Philadelphia welcomes a new arts administrator, collaborator, curator to town; PAFA welcomes a new Hudson River painting to its collection, and 40th St. A.I.R. wants you!
Read MoreCongratulations to Michelle Angela Ortiz, who has been recognized as a Citizen Artist Fellow, and to Eastern State Penitentiary, which received an award for excellence in exhibitions. Monument Lab has announced more details about the 21 artist projects for fall 2017, including stalwarts like RAIR. Printmakers, check out the fellowship opportunity at Second State Press (deadline 5/22). Plus, queer sci-fi reading at Vox Populi, Lenka Clayton and Dan Byers in conversation at the Fabric Workshop, PAFA’s 116th Annual Student Exhibition, Broad Street Review hosts a discussion about arts funding, and a good read about cartoonist Roz Chast’s embroidery.
Read MoreIn anniversary news, Drexel is celebrating 125 years, with a show that displays some historic geeky and cool objects, like the Mac computers (shown above) that the school (and some of us geeks) used back in the day. More information at the show’s website. The exhibit is up now through March 19 at the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery.
Read MoreSomething about the design of the geodesic dome captures the imagination, and the evolution of the design demonstrates how certain abstractions transmogrify when released into the consciousness of a society. Johnson’s work shows us the jump from abstraction to a series of structures which seek to embody both utopian and utilitarian ideals. Geodesic domes may be an imperfect example, but Johnson’s project does capture something of the mystery surrounding the idea-to-object process, and suggests that the results are intriguingly impossible to predict.
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 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 MoreOn September 28, a group of approximately 30 people gathered in Vox Populi’s black box performance space to talk about art criticism, as part of the 2016 New Art Writing Challenge sponsored by Artblog and the St. Claire.
Read MoreOffering insights into the general state of art criticism in Philadelphia: its strengths, its weaknesses, its causes and effects, its defining characteristics, its responsibilities, its audiences, the New Art Writing Challenge 2016 Roundtable Discussion offers thoughtful discourse about something we talk about, worry over, and have opinions on, but only few of us do: art writing and reviewing.
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