NEWS
Barbara Silzle steps down from Philadelphia Cultural Fund, and we all weep
Barbara Silzle is a fierce advocate for the little guys, the small Philadelphia arts organizations who need the Cultural Fund’s support to survive and thrive. Barbara’s trusted and knowledgable voice and leadership will be very much missed.
From the Philadelphia Cultural Fund’s announcement
The board of the Philadelphia Cultural Fund announces that its Executive Director, Barbara Silzle, will step down from her position on July 15, 2022 to explore other interests. Barbara has led the organization for seven years. During this time, she has strengthened the Cultural Fund’s relationship with the City and the cultural sector, improved its grant panel process, and increased the number of small community-based organizations that receive important financial support from the Fund.
“Barbara’s leadership has been especially vital during the years of the pandemic, which saw drastic cuts to the Fund’s budget, which had a ripple effect across the sector. On behalf of the board and grantees of the Cultural Fund, I would like to thank Barbara for her dedication to the arts and culture community and her inspired leadership of the Cultural Fund, “said Magda Martinez, Chair of the board of the Philadelphia Cultural Fund.
While City Council led the way for additional funding in the City’s FY2021 and FY2022 budget, the Mayor’s proposed FY2023 budget does not reflect the need to invest in the City’s critical arts and culture sector which will be a leading contributor to welcoming residents and visitors back into Philadelphia’s rich civic life. Barbara will continue to be deeply involved in PCF’s advocacy efforts to increase the Cultural Fund’s FY2023 allocation and to ensure that organizations receive their current year grants.
“The board and Barbara are committed to a thoughtful transition process that seamlessly continues the essential work of the Fund in support of our grantees. The board is developing a transition plan and will share further details in the near future,” added Martinez. ***
Barbara Silzle is a passionate advocate for the arts. She started with the Cultural Fund in 2015 after years of service to Philadelphia’s nonprofit arts and philanthropy sectors. She served as Executive Director of The Leeway Foundation, a private foundation that invests in women and trans artists who are committed to using their artistic practice to illuminate pressing social issues affecting their communities. Prior to Leeway, Barbara served on the board of the Valentine Foundation and worked for several Philadelphia arts organizations, including the University of the Arts, Freedom Theatre, Philadelphia Drama Guild and Prince Music Theatre.
About the Philadelphia Cultural Fund Established in 1991 to support and enhance the cultural life and vitality of the City of Philadelphia and its residents, the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, through the combined efforts of the Philadelphia City Council and the Mayor, promotes arts and culture as engines of social, educational and economic development and has played a key stabilizing role for numerous organizations by providing much needed general operating funding. Learn more at www.philaculturalfund.org and follow along on Facebook, Twitter @PhilaCulturFund and Instagram.
Guggenheim Fellows 2022 announced – Two artists with local connections – Mark Thomas Gibson and Lynne Woods Turner
Thank you, Becky Kerlin of Gallery Joe for letting us know that artist Lynne Woods Turner, whose memorable shows of works on paper at Gallery Joe we applauded through the years, is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow. Congratulations! And Congratulations also to Mark Thomas Gibson, Assistant Professor of Art at Tyler School of Art, Temple University, whose activist and righteous works at Rosenwald Wolf Gallery blew us away in 2019 when we recorded our podcast interview him.
Other Books & Co (previously Ulises)
The little community bookshop that could is now operating out of the Icebox Project Space with a name change to “Other Books and Co!” Yay! When you visit Crane Arts next — like on a Second Thursday for the show openings — be sure to stop in.
From Icebox Project Space:
The Icebox Project Space welcomes Other Books & Co to their new home in the entryway to the gallery. This iteration of Ulises – a project dedicated to artists’ books and independent art publications that explores the relationship between publics and publications – will go under the moniker “Other Books and Co” as a nod to Ulises Carrión’s Amsterdam-based storefront, Other Books and So (1975-1979). In this new space, we hope to credit Carrión’s legacy and emphasize the importance of the bookshop as a site of exchange and embody the spirit and play of collectivity and collective spaces.
ICYMI
Congratulations to The Clay Studio, which opened its brand new space on American Street across from the Crane Arts. Can you say “Arts Corridor!?”
EVENT
DVAA Everyday Futures Festival
Tonight, Thursday, April 15, 2022
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
We recommend this panel about who gets to tell the stories. It’s free, and on Zoom and the panelists are an awesome group. Register here.
Who decides our history?
Who do we anoint to control the art and cultural historical narrative?
How do we challenge the ongoing and active erasure of cultures, traditions, and teachings within institutional frameworks?Join us in a panel discussion including the African American Museum of Philadelphia (AAMP), We Are the Seeds, social practice artist Gigi McGraw, and others to dissect this and adjacent topics critical to the preservation of culture.
This panel will be a hybrid event – attendees are welcome to attend at DVAA, or attend via zoom (link emailed to those registered).
About the Panelists:
Tailinh Agoyo
Tailinh Agoyo is co-founder and director of We Are the Seeds, a non-profit organization committed to amplifying Indigenous voices through the arts. Now in its sixth year, We Are the Seeds has produced over 145 public programs, increasing agency and direct engagement between Indigenous peoples and audiences. Agoyo is also the host of From Here, With a View, a podcast that honors the voices of Indigenous artists, performers, educators, and change-makers. She has worked in film and television for more than thirty years and helped to produce the beautiful children’s book I Will Carry You. Her own artwork is focused on capturing the vibrancy of Indigenous peoples today, including The Warrior Project, a collection of photos of Native youth and their continuing commitment to environmental stewardship. In addition to these many projects and roles, she is mom to four wonderful boys.Gigi McGraw
Gigi McGraw is a social practice artist, actress, and writer who coined the term PhilHERstorian to describe her invested interest in the cultural and historical preservation of Philadelphia. She is the founder and curator of POMON- Philadelphia Online Museum of Neighborhoods (virtual grand-opening February 2023) and earned her Master’s Degree in theater from Villanova University. Gigi is fascinated with the life stories of individuals; and is inspired by projects such as the Federal Writers’ Project of the 1930’s, which recorded the narratives of the formerly enslaved. She is also an advocate for hyperlocal history projects. Gigi documents life through recorded testimony, exhibits, print, and creative missions locally and abroad.Morgan Lloyd
Morgan T. Lloyd is an Afro-Indigenous curator, community arts administrator, educator, and public historian from Lenapehoking (Philadelphia area) with a passion for uplifting the area’s rich BIPOC Antebellum histories. Working alongside the programming team at AAMP, she oversees AAMP’s docent core and provides interpretive tours.Additionally, she serves as an Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow at the Philadelphia Museum of Art with curatorial initiatives to uplift local Black and local Indigenous narratives in the Early American galleries. Also, she is an educational partner with several Philadelphia area schools, including Agnes Irwin Upper School.
Zindzi Harley
Currently serving as Assistant Curator at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. An Alumna of the University of Arts where I completed my M.A. in Museum Studies. I also act as Project Curator of Past Present Projects, a local Philadelphia arts organization that exhibits contemporary art in historic sites. My research focuses on the histories of Black museums and how we can learn from these founding museums to leverage institutional structures that advocate for the preservation of cultural heritage of the African diaspora. Zindzi Harley was a curator for our exhibitionsDistant Memory featuring artists Colin Pezzano and Emily Carris-Duncan, and Black Quantum Futurism’s Ancestors returning again / this time only to themselves at historic Hatfield House.Moderated by David Acosta
David Acosta (Also known as Juan Armando David Acosta Posada) is a writer, poet, cultural worker and co-founder of Casa de Duende, along with his life partner Jerry Macdonald.He has served on a wide range of committees and boards, including past work with the Philadelphia International Film Festival, The Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, The PA Council on the Arts, as well as a founding member of Our Living Legacy (1988), the nation’s first festival devoted to art and AIDS. In 1993 he served on the East Market Street Sculpture Review Committee, which selected artist Raymond Sandoval’s Tanamend sculpture from among more than 3,000 artist proposals. He was a founding member of The Latin American Writers Collective, Desde Este Lado, as well as the magazine that bore its name. He was also a co-founder of the Philadelphia Working Fund for Artists with HIV/AIDS. In 1989 he curated the Pieces of Life Project at Taller Puertorriqueño which brought the National Names Project (Originators of the AIDS Quilt Project) to Philadelphia, and specifically to a Latino community in a large metropolitan city, at that time a first for the Names Project.
OPPORTUNITY
Call for vendors: Art for the Cash Poor 2022
Saturday, June 4, noon – 6 PM
All art for $200 and under
Become a vendor at InLiquid’s signature annual art and craft fair.
From InLiquid:
What is Art for the Cash Poor?
The 22nd installment of InLiquid’s Signature Event Art for the Cash Poor returns to the American Street Corridor in Kensington.The event will take place on the 1400 block of N. American Street, Philadelphia, PA.
- Art for the Cash Poor is an affordable art sale, that directly benefits visual artists, designers, and craftspeople.
- All work priced under $200
- All proceeds from art sales go directly to the artists
- Open to Artists, Designers, & Crafters
Art for the Cash Poor is open to artists, designers, and crafters who make and produce their own work. All work is to be sold for $200 and below.
All participants are screened for quality and how they fit in with the event, submission does not guarantee acceptance. Artists may share a booth space at a discounted rate per each artist, each artist must be screened and accepted individually (we will not match artists for shared spaces).
Vendor Fees
- $150 for individual artist vendors
- $100 each for shared space (vendors are marketed and screened individually)
- $200 for Non-profit Art Organization Vendors
There is a non-refundable $15 submission fee that is due at the time of submission, this cost will be deducted from your participation fee upon acceptance. This fee covers the administrative costs associated with screening the event.
