NEA awards $807,000 to local arts organizations to foster learning and engagement. Congratulations, all!
Read MoreLike Romare Bearden’s collages, Musson brings together a spirit of formal experimentation with a deep-rooted cultural awareness. The title of his canvas Knowledge God may refer to the 1995 song of the same name by Raekwon, of the Wu Tang Clan. The repeated patterns of the Coogi fragments echo like musical phrases across the canvas, creating a sort of sweater sound collage. Just as Bearden’s collages often evoke sense of communal ritual (as in his series, The Prevalence of Ritual), Musson draws on shared reference points that span high-brow to low-brow to create visually arresting and thought-provoking work.
Read MoreThe safari began on the fourth floor with a visit to photographer Jeffrey Stockbridge’s gallery and Fine Art Print Shop. Stockbridge discussed several of his projects with the safari, including “Kensington Blues.” This on-going project documents the people of one of Philadelphia’s most impoverished and underserved communities.
Read MoreActivating the unique Kensington industrial warehouse annex with sound, Botello and other sound-artists-in-residence are filling the Icebox’s white cube with unusual sounds during the year of 2016. In contrast to Jane Carver’s analog performance, Botello and the others are “painting” multiple sound images in the Icebox using digital computer software and electronic voices. Echo, feedback, movement, and tonal reduction in the high-ceilinged cinder-block and concrete space make sound almost physical, palpable, synesthetic.
Read MoreMuseum News 1 – Public Sculpture by the late Dina Wind debuts at Woodmere Art Museum – It’s big!
From Woodmere’s Gabrielle Turgoose, the piece by Dina Wind is a 30-foot steel sculpture, titled, Spring & Triangle. “…this is a fabrication based on a maquette of 1986 and the realization of the artist’s dream to see her work made on a public scale, interacting with trees, the sky, and the grandeur of nature,” said Turgoose, Director of Communications at the Museum.
Read MoreFor over forty years, Quentin Morris has explored the possibilities of blackness. Larry Becker and Heidi Nivling have selected twelve of Morris’ works, dating as far back as 1980 and as recently as March, 2016, in the current exhibition, “Quentin Morris, Untitled.” I found this thoughtfully organized show moving and meditative. While all the pieces belong to the same dark universe, each one draws the viewer in with its subtle variations of shape, texture, and tone.
Read MoreI caught up with ASR student Gabrielle Patterson, who graduated from University of Pennsylvania a year ago with a BFA in Fine Arts, and some wizardly animation skills. After graduation, Gabrielle decided to stay in Philadelphia where she has been working part time for an educational media production company, Fabian-Baber, Inc. in Media, PA. She’s also working at the Lea school’s after-school program. And this summer, she will be teaching an animation workshop for high school students at the Brandywine Workshop.
Read MoreHoused at the Tyler School of Art, reForm tells the story of Fairhill Elementary’s untimely closure and of the students evicted. Fairhill was but one of two dozen schools shut down by the city of Philadelphia due to budgetary concerns in 2013. The school remains closed to this day. Osorio collaborated with teachers, students, parents, and neighbors to retrieve abandoned items from the school and create a work of installation art that would decry the injustice Osorio saw in the closing of Fairhill.
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