Vox Populi kicks off its season with a savory mix of drawings, video, photos and outsider art. While the press release about Jamie Dillon’s solo show is obfuscatory, it appears the artist will once again mine his inner bad boy. Smoke (or at least pictures of smoke) and fire (or at least pictures of fire) make an appearance along with Stuzky, the hermaphrodite, who will do… what? and look like… what? The artist’s lips are sealed.
Near-blind but still visionary painter David Kontra can only see a quarter-inch of his canvas at a time, but cooks up brushy and colorful expressionist canvases of everything from nudes to nightmarish, toothy ghosts; Kontra is flying in for the opening. Vox member Roxana Pérez-Méndez organized a group show on the theme of paradise lost in one gallery. Elsewhere, Jonathan Prull’s obsessive drawings of Clint Eastwood envision the aging Dirty Harry in his dotage. In the video lounge (formerly known as Screening Video), there’s more paradise lost in Sarah Christman’s documentary about the changing ecology on Broad Channel Island in New York’s Jamaica Bay. Stay tuned as Vox unveils a performance series later this fall in a new adjoining space they’re working on. Read this article at Philadelphia Weekly.
Vox Populi, opening reception, 6pm-10 pm, Friday, Sept. 3.
Through Sept. 26.
319 N. 11th St.
215.238.1236
Sexy, disturbing and electrifying, Jacolby Satterwhite’s video and live performance at Jolie Laide is a must-see. Satterwhite’s aesthetic combines queer culture, club culture, fashion, video gaming, Second Life, religious ritual and the words, music and drawings of his visionary, mentally ill mother. The videos explode at fever pitch, yet there’s something icy and passive-aggressive, too. In Adam for Adam, a body is hung upside down and whipped by acolytes to the ecstatic sounds of Carmina Burana mashed up with obsessive chanting and spoken word. Satterwhite (Penn MFA 2010) will perform nude and in a tricked-out spandex bodysuit with inset video monitors and speakers playing the voice of his mother. Stay for dancing at the block party afterwards. Read this article at PW.
Jolie Laide, reception, 6-9pm Sat. Sept. 4. Performance by Satterwhite @8pm., 224 N. Juniper St. 267.603.1295.
