Meanwhile, I wanted to know what else was cooking with Curator Baker, who always seems to have his hand in multiple projects in and out of town. (See post below for more.) First off, he told me what’s next at Morris. Coming in December is an installation by Fleisher Challenge winner Michelle Oosterbaan who, Baker says, will “discombobulate” the space. She’s going to build some ramps and change the space and make work on the walls and….to be continued. (Image above is Oosterbaan’s wall piece at the Delaware Museum of Art Biennial.) Then in February, Adam Cvijanovic, whose wallpaper piece in “On the Wall” at the Fabric Workshop depicted a suburban backyard.
Baker chauffeured the artist around town so he could photograph things for use in his Morris piece (Cvijanovic makes paintings on tyvek based on
photographs, then translates them into wallpaper). So what’d they see? Apart from the PAFA building, they looked at the Liberty Bell (groan) and, Baker’s idea, the SS United States, a rusting hulk of an ocean liner docked on Delaware Avenue near Home Depot. “I thought he might like that,” said Baker. (Image is Cvijanovic’s “Backyard.”)
Baker is doing some freelance curating and writing. He wrote the catalog essay for “Beautiful Losers,” a travelling skateboard show he hopes he can find a way to bring to town. And he’s working on a project at Dumbo in May, a group show called “Heroes, Villains and Average Joes.” “It’s a portrait show…portraying the self,” he said. Philadelphia artists Virgil Marti and Max Lawrence will be in the show. “Max paints villains,” he explained.
