A lot of openings in the last two weekends. I didn’t make them all but I’m going to run some pictures here with some links and say get out there and look around. So much to see so little time.
PAFA, Oct. 19, 2006
Libby and I made it to the opening of Steven Power‘s show in PAFA‘s Morris Gallery but didn’t make Space is the Place (Outgoing PAFA Contemporary Art Curator Alex Baker‘s co-curated show also at PAFA). It’s up for a while and sounds good so we’ll be back for sure.
Steve Powers, right, and Brian Campbell, doing some rain coat business at the opening of Powers’ show at the Morris Gallery. Powers was giving away raincoats to his friends at the opening.
Bran Campbell in his Steve Powers rain slicker. Campbell, special assistant to Jane Golden in the Mural Arts Program, told us that MAP is working on a project idea with Powers that just might happen–stay tuned!
Highpoints at PAFA: Steve Powers giving away his yellow hand-detailed rain slickers to friends who kept them on in the sweltering Morris Gallery. Powers’ installation looks terrific and the paintings are virtuoso works of One Shot enamel on slick black surfaces–pristeen!
Bob Cozzolino, Pafa curator and one-half of the Flying Sutras, playing percussion in Hamilton Auditorium. The other half of the band, George Draguns, on guitar (see other flickr pix–I chose this one because of the double Bob/Bob image (that’s Bob in the slide show projected on the wall and Bob on the drums.)
Flying Sutras music in the auditorium was OUTSTANDING!
FLEISHER Challenge 2, Oct. 19, 2007
Some of the crowd at Fleisher Art Memorial last week at the Challenge 2 opening. That’s Rebecca Saylor Sack in blue in the middle in front of her paintings. Sarah McEneaney, left, Mauro Zamora, right. I’m sorry I don’t know the gentleman’s name on the far right.
Rebecca Saylor Sack‘s four large works greet you at the door. Her darkly daubed and highly worked surfaces are virtuoso painting–enchanting!
Gregory Brellochs
William Gannotta
Gregory Brellochs and William Gannotta round out the show — nature, nature everywhere!
LITTLE BERLIN, Oct. 19, 2007
I’m not good with crowd counting but i’d say there were over 100 people at Little Berlin’s opening–too many to actually see the art so we’ll go back–looked like an interesting show. What we did note was the mix of PAFA folks and Tyler folks–I love it when that cross-institutional mind-and-body-merge happens! And speaking of institutional get-togethers, I understand that the AMMS/Flux Space gang is going to be talking with the Little Berlin about some collaborative something–yes!
Crowd waiting while the band warms up.
Little Berlin has a video screening room–with seating! awesome!
Crowd waiting for the music to begin.
MAGICAL AT MOORE, Oct. 25, 2007
Sarah McEneaney painting at Moore College’s Paley Gallery.
Thursday night openings at the Galleries at Moore
brought out a lot of great women artists–the photo show is an homage to contemporary Philly women photographers — Alida Fish, Eileen Neff, Clarissa Sligh, Ruth Thorne-Thomsen, Deborah Willis, Genevieve Coutroubis, Sarah Stolfa, and Zoe Strauss. And the Magical narrative show, Facts, Fantasies and Fictions, has the fabulous Sarah McEneaney paired with Matthew Suib and Miami’s Christian Curiel. Exceptionally wonderful programming.
Matthew Suib’s sampler from cowboy movies, featured a while back at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, is great. A movie with an unexpected punchline.
Miami artist Christian Curiel’s large iconic works round out a wonderful show.
EXXCAPES at !, Oct. 26, 2007
Bryan Jeitner’s “A Pound of Flesh, a 4-part painting based on photos from his family’s archives.
The second exhibit at ! Gallery looked quite different from the first. Where the first show had many many little works peppering the walls, this show had a smaller number of works and most of them were very large. The illusion was that the space had shrunk! Not true of course. There was a good crowd at the opening and gallerist Austin Lee told me he thought next time he’d be mixing it up with one big installation instead of a group show. He’s got something in mind and I say keep on thinking, Austin! Great fertile stuff here.
Katrina Mortorff’s Mismatch.
Katrina Mortorff, the other half of the ! gallery curating team, produced two exquisite small paintings for the show. They’re on antique cardboard match boxes and they copy the original matchbox’s Grandma Moses style pastoral painting (which probably was a big painting scaled down in a print for the box cover. Mortorff got the antique matchboxes from the nuns who live in the rest home on property adjacent to the Tyler campus. (Mortorff had a job working as a cook at the nun’s home and the nuns are now being displaced as the home will be sold so the land can be developed. The nuns were clearing things out and gave Mortorff the matchboxes). Mortorff’s control over the paint on the tiny works is just incredible. I love the idea as well.
Bob Gonzales, who showed a coffin-esque shoe box in !’s first show, here turned up with a rug that he had modified by hand-embroidering egg-like details onto it. The rug, Gonzales told me, was appropriated from his parents home. I asked Gonzales, who clearly has an affinity for materials and a way with 3-D objects, whether he was trained as a sculptor and he said no, he was a painter. Not that it matters but the works have a wonderful cross-disciplinary vibe to them.
