Roberta speaks with Mark Thomas Gibson, a new arrival in Philadelphia, about his powerful show of Sumi ink drawings and collages at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, University of the Arts. Among other things, the artist, who is an Assistant Professor, Tenure-Track, at Tyler School of Art, talks about his ability to use narratives from American history channeled in old masters’ paintings to subvert the story telling and tell tales from our times. His works are filled with humor and passion tinged with anger. Mark talks about Philadelphia and is very happy to be in our community. He’s a great speaker with a lot of big thoughts about history, contemporary art, teaching art and more. Take a listen. Mark’s show at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery is up through March 8, 2019. The podcast was recorded on Friday, Feb. 8, 2019. Thanks to Morgan Nitz for the great audio editing!
Read MoreIn one of her last podcast interviews for Artblog Radio, Imani Roach speaks with Yolanda Wisher, poet, educator, community advocate and Curator of Spoken Word at Philadelphia Contemporary (PC). Wisher talks about her beginnings as a writer, fueled by a mother who was a voracious reader and forceful advocate for her as a writer when she was in elementary school. The wide-ranging conversation explores why Wisher has a studio at Cherry St. Pier; how she figured out that poetry could be used for social change; her (not widely known) work as a singer and her upcoming podcast series for PC, which will enlist Philadelphia poets and DJs and include poetry recitation and music, and not so much conversation. This great conversation was recorded at Moore College of Art and Design’s TGMR Radio, and is 38 minutes long.
Read More“Charting a Path to Resistance,” a new Percent for Art mural at the Philadelphia City Archives is an abstract representation of the struggles of African Americans in Philadelphia and their resistance to injustices perpetrated upon them. The new commission by Talia Greene uses a gridded timeline supplemented by written material available via tablet in the Archives space. Michael Lieberman notes that the new mural’s graphic display, while not self-evident in meaning, becomes clearer upon reading the copious research material provided by the artist in the tablets. The educational value of the mural is clear, even if the graphical interface is not.
Read More“Cornucopia / Urn” is a show at Spillway Gallery that features work by Nora Chellew and Suldano Abdiruhman. Samuel writes about the interplay between these two artists and how they create a dream-like space that evokes the fragmentation of memory and the nostalgic feelings we have towards the past. He also reached out to the show’s Curator, Babs Weiss, to learn more about the thought-process behind the exhibition’s conception. The show closes on February 9th, so make your way on over!
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