Matthew Neff, Sugar Chandelier,” one of the current CFEVA artists on exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of art in honor of CFEVA’s 25th anniversary.
Nearly everyone in Philadelphia gripes about how the best way for a local artist to get in the Philadelphia Museum of Art is to die. But there’s a works on paper show up right now–Emerging to Established: Twenty-five Years of the Center for Emerging Visual Artists–the first ever CFEVA exhibit there, that belies the gripe.
Serena Perrone, I.II, another current CFEVA artist in the exhibit.
The exhibit, which looks great, is of 49 works by 25 artists–all of whom have some relationship to CFEVA, a program to teach artists how to navigate the business end of the art world. In the show are some current fellows of the program, some alums, and some of the artist-advisers at CFEVA.
Serge J-F. Levy, Kyoto, Japan
“It happened through a long time from conversations between CFEVA and the Philadelphia Museum of Art,” said Amie Potsic, who curated the exhibit from work by artists CFEVA selected. Potsic is Director of the Career Development Program, and a photographer in her own right. “Maida [R. Milone, CFEVA president and CEO] had conversations with [PMA Director and CEO] Anne d’Harnoncourt and subsequent conversations with Kate Ware.” Ware, the PMA curator of photographs, hung the show, along with Curatorial Fellow John Vick.
Vincent Feldman, Shanghai Racecourse; Feldman is a CFEVA alum.
I asked Potsic how she chose. “I really wanted to select work that was in some cases representative of the artist and their work, and in other cases to select work that was very compelling and put strong work forward for that artist.
Ron Tarver, Grand Nebula; Tarver, a CFEVA alum, is one of 11 artists in this exhibit who are in the PMA’s collection. The others are Will Barnet, Rita Bernstein, Don Camp, Vincent David Feldman, Judy Gelles, Kate Moran, Laurence Salzmann, Judith Taylor, Douglas Takeshi Wolfe and Charlotte Yudis.
“Ron Tarver is known for his documentary work, but the work that is more recent that’s in the exhibit is dealing with constellations and astronomical content I thought was really compelling, even though it wasn’t necessarily work I would recognize as his.”
The work in the show is all relatively small scale to fit well in the gallery, which is the Director’s Gallery, aka the corridor formerly known as the Julian Levy Gallery.
“The show is really a wonderful opportunity for the museum to engage the local art community and living artists.” (Not all the artists in the exhibit are alive; Charlotte Yudis died in 2007).
Others in the exhibit are Katie Baldwin, Anne Canfield, Andrea Cote, Vincent Desiderio, Elaine M. Erne, Christopher Hartshorne, John Karpinski, Serge J-F. Levy, Matthew Neff, Serena Perrone, Hiro Sakaguchi, Amy Stevens, Jeffrey Stockbridge and Lee Wilkinson.
Baldwin has a show opening May 9 at the University City Arts League.
Matthew Neff’s burnt boat at Art Glut in February. It is now on display at the University of the Arts, in honor of the inauguration of UArts’ new president, Sean Buffington.
Neff is showing some rickshaw-generated prints up at CFEVA HQ through May 9, in a two-man show with Brian Zegeer. The burn, blackened rickshaw is also on display.
