The new Velocity Fund, organized by Temple Contemporary and funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts, announces its first round of annual awards today. The Fund brings money to makers in Philadelphia, especially to those who work without the umbrella of a larger organization to support them. Congratulations to those who receive this year’s grants! We look forward to many more years of this new financial support to Philadelphia artists!
Read MoreWith sadness but with fingers crossed for the future, we share the announcement we received from Andrew Jeffrey Wright and the members of Space 1026. As you probably know, the building at 1026 Arch — prime real estate in a busily gentrifying neighborhood — has been sold, and now, after talking with the landlord, who has plans for the building that don’t include the member space, Space 1026 is moving out and moving on, hopefully to a new place with new print facilities and gallery. We’ve loved and championed Space 1026 since even before Artblog began in 2003. We wish the members well in this big undertaking. And we hope to see them soon in new digs.
Read MoreImani attends the first of three screenings at Lightbox of archival footage from NEWSREEL, an activist film collective that operated during the late 1960s and early ‘70s. Against the inescapable backdrop of America’s current moral crisis, this series takes a sobering look at the social and political upheavals of 50 years ago and the independent journalists who documented them.
Read MoreJennifer Zarro is back to fill us in on “Taino: Native Heritage and Identity in the Caribbean,” now on view at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City. This celebration of indigenous cultural continuity in the modern Caribbean runs through October of 2019, and will include a September 8th symposium on the Taíno movement cosponsored by the Smithsonian Latino Center.
Read MoreRoberta reports on a book documenting the African and African American art collected by Peggy Cooper Cafritz, who died last February at age 70. The book, with many full-page color plates and an autobiographical section, and short writings by artists in the collection, captures a woman who was as on fire about collecting art as she was about educating museums, curators, other collectors about the excellence of art by contemporary black artists.
Read MoreMatt Kalasky speaks with artist Li Sumpter and educators Charlie McGeehan and Sam Reed about “Survival Guide for the Future” — an emergency preparedness, Afrofuturist and post-apocalyptic inspired curriculum conducted this spring at the U School High School in collaboration with The Galleries at Moore College of Art & Design. Culminating in both a student-created zine and an exhibition at The Galleries at Moore (opening tomorrow, Friday, Aug. 3, 2018), this project gave students a platform to reflect on their current lives and imagine a vibrant teen-centric Philadelphia of the future.
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