Here’s the copy for my Editor’s Choice piece in this week’s Weekly. I’ve added a few pictures below and there’s more at flickr.
Jennie Thwing, video projection of her grandfather talking about his past. It’s moving and captivating with a soundtrack that stutters his phrases repeatedly and in time to an electronic dance beat. It’s a little haunted and haunting.
Not only are the co-op’s new digs a wow—concrete floors, high ceilings, exposed beams, huge factory windows—but with the arrival of Nexus, the Second Street/American Street corridor has reached a critical mass of galleries to warrant a new event: Second Thursdays.
Nexus’s concrete-floor space, with massive support pillars, many of them written on by tenants in the Crane Building’s previous life as a warehouse/industrial plant.
And it’s better than the meet-market ambiance of Old City’s First Friday. Taking inventory of what’s now clustered up around Girard Avenue, there’s the Ice Box, Nexus, an InLiquid space and the Framer’s Studio (all in the Crane), the 1801 N. Howard St. collective, Tower Gallery and Art Star. (A little further on there’s Bambi on Frankford Avenue and the new Art Space Making Machines Studios at 3000 N. Hope St.) These are serious art venues showing work that pushes boundaries. Nexus’ inaugural show lives up to its rough new space.
Catherine Passante’s photo-billboard of the Ikea parking lot in Nexus’s new space.
Two young artists Jennie Thwing and Catherine Passante create new-media installations using digital technology and video. Thwing’s Thoughts on Death is a winning excursion into words and meaning, and Passante’s gift-shop objects entertain.
Jennie Thwing: Thoughts on Death and Catherine Passante: Win Big at Nexus
Through Feb. 25. Free. Nexus, Crane Arts Building, 1400 N. American St. 215.629.1103.
