Most of the works focus on the results of gentrification that continues to take place in Philadelphia, where the the displacement of people and things have transformed them all into a kind of debris. While it’s not stated overtly, the emphasis on impoverished people and forgotten neighborhoods infuses the show with political meaning. Due to its political content and focus on urban decay, debris, and poverty, you won’t find pretty views of Philadelphia.
Read MoreSheherzade, the storyteller from The 1001 Nights, is a master of survival, able to keep herself and her sister alive by entertaining the king (who wants to kill them) with nightly stories that always end on a cliffhanger at the break of day. Like Sheherzade’s tales, the works by thirteen Muslim-American women in Sheherzade’s Gift are sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and always clever.
Read MoreEach time I visited the space to see “Shotgun Inversion,” fellow onlookers seemed more or less unaware of or unconcerned by its status as a sculptural object. People leaned up against the wall or brushed their fingers against it as they passed, chain-link fence-style. A friend and I hung our arms over the waist-high partition on one side like it was a carnival booth. One visitor wondered aloud what she’d do if she dropped her phone on the other side of the structure.
Read MoreNearly any contemporary art excursion around Philadelphia in 2016 is sure to yield a wide range of styles and spectacles, but one persistent–if scruffy–thread is certainly the DIY flavor of many Philly-based artists’ work. At Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery’s exhibit Circa 1995, this commonality is not merely present, it is represented in local art-historical context through objects crafted some twenty years ago. This juncture in Philadelphia’s visual culture would help give rise not only to the ongoing careers of the artists participating in this show, but to a distinctive artist-run flavor that persists in Philly to this day.
Read MoreBlake reminds us of the artist’s métier with his wide-ranging endeavors–that the work is lifelong, the endeavor is serious and results are surprising reflections of what we’ve buried in our lives, our homes and our collective unconscious.
Read MoreMichelle Marcuse flirted with sculpture-making for a long while, but only when she started channeling her memories of childhood in suburban Capetown, South Africa, did she find her 3D voice. Marcuse, who along with her partner, Henry Bermudez, runs House Gallery also found her materials — recycled cardboard, glue — and aesthetic that is primal and playful, combining both pieces of her childhood experience.
Read MoreTo say the stairs are steep at the James Oliver Gallery is to say Mt. Everest is high. I have a mind to petition for a rest stop two flights up. The payoff, though, is a few calories lost and a big white cube. A strip of room as long as a bowling lane ends with a spacious bar and a plum view of downtown. Paintings, drawings, sculptures, and assemblage pieces fill most of the wall space. It’s the tenth anniversary show—JOG10, and there’s an installation of wooden birds—a flock in, um, flight.
Read MoreBe respectful when a space has “success” in your city. Be proud of them, if that’s what they wanted. Call them out if they still use the word “alternative” to describe themselves, especially if they don’t talk about their stake in our community and society in general. Understand that “artist-run” does not mean anti-institution or DIY. We are being tricked by capitalism, which makes us believe that we are providing alternatives, that we are allies to social movements, while we are actually mirroring society’s systems of oppression. Work by yourself in your basement because, according to everybody, it is impossible to avoid capitalism. If we do participate at all, though, we need to own up to the fact that we are perpetuating deep-rooted systems.
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