Artblog | Artblog Radio

November 9, 2016 By Roberta

Amanda Silberling talks about art activism and rape culture on campus

The art activist group We Are Watching was organized by Amanda Silberling and her friends at the University of Pennsylvania, where they are undergraduates. Propelled to action by an email sent by a fraternity to incoming Penn freshmen girls to come to a party and be ready to, basically, put out, Silberling and her colleagues blanketed the campus with flyers outing the fraternity for its crass invitation, with its implied embrace of rape culture.

October 20, 2016 By Roberta

Will Owen Talks Travel, Sound Art, Collaboration, and the Chinatown Bus

Will Owen is an artist working primarily with design, interactive media, sound…and FOOD! He’s a Little Berlin member who I met in 2014 for a show he curated at that space. He’s a bit of a nomad, living between Philadelphia and New York, where he is an artist in residence at Flux Factory in Queens. So it’s kind of no surprise that some of his curating involves transit, especially subways (he did an audio piece for the Copenhagen subway system) and buses (he’s curated exhibitions on the Chinatown buses between New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore).

October 12, 2016 By Roberta

Elaine Byrne – Classic material with a contemporary context

Irish artist Elaine Byrne makes work that uses Dante, James Joyce and other heady source material for her works with political and social commentary on contemporary issues. In one case she is calling out an Irish bank scandal, using Dante’s Purgatorio and a pilgrimage location in Ireland called St. Patrick’s Purgatory; in another she’s raising issues about anti-Semitism in the context of Joyce’s Cyclops section of Ulysses. The videos are captivating, and give so very much to chew over. Elaine’s Irish accent is part of the treat of this 38-minutes long podcast.

October 3, 2016 By Roberta

Eileen Neff Talks Poetry, Nature, and Travel

Artist, Pew Fellow, and 2016 Guggenheim Grantee Eileen Neff makes photographs and prints them large, small, framed or unframed, and, recently, shaped–like her photo of a leaf is shaped like a leaf, which appeared in her 2015 solo show at Bridgette Mayer Gallery, which represents her.

September 30, 2016 By Roberta

Jodi Throckmorton on Ghosts, Cassils, and Curating Contemporary at PAFA

Before arriving at PAFA, Jodi Throckmorton was Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Wichita State University. Prior to that, she lived in the new media mecca of Silicon Valley, where she was Associate Curator at the San Jose Museum of Art for eight years. Now at PAFA, Throckmorton is bringing her considerable energy and wide-ranging interest in contemporary art to integrating edgy contemporary art with PAFA’s traditional strong suits of figuration and realism.

September 22, 2016 By Roberta

Gee Wesley’s vision – a world of books and more

Perhaps you stopped by Reading Terminal last Friday and saw the pop up bookstore on Filbert Street? Ulises is the name of the store, and Gee Wesley and collaborators are the founders. The alternative/experimental bookstore project will open a more permanent home in October in a converted garage space at 31 E. Columbia Ave. Phila 19125.

September 13, 2016 By Roberta

Clint Takeda + Scott Hewicker Talk about Psychedelia, Music, and Art

Clint Takeda and Scott Hewicker met 15 years ago when Takeda was head preparator at the ICA and Hewicker was a featured artist in Alex Baker’s East Meets West exhibition. This month the two meet again in an exhibition at Grizzly Grizzly.

September 8, 2016 By Roberta

José Ortiz-Pagán talks of etching on steel and curating a booth at “Unlisted”

José Ortiz-Pagán grew up in a small town in Southern Puerto Rico where he was a skater and a fledgling grafitti artist. Fast forward a few and now, he’s been in Philadelphia for seven years. The Tyler MFA in printmaking and sculpture talks about being an activist and about the political roots of his current work at the new Latino art commercial gallery, RACSO.