News

Florcy Morriset received a pivotal award last week when she was honored by Haitian Roundtable. Haitian American to Watch in the United States., indeed – it’s phenomenal to see Florcy’s work with Haitian Professionals of Philadelphia and Vivant Art Collection get some extremely visible love.

It's like deja vu all over again: the proposed design for the Museum of the American Revolution. Rendering: Robert A.M. Stern Architects. — It’s like deja vu all over again: the proposed design for the Museum of the American Revolution. Rendering: Robert A.M. Stern Architects.

Nathaniel Popkin’s resistance to the rather unimaginative design for the Museum of the American Revolution has a couple of fronts going: he recently wrote about it in the Inquirer, and in the spirit of fun this week, he wrote “A Declaration of Architectural Independence” to drum up support from Philadelphians, and to show the Art Commission that there could and should be a much better design for the museum. With “No reactionary design for a revolution museum” as its tagline, you can find Nathaniel’s Declaration on Change.org. His hope is to get 238 signatures –one for every year since the real Declaration was signed, since the Revolution is a living document – and deliver it to the Art Commission.

Work on paper by Laura Sallade, one of the recipients of PAFA's 2014 Venture Fund. Photo: laurasallade.com. — Work on paper by Laura Sallade, one of the recipients of PAFA’s 2014 Venture Fund. Photo: laurasallade.com.

For the first time ever, PAFA has launched its own venture fund, answering a call for its own grant-seeking process. In the program’s first year, the Fund awarded more than $15,000 to nine applicants, including painters, sculptors, installation and video-based artists at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The 2014 Fine Arts Venture Fund recipients are: Joon Bae (Cert. ’14); Inga Kimberly Brown (BFA ’14); Caitlin Clements (MFA ’14); Alexandria Douziech (BFA ’14); Brendan Keen (BFA ’13, Cert.’14); Claire Kowalewski (Cert. ’14), Lauren Pellerito (BFA ’14); Laura Sallade (Cert.’13); and Evan Schukis (BFA & Cert. ’14). Congratulations to all, and know that we’re looking forward to seeing the results of all those proposals!

In a couple days, Gallery Joe is opening a different set of doors – those at
Drawing Now Paris | Le Salon du dessin contemporain. They’re anticipating plenty of beaten paths to their location at booth i15, Carreau du Temple from March 26 – 30, where the setup features Allyson Strafella, Sharka Hyland, Rob Matthews and Alex Paik.

Opportunities

Our friends at the Philadelphia Film Society are giving away two golden tickets for their upcoming Philadelphia Film Festival: Spring Showcase. You can redeem these vouchers at any film screened during the Spring Showcase (April 11-17) – even if it’s sold out, making recipients VIP.

Deadlines are approaching for a raft of Transart RFPs, which end on April 30. There are categories for a variety of needs, so definitely take the time to go through them thoroughly. There are eight 5 digit Scholarships for Transart’s MFA, which are project-based. The Earth Awareness Prize goes to two artists with environmentally aware MFA projects; the Social Change Award gives a quarter of tuition costs to two artists whose MFA projects champion social change; and the Peace and Mediation Prize awards the same amounts (2x$10,000) to two artists with MFA projects that deal with the role of art in peace and mediation. There are also two Transart Merit Awards, not specific to any media, theme or specific field, in amounts awarded equally to other prizes. Artists who wish to be considered for any of the awards need to apply to the MFA Creative Practice by April 15. Award winners in each category are chosen by an independent jury no later than May 5.

The Free Library of Philadelphia is going full speed with their plans to revive a number of branch locations with art installations. Now open for applications, the 21st Century Libraries Initiative is taking on the Lillian Marrero Library, 601 West Lehigh Avenue; Logan Library, 1333 Wagner Avenue; Lovett Library, 6945 Germantown Avenue; South Philadelphia Library, 1700 South Broad Street (slated for reopening in the winter of 2016); and Tacony Library, 6742 Torresdale Avenue. to apply, you must be a Philly resident and not enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program during the span of the project. If chosen, artists must attend a full day workshop on Friday, April 11 and commit to workshopping with community members, Free Library staff, and others at neighborhood libraries to develop and finalize their designs. Finally, selected artists must be available to present their final designs at community meetings at each of the neighborhood libraries in December 2014, when the final funding round takes place. For more information, please contact Theresa Ramos, Program Development Coordinator, at ramost@freelibrary.org.

Artist News

Ryan Trecartin spoke with Calvin Tomkins for this week’s New Yorker, in which he talks about his internationally-recognized video work.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, "Solar Equation." Photo courtesy of the artist. — Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, “Solar Equation.” Photo courtesy of the artist.

via e-flux – Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, of Open Air fame, is the keynote speaker at “Monument/Anti-Monument,” an international conference on sculpture at St. Louis, Missouri’s Chase Park Plaza Hotel on Saturday, April 12, 5:30pm. His talk, titled “Anti-monuments and Subsculptures,” is part of Sculpture City Saint Louis 2014, a vibrant set of events and discussions on what St. Louis offers for the world of sculpture.

Serena Perrone is on a panel discussion at the Souther Graphics Council in San Francisco called Free Radicals: Historical Mash-Ups and the Poetry of Change. With fellow speakers Michael Krueger and Ben Venom, the panel, titled “Free Radicals: Historical Mash-Ups and the Poetry of Change”, runs on March 29 from 1-2:00 pm. The conference itself starts on March 26.