Chip Schwartz ruminates on a group exhibition that parodies a birthday party. The morose and irony-tinged paintings and sculptural objects suggest the artists have long since taken off the rose-tinted glasses of childhood.
Read MoreFjord’s gallery is brimming with Freedman’s assorted colorful papier mâché and found object sculptures that exist in constant dialogue with his ideas, stories, and sketches; they are the physical manifestations of his ceaseless cerebral exercises.
Read MoreEntitled The Artist Need Not Suffer, the exhibition quickly forces you to wonder how tongue-in-cheek the title is. Paternoster’s work is an unsaturated foray into anxiety, self-doubt, introspection, and dissatisfaction with the human condition… all of which seems suspicious considering the title.
Read MoreThe approach to Napoleon’s doorway is jarring, as visitors are met by the repeat-pattern, floor-to-ceiling American flag wallpaper inside that makes the average patriotic displays at a 4th of July picnic appear like an affront to the U.S. Constitution by comparison. Numerous visitors at the First Friday opening were visibly uneasy at this unanticipated, flag-waving jingoism in their midst, but beneath the edifice lies a powerful critique.
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 More
