This stunning, indeed mind-boggling, monograph is the ultimate resource on the art of Paul Laffoley, whose works function as charts and diagrams of the Boston artist’s highly individual understanding of the physical, psychic, and spiritual world. They could be illustrations to a cosmology textbook written by a multi-authored committee which included Plato, Dante Alighieri, Giordano Bruno, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, P.D. Ouspensky, H.P. Lovecraft, and the physicist who named “black holes,” John Wheeler.
Read MoreI give this exhibit 3 out of 3 wishes, which means it made me wish for three things. It is a nice view of designs. The designs with bright, bold colors are like dresses I have never seen before. They are a fierce combination of a lot of different colors and shapes like chicken heads on straight fabric with a stained glass design on the ruffled fabric all on one dress! I wish there were kids’ fashions in the exhibit, too. I also wish that I could see how they are sold in Africa. What do the shops look like? Who gets to wear these clothes? I wish I could! They are interesting fashions and would make the person wearing them look bold and fierce. Three wishes means it made me imagine 3 things and that is why I love to go to museums!
Read MoreWalking the aisles I was soon drawn to the Fluxus-like work, Dé, Joue ou Perdes (2015) by French conceptualist Claude Closky. A limited edition box work by the art publisher We Do Not Work Alone, is simple and wonderfully insane. It is also a metaphor in so many ways for what was echoing in my mind: A single die, with five of its six sides commanding: JOUEZ (play) and one, signaling: PERDU (lost). A restless game without end.
Read MoreArtist-run spaces are quite creative when it comes to naming their spaces. Recall a small handful (in alphabetical order) in Philadelphia: Fjord, Grizzly Grizzly, Little Berlin, Lord Ludd, Napoleon, New Boone, Pterodactyl, Tiger Strikes Asteroid and Vox Populi. In light of these names, I think a naïve question needs to be posed: why do so many artist-run spaces organize their activities under the rubric of names that, on a formal level, have very little to do with artistic production?
Read MoreIt’s not often that the whole of an exhibition overpowers its component parts. But with the sharp, brilliant shapes, vigorous diagonals, and eye-popping colors that come at you from practically every direction, Hues Muse at Mt. Airy Contemporary is a show that does just that. With eleven strong paintings by four local artists, Hues Muse feels almost like a grand celebration of color and shape arranged by those avowed colorists, Josef Albers or Ellsworth Kelly. Everywhere you turn, some bright, otherworldly being or design faces you, or provides a window through which to peer, or presents you with something you cannot resist mind-playing with. Bravo to curator Andrea Wohl Keefe.
Read MoreWe are all looking for conversations that move the discussion forward. There are some good ones coming up that you might want to partake of. And, strengthening our local art scene is more important than ever. Reduced funding for the arts is coming. The new climate of intolerance may quash advances in diversity and experimentation in the arts. Small institutions are more at risk since they live at the margin of the larger art world. At this “giving” time of year, make a donation to your favorite small arts institution or group.
Read MoreThe organ is an instrument that is too massively impressive to be ignored. The Philadelphia Orchestra dedicated a concert on November 17-19 to the celebration of the 10th anniversary of Verizon Hall’s Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ (an organ of nearly 7,000 pipes!). This concert showed off the very best of what the organ can do–specifically for organist extraordinaire Paul Jacobs, a Curtis Institute of Music graduate and the only organist to ever earn a Grammy Award.
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