication," in which a white rabbit is the focal point. The print is composed of one quarter of the print reflected until the page is filled. This technique creates a surreal, kaleidoscopic feeling, which I really liked (left, "Bunny Multiplication").

The show runs to Nov. 26. Silicon Gallery, 390 N 3rd St.

--Post by Kate Long


At home in the city

Walking into ArtJaz on Second Street, you encounter two different yet complimentary
spheres of art. Displayed on the left is the vibrant, active art of Deborah Shedrick and on the right we see the subtly beautiful urban works of Stacey Brown. In the center of the room, is a beautiful African bust; she seems to hold these two worlds together (right, "Lay Down Your Burdens", 18" x 36", by Shedrick).

Both of these artists use a style evoking a semi-decayed feeling.

Two pieces epitomize this exhibit: Shedrick’s “Black On White” and Brown’s “Cool Jazz.”

The first of these works is a geometric marvel. Simple. Black. White. It contrasts itself: both warm and cold (left, "The Bus Stop," 11 x 16 inches by Brown).

The second work, “Cool Jazz,” Shows a man, eyes hidden behind his hat’s brim. Even though we cannot see his eyes, it seems that he can see ours. This figure, pierces us with the look of eyes we cannot see. They see through his hat, through the shadows that seem nearly to swallow him whole, and through the plane of the painting--into our world. ArtJaz Gallery, 53 N. 2nd St.

--post by Jesse Harding


Water on the move

One of the most attractive things about contemporary art is novelty – new media, unconventional subject matter – artists are constantly putting forward new ideas, and pushing the envelope of our definition of “art”. With innovation dominating the art world, taking a step back to traditional methods and mediums can feel incredibly refreshing. This is how I felt when I came across Alan Sockloff’s exhibit "Dynamic Water: Abstractions and More" in the Muse Gallery (image, "Tohickon Creek #47" (2002), 16 x 20 inch toned silver gel photograph).

I am not typically attracted to traditional subject matter, and in photography, water is as traditional as they come. What keeps Sockloff’s work from falling into the cliché trap is totality: he isn’t just photographing water; he’s studying every aspect of it. Classic, not cliché, is the best way to describe his pieces.

He explained to me that he wanted to capture the patterns that the movement of water creates – something that freeze-frame photographs miss out on. He is fascinated by water as “the most basic element we have”.

Close-up views, like 'Tohickon Creek #47' (2002) capture the abstractions and graceful patterns created by flowing water as it interacts with solid masses. 'Acadia
N.P. #14' (2003) looks at the more forceful side of this interaction, as a wave is caught just as it violently crashes against a rock. Sockloff also captures the beauty of still water as it reflects light, such as in 'Ralph Stover S.P. #09' (1994) where the vivid reflections of trees are caught in one static moment on film.

Sockloff has an obvious appreciation for the untouched elegance that is so often overlooked in nature. There’s no denying the feel-good power of art that reminds us that some of the most beautiful things are right in front of our eyes. Show runs until Nov. 27. Muse Gallery, 60 N. 2nd St., 215-627-5310, Wed.-Sun. 12-5 p.m.

--post by Gabi Matouk


Conflict and industry

The exhibition titled “Maps and Scissors” offered me no explanation as I first walked into the Hurong Lou Gallery. I saw the maps, and I guess they were cut apart by scissors; but I couldn’t help focus on the rolls of brown paper, pieces of plastic tarp, and buckets scattered around the floor, and I was confused—what is part of the exhibition and what is not (image, detail from "Maps and Scissors" installation)?

Then, I heard someone explaining to a lady that it was all part of the installation. As I stepped around the ‘trash’ on the floor I began to notice the images on canvas [on the wall]—images of old black and white maps torn away at the bottom and then juxtaposed with a bright red wallpaper-like pattern. The canvases were large and hanging by a metal pole..

The industrial theme of the exhibition continued as I walked downstairs—this theme provided somewhat of an explanation.

The voice of the artist, Blazo Kovacevic, resonated from his artwork as all his work seemed to have one theme and one concern—industrial progress and social conflict. Even as his medium changes—from acrylic on canvas to glass tables—the black and white antique maps were still Kovacevic’s main concern. Through these maps he explores conflict by confronting “contradicting visual elements.” The old is displayed among the new; delicate drawings of lighthouses are displayed with a harsh red paint with a modern flair; art is formed into a useful table.

People were enjoying the opening of this exhibition as it offered plenty to think about. The messy construction-look of the gallery suggested that Kovacevic intended his works not to cease when the canvas ceased. As I exited the gallery I noticed a woman reach for a piece of paper sticking out of a wood circular shelf, and as her hand touched the paper I heard a voice stop her, explaining that the paper was part of the installation. This just reaffirmed my confusion of boundaries—where does the art start, and where does it stop?

--post by Lara Aleman


Real meets unreal

Judith Viner's exhibit, A Closer Look, showing at Third Street Gallery, urges her audience to look deeper into her oil paintings and discover qualities and characteristics that are not readily apparent. The exhibit mostly consists of still lifes, depicting fruits, flowers and teapots. They are very basic oil paintings; one feels a sense comfort and pleasantness because the forms are recognizable and composition familiar. However, a closer look shows something different, something that does not quite sit right.

In "Pears with Water Lillies," Viner finely renders five yellow-orange pears atop a table with a pink slate cloth. The colors are rich and complementary and the pears' textures are delicately detailed. It is a seemingly basic still life. However, the background is a flat, spaceless mass of color. There is no perspective or sense of depth. Squished green ovals, representing water lilies, seem to be floating in spac, as if the background was waterlily wallpaper. Here, the focus is on the object, the pears. The background is abstracted, lacking a sense of depth and detail. The stereotypical still life breaks down. It is no longer a composition of objects, where background, foreground and focal points exist pleasantly. Viner separates the object and background, creating an interaction between two different entities. So which is more important of the two, the object or that which supports the object and gives it context? Perhaps Viner is urging her audience to consider that not everything should be perceived as objects and focal points, but rather to take a closer look at the smaller things, the backgrounds and foregrounds of still lifes and life itself.

Judith Viner's A Closer Look is showing to Nov. 27

--post by Mark Rubbolawrence, maxpestich, natashamarti, virgilbergen, chrisshedrick, deborahbrown, staceysockloff, alankovacevic, blazoviner, judith

permanent link   libby 8:39 PM
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Posted by roberta

chomskyfaireyposter
Originally uploaded by sokref1.

This week's Weekly includes my review of Shephard Fairey's exhibit at BlackFloor Gallery, and in sketches, some newsy bits. Here's the link to the art page and below is the copy.

The Good Shepard

Admired for his trademark "André the Giant Has a Posse" and "Obey Giant" poster campaigns in cities around the world, Shepard Fairey is a counterculture guru whose message of peace, love and disobedience is as attractive to young people as the music of Jimi Hendrix. "He's a rock star to the youth," says Nick Paparone of Black Floor Gallery, which is showing new prints by the Los Angeles-based Fairey this month.

A solo show by an international art star is an ambitious push for the Black Floor collective, which took some financial risk (including insurance and shipping costs) to bring it in.

(all the images are ones I took when I visited the gallery before the show opened. I think Fairey's bold graphics look pretty great on the black floor. Click on top image to see it bigger.)

I got an advance peek at the prints on paper and wood, and was charmed. These are works quite unlike the "Obey Giant" posters and stickers which have a Western media-influenced feel with their high-contrast graphics and sans-serif typeface. The studio works, most dated 2005, have an old-fashioned socialist realist poster elegance instead, with baroque ornamentation and rich background designs suggestive of the patterning found in paper money.



The works-all of which use a strong central image of an iconic head-evoke everything from postage stamps, playing cards and cigar-box decor to antique revolutionary posters from the '60s and '70s. Fairey's poster children are counterculture heroes, from politicians and thinkers to rock stars: Lenin, Martin Luther King, Tupac, Noam Chomsky, Joe Strummer, Joey Ramone, Angela Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Slick Rick, Jam Master Jay, the young Johnny Cash, LL Cool J.

Fairey's message is one of antiwar and alternative capitalism. Resistance and respect are communicated through a worshipful treatment of the subjects, and lettered in words like "Peace," "Power to the People" and "Make Art Not War." It's an old message that's relevant to youth today.



In keeping with his street-side politics, Fairey is selling his posters at reasonable prices. Three large prints-the most ornate, beautiful and surprising-cost $2,000 each. Other works range in price, starting at an affordable $40. Most are signed and in numbered editions.

(image right is from his series of revolutionary women.)

A series of 16 "Rubylith" images offer a sense of Fairey's work method. These red acetate film cutouts are a byproduct of the screenprint process-they're not prints themselves-and the framed, high-contrast Warholian images have no words or message.

(image is "Rubylith" showing one of the Ramones.)

Fairey, 35, runs a successful design business (Studio Number One) and the Subliminal Projects gallery in L.A.-where Space 1026 members Andrew Jeffrey Wright, Ben Woodward and Jim Houser had a show in 2004.

This is Fairey's second solo exhibit in Philadelphia. His first (in March 1999) was at Space 1026. He's currently in a residency program in Hawaii, but will try to make it to Philadelphia for his show, says Paparone. Let's hope he'll obey his instincts and come.

"Manufacturing Dissent: New Works by Shepard Fairey"
Through Nov. 26. Black Floor Gallery, 319A N. 11th St., third fl.

sketches

Exhibiting: The Philadelphia Museum of Art is hosting a gigantic photo, on loan from collectors, by photographer and inventor Clifford Ross. Mountain IV, (image) a 75-by-130-inch chromogenic color print, is on exhibit in the modern and contemporary galleries until December. Ross' camera invention makes 9-by-11-inch negatives of such great clarity that the government is interested for surveillance purposes, according to a Julie Salamon article. That's taking art photography to unheard of levels of voyeurism.

>> Collecting: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts continues to buy local with its new purchase of a large altarpiece by artist Rob Matthews. Assumption at Ridglea, from his exhibition at Gallery Joe, is a framed work of graphite on paper. Other recent PAFA purchases include works by Randall Sellers, Jim Houser, Charles Burns and the 2004 PPC portfolio.

>> Restoring: Fairmount Park Art Association announced it received a $78,200 Getty Grant to help research and restore Louise Nevelson's Atmosphere and Environment XII, a sculpture sited outside the west entrance to the PMA. The piece was dismantled in 2002 and is scheduled to return late next year.
fairey, shepard
ross, clifford

permanent link   roberta 6:14 AM
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Posted by roberta

Post from John Phillips



Sponsored by the Cardiff/Miller show, "Pandemonium," at Eastern State Penitentiary and by The University of the Arts, I've organized a symposium on sound art taking place on the evening of Wednesday, November 9. I am really excited about this event because I was able to gather four truly exceptional sound artists, from a variety of sound art practices, to talk about and present selections of their work. My website has more information on the symposium. I hope you can stop by.

--John Phillips is a media artist and teacher based in Philadelphia. See his video and audio pieces, many made in collaboration with Carolyn Healy, on his website.

permanent link   roberta 3:29 PM
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Posted by libby and roberta

What are you doing reading artblog when you should be out there voting--for any Democrat that's on the agenda. Prove the pundits wrong. They said less than 10 percent of us would show up at the polls today. Let's get those numbers up.

In case you need some reminder on why your vote counts, here's a picture of the infamous 2000 butterfly ballot from Palm Beach, FL.

permanent link   libby and roberta 9:32 AM
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Posted by roberta

We just got news that Pepon Osorio's installation, "Trials and Turbulence," seen in 2004 at the ICA will debut in New York at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts this month. The show's opening is Nov. 19, 6-8 pm and runs to Dec. 17.



We at artblog found Osorio's ICA installation powerful, moving and eloquent. We'd never seen such a complete transformation of ICA. It was unrecognizable as an art institution, having shape-shifted into a world of social work, the courts and displaced people.

Here's Libby's post and Colette's post. And below is my review from the Weekly which didn't run in the pages of artblog back then so I'm putting it in here for the record. (top image is detail of the installation at ICA, part courtroom, part office, part storage area, part barrio with no exit)

"Trials" and Errors


"What's all this?" asked my husband when he came looking for me at the crowded ICA opening on Sept. 10. He was referring to Pepón Osorio's jam-packed installation "Trials and Turbulence," and his question implied a level of exasperation and dismay that caught me off-guard.

I shouldn't have been surprised. Osorio's piece, which caps his three-year project as artist in residence at the Philadelphia Department of Human Services (DHS), is purposely off-putting and claustrophobic. Not only is it meant to provoke unease and exasperation, but its message is a loud "Something is very wrong here." (projection of video of young woman onto a shower curtain. She was relating her story about being in the DHS system)



From the moment a viewer enters, "Trials and Turbulence" attacks. Larger than life, the installation, which makes use of video and a manic accumulation of objects, turns the Institute of Contemporary Art's downstairs into a suffocating, confusing space of office cubicles, a court room, a cage with junk and an ominous boarded-up alleyway with no exit.

(image of a social worker's desk. they are as embattled in some ways as the clients they serve.)

Everything is Kafkaesque here, and entrapment is the metaphor. With color footage woven into stage-set-like environments, the artist has created a 3-D "Sim-DHS 2004" that's no game.


A cage that seems as big as the Berlin Wall greets the viewer at the door. It holds a mountain of displaced household possessions from clients unable to take care of them. A see-through conference room contains video of a sad young man telling his story. A Victorian-looking glass-walled bathroom imprisons an angry young woman, videotaped narrating her years in foster care. And in perhaps the most haunting video image, a boy trapped behind a rough wood barricade runs but never gets away.

(the wall of stored objects from the displaced people)

Even the viewer is trapped in this weird mirror-image world, lurching from place to place and struggling to invent a narrative or even find a logical progression in the midst of the organized chaos.


Osorio seems to have empathy for all parties--clients, social workers and judges. And that's understandable, because in addition to being artist in residence at DHS, the MacArthur fellow had a previous career as a social worker. He knows the system--and he hates it.

In fact "Trials and Turbulence" is a metaphor for a demon of a system, one that's circular, overbearing, illogical and rigid. It's a system that crushes people, especially children. And the blame seems to rest less on those doing their jobs (caseworkers and judges) than on the laws that set the system up and on the inflexible rules that govern it.

(court scene. the chair in the first row says "Sheriff Only.")



I haven't felt such urgency in an installation in a long time. In its full-throttle approach to a social subject and in its theatricality, Osorio's work is like Bertolt Brecht's political plays that entertain while making the viewer feel uncomfortable and implicated at the same time.

(you could climb up to the judge's desk and when you did you saw these projected images-- a baby's hand with fingers crossed ready to be whacked to order by the gavel, and, below, an image of someone reading the dictionary definition of compassion.)

"Trials and Turbulence" is a call to arms to change the crippling laws that do more harm than good. At the opening Osorio pointed out that his installation lets a viewer put one foot in court and the other in DHS, something not possible in the real world. Every judge and bureaucrat, every City Council member and lawmaker should come to the ICA and straddle the two worlds--and think their way to new laws. More powerful than a book of statistics, "Trials and Turbulence" could be a catalyst for change.



Installation art has a three-pronged hold on Philadelphia this season. Osorio's powerful and sad exhibit adds its basso profundo to the voices of Olafur Eliasson's ("Your Colour Memory") at Arcadia University and Buster Simpson's ("A Declaration of Necessity for the Public Good") at Temple Gallery Old City. The three concept-driven art installations--all by internationally renowned artists--argue that installation art is thriving. All three exhibits are clear-headed, well-executed and must-sees.
osorio, pepon

permanent link   roberta 8:26 AM
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Posted by libby

Grammar is not nearly as much fun as color. So Maira Kalman's stylish illustrations for a new edition of the classic writer's bible of rules, "The Elements of Style," by the late, lamented William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, is the book's most charming iteration yet (image by Kalman for "The Elements of Style." I have lost the title).

The illustrations--small, sweet, naive-inspired gouache-on-paper images inspired by some of the rules, examples, headlines, even index items, from the book--are on exhibit at the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery.

The most exciting thing I got out of the show was the background information about Kalman, who is not only multi-talented but multi-networked and multi-successful (image, "Temple of Isis;" the "sun" is a light reflection in the glass, but it seemed to go with the subject matter).

Plus there's the delicious fact that she has developed a new opera, the libretto based on texts from Strunk and White's little book. Being a somewhat competitive person, I was relieved to learn she was not the composer, but she does embroider, and her embroidery is also now on exhibit in New York.

(Here's an interview with Kalman from the Library Journal).

In case that info didn't bowl you over, here's a quote from the press release (image, "Wondering irresolutely what to do next, the clock struck twelve," which, as you probably know, is an example of a dangling participle):

She is a polymathic and humorous graphic designer (M & Company, fabrics for Kate Spade, Maharam, and Isaac Mizrahi, ...), set designer (for the ballet Four Saints in Three Acts for Mark Morris and Company) and noted illustrator (New York, New Yorker, Print). Kalman has written and illustrated a dozen children's books including the popular Ooh La La, Swami on Rye ... Her NEWYORKISTAN (with Rick Meyerowitz) cover for The New Yorker is deservedly famous. She is a co-founder (2001) with Alex Melamid (Komar & Melamid) of the Rubber Band Society, a group bound together by their love of rubber bands.

etc. etc. etc. Whew. She sounds like someone I'd like to know muchly (image, "Overly, Muchly, Thusly," which is a section heading about words overly burdened with -ly suffixes).

Some of her illustrations are completely charming. Some of them are charming. Some of them, without the book, don't stand up to the full gallery treatment. And without the book, some of the points that the images are making get lost. But in the book, which is what they were designed for, they all look great and make sense and are witty, to boot. There is a book on the desk inside the entrance to gallery.

I did come away wanting to buy the book for the many writers I know and love. Except, of course, every writer I know and love already owns a non-illustrated copy. Between Murray and me, we owned three copies when we united his book collection with mine 33 years ago. We're now down to one because a year ago I decided to clean house (image, "A few matters of form").

But if one copy of Strunk and White is essential, two must be even better. If the second is illustrated, that's better yet. kalman, maira

permanent link   libby 8:58 PM
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Posted by libby

DSCN5462
Originally uploaded by libbyrosof.

Night time is the best time to see Robert Raphael's installation, "Bling Love," in the Window on Broad. Alas my daytime view doesn't quite capture its sizzle.

The ceramic objects glint with pewter glaze, each one nestled in a felt and satin-ribbon wall of boxes and bows, all pinky and orangy make-up colors.

The staging is like the oooh la la windows almost good enough to eat displays I pass all the time at Douglas, where items like tubes of lipstick and grooming brushes are transformed into gotta-have glamor.

With Christmas just around the corner, 'tis the season for this installation, which raises questions about value, luxury, self-ornamentation, commerce, and sex appeal. Perhaps the questions are not much of a surprise; but in this case, the medium is indeed the message.

Raphael, who has had apprenticeships at both the Fabric Workshop and Museum and Kohler, is a 2004 MFA from Cranbook in ceramics.

raphael, robert

permanent link   libby 5:12 PM
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Posted by roberta

yukieinparadise
Originally uploaded by sokref1.

I trooped around Friday night in the lovely balmy air and made it to a few openings. Nexus, as usual, was hopping with folks looking at Carole Sivin's and Yukie Kobayashi's works. Kobayashi's piece, called "Paradise" is an installation of blue handmade paper strips in a kind of circle arrangement. On the inside above your head hangs more blue -- paper circles suspended horizontally like slices of sky. Two big sculptural objects dangle in the space, one an alligator-like creature and the other a more ambiguous pod-like affair. People seemed to like being in the space and loved the blue atmosphere. (image above, the artist poses with her piece looking, I think, celestial.)

Elsewhere, Paul Santoleri's installation at Painted Bride blew everybody's socks off. (Caveat: I'm biased here -- I wrote the catalog essay for the show.) What I had seen in Santoleri's studio -- very large work -- was completely transformed and dwarfed by its immersion into a mural that is absolutely Paul Bunyanesque. (image is detail of Santoleri's two-floor-spanning installation at Painted Bride)

The coup de theatre of the evening was the installation by InLiquid at the National Restaurants showroom which is the office for selling luxury condominiums in the new building across the street.


The internet portal and art group installed its members' art on the walls of a model, 2-bedroom luxury condominium set up in the space for purposes of selling the units to prospective buyers. My favorite was seeing art in the laundry room, which reminded me of our friend Ditta's laundry room art installation -- a bulletin-board exuberance of words and images that had a jumble of life ambiance. What a great idea it is to have something to look at when you're drying a bunch of wet socks (the ones that got blown off in the last paragraph, say).

(image is Kitty Caparella piece in the model condo's laundry room)

kobayashi, yukie
santoleri, paul
caparella, kitty

permanent link   roberta 5:02 PM
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Posted by libby

Portraits of people and their pain, expressed by overlays of text, were the subject of Edward Epstein's "Insult to Injury" exhibit last month at the University City Arts League. Epstein seems to have his fingers in a number of pies, networking with lots of people and becoming a presence in the art community. I caught up with Schenectady, N.Y., native Epstein, 39, last week at the 40th Street Artists in Residence headquarters, where he runs the program and has a studio. I asked him a few questions about his art and the program. Here's how it went (image, "Marybeth," a portrait of Epstein's wife; the words read, "You were nice until you married that Jew;" I'm especially fond of the horns. In all of these portraits, the words are reverse painted on the glass. The best of them are deeply personal or metaphoric.):

LR I notice most of your portraits in "Insult to Injury" were of women. How come?

EE Yeah, out of 18, five were men. I'm not sure what the explantion is, but a lot of the people who volunteered know my wife. My wife, Marybeth, teaches in the Graduate School of Education at Penn, and the stereotypes of schools of education is they have more women than men (image, "Lee," with inscription "I didn't vote for you").

Two of the men who posed were tenured professors. In academic departments everywhere, there's an imbalance in the sexes [i.e. the ones with tenure are more likely to be male].

The project is asking each person to give some insult given to them, and that is part of the work. Some people were more forthcoming than others:. Some said, Insults just bounce off of me. Then they [remembered] some pretty nasty things that got said to them. [While they sat for their portraits] ...the conversation would go to their lives and what they were doing. I got to know some people better by doing this.

LR Since they were live portraits, how did you capture the sad expressions.

EE That may just be me. The room was kind of empty. I used natural light coming through the windows. There's a sadness about the place that may have contributed to that (image, "Pam" with inscription "You're dead in the water").

LR What inspired the subject?

EE It took a while to come to me. Over the summer, on a trip to South Africa Marybeth and I had taken (I was there as a tourist taking care of Zoe) some of the ironies about life there rubbed off on me. In the central square in Pretoria, people were just milling around--milling around statues of their former oppressors. ...I was thinking about insulting things that had been said to me. So I thought, what if I put words right on people's faces.

I have a self-portrait in the series, with the words, "Every bit the last minute replacement." The words were on a student's evaluation [of me] when I was teaching at San Antonio College. I knew who the student was (image, "Edward," showing the artist as a younger man).

Now I sort of laugh about it, but I was thinking about things said deliberately to injure, and thinking about the ...faces themselves.

LR You paint in a traditionally realist sort of style. Why?

EE The short explanation is, I like to do that. I enjoy representational art. In graduate school, one critique I got was, "What does what you're doing have to do with today?" and called it Social Realism. At that time, I was painting sort of heroic-looking forms. When you apply traditional technique, traditional European art, to things that are very contemporary and new, what about the distance between the subject matter and the technique, what can be exploited there, what can be made meaningful?

LR Can you talk a little about the themes in your work?

EE The themes emerge from what I see out there. In "Delaware Vistas" (see post), when I first came to town, one of the first sights I saw were the big oil tanks on Rt. 76. That's what everybody seems if them com in via the airport. You can't miss it. I thought, I have to do something with it.

Then, during a residency in the Catskills, the irony of things [the landscape and the big oil tanks for example] got put together. I want my art to have some of the text of how the mind combines things.

I did another series when I was in Atlanta called "Monuments." I love the Greeks... and Piranesi. Imagined monuments with inscriptions like, "You can't come in because you're a girl." What if inscriptions on buildings reflected the real rules and power relationships (image, "Threshold")?

LR What's your title at 40th Street AIR?

EE The title that I call myself is the resident coordinator. I have a studio space in here and coordinate things. The 40th Street AIR started when I first came into town a few years ago.

The genesis of AIR/new AIR residents

Epstein recounted how then Penn President Judith Rodin, in a conversation with Mary Beth, suggested that Epstein meet with people in Facilities and Real Estate, which had space around 40th Street that they were hoping could be put to some creative use. Epstein came up with a proposal and the program has just announced its third round of artists in residence:

Linda Goss, storyteller/Gretchen Shannon, painter (Linda and Gretchen will
collaborate)
Jill Maio, sculptor
Alex Paik, painter
Kate Stewart, painter, mixed media artist
Elysa Voshell, book artist

Now showing at AIR


While I was at 40th Street AIR, I took a look at current AIR resident Delia King’s solo exhibition of reverse glass paintings, which runs through Nov. 9 (image, "Jessica").

I've been watching King's work for the past couple of years, since I met her selling her art on the sidewalk on a First Friday. The work is getting more complex, using the glass to fuller effect, with of layers, patterns superimposed and juxtaposed in more and more surprising ways. The content has also taken a leap, juxtaposing street and interiors, pattern and realism.

One of the other nice things about this show was a display of work in progress, where you could see the complexity of King's process. I can't wait to see where she goes with it next (image, "Carla, Elgin and Shontay").

AIR resident Jessica Doyle’s solo exhibition will run Nov. 11 through Dec. 7.epstein, edwardking, delia

permanent link   libby 10:23 PM
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