MFA Ceramics, Painting & Sculpture @ UArts

Matthew Frock: Love2 / Kickstarter Book Launch

2012-02-02T23:11:00.001-05:00

Check Out Matt Frock's Kickstarter Book Launch!

Love Squared First Edition For Sale on Kickstarter

Expect rapture – a bolt of inspiring lightning, instantaneously fracturing the mind at the moment of its mysterious conception. A vision if you like – from the like-minded genius of the author to your own noggin (we share the same mind, I’m reading your mind right now). Efficiently and concisely told, this is a story of fantastic brilliance – a crusading pilgrimage to the center of your beautiful and caring heart. It’s true what the experts say, “Love Squared will change your life forever!”

Details to follow about book release party at Brickbat Books in June!

Matthew Sepielli: Cathedral @ Tiger Strikes Asteroid / Opening  Reception:   Friday,  February  3,  6pm‐10pm

2012-01-21T11:13:00.001-05:00

Matthew Sepielli: Cathedral

PHILADELPHIA- Tiger Strikes Asteroid is pleased to announce its February 2012 exhibition, “Cathedral”, a project by Matthew Sepielli.

Though conceived as a cohesive project, the exhibit will have two distinctive parts; ten carved white paintings made of plaster on linen in the main gallery and a film in the gallery’s closet space.

“Cathedral” draws its inspiration from many different sources. Thoughts of sitting in a quiet church in the evening, watching the sun set in the winter and memories of walking in the woods late at night are all moments that are a part of its creation.

In addition, two different writers and their works have played an enormous role in the conception of the exhibit: Raymond Carver and his short story, “Cathedral” and Jun’ichirō Tanizaki and his essay, “In Praise of Shadows”.

The paintings in the show will be hung high on the walls to reference cathedral windows. Along with this, the works in the show will only be lit by daylight, the indirect light of the building’s hallway and a small lamp on the gallery’s desk. Those who attend the gallery during daylight hours will see the works in more light; those who attend during evening hours or the opening will see the works in dimmer light.

In the gallery’s closet space will be a short film made by the artist.

Matthew Sepielli is an artist living in Philadelphia and a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid.

Matthew Sepielli: Cathedral

February 3 - 26, 2012

Opening reception: Friday, February 3, 6pm-10pm

Hours: Saturday and Sunday, 2pm-6pm and by appointment

(484)-469-0319, tigerstrikesasteroid@gmail.com

Tiger Strikes Asteroid is an artist-run and artist-curated exhibition space located at 319A North 11th Street, home to Vox Populi, Marginal Utility, Grizzly Grizzly, and Napoleon. Our goal is to connect the Philadelphia art scene to the global art community by showing the work of emerging artists from Philadelphia and other cities such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

319A North 11^th Street 2H, Philadelphia, PA 19107

http://www.TigerStrikesAsteroid.com

Twee Abstraction @ Tiger Strikes Asteroid / Opening reception: Friday, 1/6/12, 6pm-10pm

2011-12-30T19:14:00.000-05:00

Twee Abstraction

PHILADELPHIA - Tiger Strikes Asteroid is pleased to announce the opening of its January exhibition, Twee Abstraction, curated by Tiger Strikes Asteroid member Alex Paik.

Twee Abstraction brings together the work of several abstract artists whose practices recall the sweetness and childish clunkiness of early twee pop music. Bands such as Talulah Gosh, The Field Mice, or Beat Happening abandoned the nihilistic and political overtones of punk music and combined its DIY spirit and straightforward, three-chord simplicity with a love of 60s jangly guitars and girl-group harmonies into a music that was lo-ﬁ,
straightforward, and delicate.

Similarly, the artists in Twee Abstraction exhibit a predisposition toward the straightforward, the fragile, and the hand-made. Whether it be through the use of fragile materials, through willfully amateur technique, or through a love of simple compositional strategies and bright color harmonies, these artists invite viewers to an experience that is intimate, playful, and gracefully underworked.

Exhibiting artists:
Lauren Collings
Suzanne Goldenberg
Siobhan Liddell
Andrew Masullo
Jeffrey Scott Matthews
Brooke Moyse
Alex Paik
Caroline Santa
Tamara Zahaykevich

Twee Abstraction
January 6 - 29, 2012
Opening reception: Friday, January 6, 6pm-10pm
Hours: Saturday and Sunday, 2pm-6pm and by appointment

319A North 11th Street 2H, Philadelphia, PA 19107 | http://www.TigerStrikesAsteroid.com

Sending warm wishes from all of the members of Tiger Strikes Asteroid for a prosperous New Year and a joyful Holiday Season!

HAPPY HOLIDAY! Love, TSA

2011-12-19T10:35:00.000-05:00

Hello TSA Friends!
After the Holiday bustle, come and celebrate an exciting new year of exhibitions with Tiger Strikes Asteroid.

Please join us for our January exhibition, Twee Abstraction, curated by Tiger Strikes Asteroid member Alex Paik.

Twee Abstraction, curated by Alex Paik
January 6 - 29, 2012
Opening reception: Friday, January 6, 6pm-10pm

Gallery hours Saturday & Sunday, 2PM-6PM & by appointment

Appointments: (484)-469-0319, tigerstrikesasteroid@gmail.com

319A North 11th Street 2H, Philadelphia, PA 19107 | http://www.TigerStrikesAsteroid.com

Sending warm wishes from all of the members of Tiger Strikes Asteroid for a prosperous New Year and a joyful Holiday Season!

--
- Terri Saulin Frock for Tiger Strikes Asteroid

Panel Discussion w/ Gerard Brown: “ ” @ Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Friday, December 2, 2011 / 6 – 6:45pm, Featuring Gerard Brown, David Stephens and Robin Rice

2011-11-28T20:17:00.002-05:00

Photo courtesy of Jaime Alverez

Are you a Reader or a Seer?

Gerard Brown

“ ”

Friday, December 2, 2011

Panel Discussion: 6 – 6:45pm

Please join us for an evening of conversation with Gerard Brown, David Stephens and Robin Rice.

Tiger Strikes Asteroid
319A North 11th Street 2H, Philadelphia, PA 19107
(484)-469-0319

For more information and images of Gerard Brown's exhibition at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, go here!

Photo courtesy of Jaime Alverez

Opportunity

2011-11-16T16:08:00.001-05:00

I’m writingto inform you that the Indianapolis Museum of Art is currently issuing a callfor proposals for a summer 2012 six-week residency on Andrea Zittel’s IndianapolisIsland within the IMA’s 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art and NaturePark. Graduate and undergraduate students and emerging professionals in thefields of art, design, architecture and performing arts are encouraged to applyto customize and reside on Indianapolis Island.

Anchored inthe 35-acre lake within 100 Acres, Indianapolis Island is a habitable“off-the-grid” structure accessible by rowboat. At about 20 feet in diameter,the island serves as an experimental living structure that examines the dailyneeds of contemporary human beings. Residents collaborate with Zittel byadapting and modifying the island’s structure according to their individualneeds. The project blends elements of environmental art, sculpture, design andperformance in a unique way, offering a challenging and experimental forum forexploring ideas about individualism and self-sufficiency.

We ask thatyou please share this unique opportunity with your students and colleagues. Ihave attached a flyer for distribution around your institution and a pressrelease with further information. You can also direct those interested inapplying to our residency website (www.imamuseum.org/islandresidency),where renderings and images of Indianapolis Island as well asinformation about the application process are posted.

Please letme know if you have any further questions.

Manythanks.

All best,

Amanda

AmandaYork
CuratorialAssistant, Department of Contemporary Art

Indianapolis Museum of Art
4000 Michigan Road
Indianapolis, IN 46208-3326
T 317-923-1331 x529 F 317-931-1978
ayork@imamuseum.org
http://www.imamuseum.org

EVENTS FILTER

2011-11-09T19:50:00.002-05:00

beta

Hey Philly Artist friends! This site is being constructed by my friend Jeremy Klotz. It is a great opportunity to generate "FREE" press and a lasting log of your artistic endeavors. Please check it out, create a profile and become part of comprehensive artist's listing!
Best,
Terri Saulin

EventsFilter.com is an arts calendar platform: a repository of artist, gallery and event information that allows people to, at no cost, post information and siphon off dynamically generated content to make new websites or to add content to existing ones.

Every artist should take 5 minutes and make a profile on EventsFilter. Our 'child' site PHLocal.com will be launched this fall and will include a listing of artists by neighborhood / town. Profiles will be linked to the events artists participate in, serve as a record of past events and contain links to artists websites.

EventsFilter maintains the largest listing of art events and visual artists in the Philadelphia region. Our mission is to increase the exposure of art information so that more people will attend art events and support local artists.

http://eventsfilter.com/

Dynamic content sharing examples:
Our samples site – http://efsamples.blogspot.com
http://www.bennascafe.com/
http://www.visiteastpassyunk.com/

Gerard Brown: “ ” @ Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Opening Reception Friday, November 4, 2011 5 – 10pm

2011-10-21T23:22:00.003-04:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tiger Strikes Asteroid is pleased to announce their November exhibition

Gerard Brown

“ ”

November 4 – December 31, 2011

Opening Reception Friday, November 4, 2011 5 – 10pm

PHILADELPHIA – Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Philadelphia’s artist-curated exhibition space presents “ ”, an exhibition of new works on paper by Philadelphia artist Gerard Brown. The show opens with a reception on First Friday, November 4, 2011. The gallery is located at 319 N. 11th Street, Philadelphia, PA. Gallery hours are Saturday & Sunday 2pm-6pm & by appointment. For additional information and images please contact our staff or gallery director Matt Sepielli, at tel. (484)-469-0319, tigerstrikesasteroid@gmail.com

The exhibit of paintings and prints continues Brown’s exploration of the intersections between reading and seeing, and its punctuated title (which can be read as “blank quote” or “smart quotes”) alludes to the use of others' words in the work. Two large pieces dominate the show; a multi-panel drawing in gouache on paper translates Frank O’Hara’s 1957 poem “To the Harbormaster” into nautical code flags, and a 32-part digital print conflates images of oceanographic satellite photography with James McBride’s bestselling 1996 memoir, “The Color of Water”. “I want to know what happens when things are misunderstood,” Brown says, “when messages that are encoded are not seen as meaningful, or when an attempt to communicate directly is seen as a formal gesture.” During the run of the exhibit, the gallery will release an essay by artist David Stephens and art writer Robin Rice that discusses the works.

Gerard Brown is an Assistant Professor and Chair of the Foundation Department at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art. A longtime participant in the Philadelphia art community, he contributed art reviews to the Philadelphia Weekly and Seven Arts magazine in the 1990s and, with City Paper critic Robin Rice, began eyelevel, a newsletter of art criticism that appeared occasionally throughout the late 1990s. He has organized exhibits and contributed essays to galleries and museums throughout the region, and is currently the Resident Scholar at the Center for Art in Wood, where he organized “Turning to Art In Wood: A Creative Journey” in observation of the newly re-named organization’s 25th anniversary. This is Brown’s third one-person exhibit, and his first in Philadelphia.

Tiger Strikes Asteroid is an artist-run and artist-curated exhibition space located at 319A North 11th Street, home to Vox Populi, Marginal Utility, Grizzly Grizzly, and Progressive Sharing. Our goal is to connect the Philadelphia art scene to the global art community by showing the work of emerging artists from Philadelphia and other cities such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. In addition to its exhibition programs, Tiger Strikes Asteroid maintains Flat File, a collection of small-scale artworks by past, current and future exhibitors. All works in Flat File are under 9 x 12 inches and are available for sale. The collection may be viewed by appointment.

Gallery hours Saturday & Sunday, 2PM-6PM & by appointment
Appointments: (484)-469-0319, tigerstrikesasteroid@gmail.com

319A North 11th Street 2H, Philadelphia, PA 19107 | http://www.TigerStrikesAsteroid.com

- Terri Saulin for Tiger Strikes Asteroid

Shawn Beeks @ Slingluff: Reviewed in Title Magazine

2011-10-21T14:26:00.002-04:00

Check out a review of Dick at the Slingluff Gallery.

http://www.title-magazine.com/clark_1021.html

The Unsettled @ UD Crane: October 13 – November 27, 2011- 2nd Thursday Receptions: October 13th & November 10th from 6-9pm

2011-10-07T09:31:00.001-04:00

October 13 – November 27, 2011
2nd Thursday Receptions: October 13th & November 10th from 6-9pm
Location: University of Delaware Gallery
Hours: Wednesday, 12-4, and Thursday thru Sunday 12 to 6

Though the word “grotesque” has in contemporary usage come to refer primarily to the unpleasant or disgusting, The Unsettled instead explores the term as it relates to notions of duality, hybridism, and transformation. The work chosen occupies the physical, mental, and cultural spaces between states of being and emphasizes those unsettling elements that exist just below the civilized veneer of society. It is about those things we attempt to hide from our friends, family, neighbors, and even ourselves, and the transformations that take place as a result of such suppression, It is about the futility of denying our basic natures and examines the mechanisms by which our fears, doubts, and primal instincts – real and imagined – manifest themselves to ourselves and the world around us, on both a personal and societal level. Taken as a whole, The Unsettled suggests that what we think is solid might not be, and dares us as viewers and artists to peek beneath the surface of what we consider normal.

co-currated by Michael Merry and Patrick Koziol, two currentUniveristy of Delaware MFA students

Featuring:

Susan Camp
Erica Eyres
Alex Fogt
Brandon Jones
Patrick Koziol
Michael Merry
Cindy Stockton Moore
Josh Nobiling
Andrew Prayzner
Elaine Quave
Troy Richards
Terri Saulin
Jacob Smiley
Adam Parker Smith
Lindsay Wraga

PRESS: http://theartblog.org/2011/10/unsettled-and-unsettling-at-the-udel-gallery-at-the-crane/

Alex Paik @ Tiger Strikes Asteroid

2011-09-30T13:21:00.001-04:00

Alex Paik: Start to Move
October 7 – 30, 2011

PHILADELPHIA - Tiger Strikes Asteroid is pleased to announce the opening of its October exhibition, Start to Move, featuring new work by New York based artist Alex Paik.

"Start to Move" is a song from post-punk band Wire's seminal album, Pink Flag. Trouser Press said of the album: "The group manipulated classic rock song structure by condensing them into brief, intense explosions of attitude and energy." Similarly, Alex Paik's new small-scale paper assemblages feel like dense clusters of brightly colored forms that threaten to simultaneously explode and collapse. The new work hugs the line between being tightly composed and loosely improvised and recall the early formal experiments of the 60s and 70s and the inventive abstraction of Paul Klee or, more recently, Thomas Nozkowski.There is a sweetness about the work in the twee color palette and the toy-sized scale, but at the same time a fuck-all swagger in the laughably lo-ﬁ paint handling and angular, chopped up forms.

Alex Paik received his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and his BFA from Penn State University. He was the founder and director of Tiger Strikes Asteroid and currently lives and works in New York. He has shown throughout the United States, including a recent solo exhibition at U-Turn Art Space in Cincinnati, OH and a group show called Get on the Block at Camel Art Space in Brooklyn, NY.

Alex Paik: Start to Move
October 7 – 30, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, October 7 6pm-10pm
TIGER STRIKES ASTEROID
319A North 11th Street 2H, Philadelphia, PA 19107
http://www.TigerStrikesAsteroid.com

October 23, 2011

Title Magazine: September Highlights

2011-09-19T11:12:00.005-04:00

What is Title Magazine? Title Magazine is a new online art magazine that focuses exclusively upon art in the city of brotherly love-ish. Included among the throngs of insightful Title contributors are a handful of UArts almuns, spreading their critical wings. Funny you should ask, but yes, yes I do have a review up in this month's issue! It just so happens to focus upon Tiger Strikes Asteroid's Moving On. Long story short, here is a link:

http://title-magazine.com/

The article should be up later today. In the meantime, check out Veronica Cianfrano's pearls regarding Ai Weiwei @ the Slought Foundation. This issue just so happens to be edited by Tiernan Alexander

Mr. Shawn Beeks @ The Slingluff Gallery in October

2011-09-19T11:04:00.008-04:00

MFA Painting graduate Shawn Beeks graces Slingluff's white walls.

www.slingluffgallery.com

Moving On @ TIGER STRIKES ASTEROID, Featuring, Timothy Belknap, William Blackhurst, Carolee Schneemann, Curated by Ryan McCartney

2011-09-15T19:54:00.001-04:00

Moving On

Timothy Belknap, William Blackhurst, Carolee Schneemann

Curated by Ryan McCartney

September 2 – October 2, 2011

Opening Reception: Friday, September 2, 2011 6pm – 10pm

PHILADELPHIA- Tiger Strikes Asteroid is pleased to announce the opening of its September exhibition, Moving On, featuring the works of Timothy Belknap, William Blackhurst, and Carolee Schneemann.

Moving On presents work from three artists; each dealing intimately with motion, the body, and the relationship between. Whether in object, image, or both, the works in the show treat movement as an integral component in content and in context, rather than as technique or novelty. Each artist subverts expectations of their media, through a variety of means including scale shift, humor, raw experimentation, and the invocation of cultural taboo, in order to ground the viewer in experience- to ground the viewer in the physical, the now of the relationship before them.

Works on view will include experimental animation, kinetic sculpture, and Carolee Schneemann’s 1965 film,“Fuses”.

Tim Belknap is a multimedia artist, living and working in Philadelphia. He has shown extensively, both locally and nationally.

William Blackhurst is an animator and a painter, currently residing in London, UK. This is his first gallery exhibit.

Carolee Schneemann is a world renowned, groundbreaking artist who has influenced generations of fellow artists.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS EXHIBITION CONTAINS SEXUAL MATERIAL NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN

Moving On

Tim Belknap, William Blackhurst, Carolee Schneemann

curated by Ryan McCartney

July 8 – 31, 2011

TIGER STRIKES ASTEROID
319A North 11th Street 2H
Philadelphia, PA 19107
http://www.TigerStrikesAsteroid.com

Opening Reception: Friday, September 2, 2011 6pm – 10pm

Press: http://www.title-magazine.com/2011/09/moving-on/

Friday, August 5 - 28, 2011 @ TIGER STRIKES ASTEROID

2011-07-29T16:10:00.000-04:00

Tracy Thomason:

Highlights, Low Fades, and Deep Cuts

August 5 - 28, 2011

PHILADELPHIA- Tiger Strikes Asteroid is pleased to

announce the opening of its August exhibition, Highlights,

Low Fades, and Deep Cuts, a solo exhibition of recent works

by Tracy Thomason.

Thomasonʼs work employs conventional

painting and sculptural materials along with personal

materials and actions – a deconstructed leather glove, hair

gel, temperance, self-tanner, tears, oil, paper clay, and canvas are among the materials in her

studio arsenal. Expertly manipulated, these materials yield work that is wildly tactile, is evocative

of an intersection between aggression and decoration, embodies gendered beauty rituals of

transformation, and highlights a tenuous balance between improvisation and careful

composition.

The showʼs essayist, Melissa Giannini, notes:

Tracy Thomasonʼs work stirs an impulse to touch, try on, wrap oneself up inside the history of

her chosen (often donated and/or recycled) materials, evoking sunny afternoons spent rifling

through a rack of threadbare jeans and faded leather jackets at a thrift store, a faint pencil mark

waiting to be brushed away like a stray hair off a loverʼs shoulder. Actual hair drapes from

abstract canvases like a lowered false eyelash or Amish-style beard. A chunk of alabaster glows

with the embarrassed blush of expertly applied rouge. Splotches of hair gel blot a stretched

canvas like sex. A felted and dyed yoga mat is infused with a sense of abandoned (or

repurposed) idealism. Simply put, her pieces speak for themselves.

About the artist:

Tracy Thomason was born in Gaithersburg, Maryland and currently lives and works in Brooklyn,

New York. She has exhibited widely in the U.S. and abroad, recently with James Fuentes

Gallery in New York, NY, Nudashank in Baltimore, MD, and Second Home Projects in Berlin.

She received her MFA in Painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan in 2008 and her

BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore in 2006. She has given lectures at

Cranbrook Academy of Art and the University of Knoxville, TN. Tracy is a fourth generation

female artist.

Tracy Thomason: Highlights, Low Fades, and Deep Cuts

August 5-28, 2011

Opening Reception: Friday, August 5, 2011, 6pm-10pm

Hours: Saturday and Sunday, 2pm-6pm and by appointment

--
Tiger Strikes Asteroid
319A North 11th Street, 2nd Floor, Suite 2H
Philadelphia PA 19107
Hours: Saturday and Sunday, 2pm-6pm and by appointment
http://www.tigerstrikesasteroid.com

Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Rebekah Templeton, Grizzly Grizzly, & Marginal Utility are Having a Group Exhibition! Thursday, July 14, 2011, 6pm-10pm

2011-07-11T19:06:00.001-04:00

Please join:
Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Rebekah Templeton, Grizzly Grizzly, & Marginal Utility for a Group Exhibition!
Thursday, July 14, 2011, 6pm-10pm

Our galleries are a labor of love and our involvement and commitment to them runs concurrently with our commitments to studio and curatorial practices.
We want to show you what we’ve been up to!

NO IDLE HANDS

Crane Arts LLC
SUITE 102
1400 N American Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122-3803

Opening Reception 6pm-10pm
Other visits by appointment only:
PHONE: (484)-469-0319
EMAIL: TigerStrikesAsteroid@gmail.com

"Best Art Opening Ever"???

2011-07-11T10:46:00.000-04:00

That will teach me to stay home...

See the artblog piece on Young Country and Cosmic Bodies for more...

PROOF OF MY UNKNOWING EYES: Amy Beecher / Susan Bricker @ Tiger Strikes Asteroid

2011-06-30T16:44:00.003-04:00

Proof of My Unknowing Eyes
July 8 – 31, 2011

Essay by Jeffrey Scott Matthews
Essay by Mathew Schneier

PHILADELPHIA- Tiger Strikes Asteroid is pleased to
announce the opening of its July exhibition, Proof of My
Unknowing Eyes, featuring the works of Susan Bricker
and Amy Beecher.

The showʼs essayist, Jeffrey Scott Mathews, notes:

In the work of Amy Beecher and Susan Bricker, we are presented with visual criteria establishing both presence and absence in the material and in the immaterial. In both of the artistsʼ work, there is a manipulation of paint, yet there exists an elusive and supernatural component to the work that suggests a tenuous relationship with the traditional or fundamentalist modes of abstraction and representation.

About the artists:

Amy Beecher received her MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University and her BA,Visual Art with Honors, Brown University, Providence, RI. She has exhibited and curated widely in the United States and currently resides in New York City. A portion of Amy Beecher's work for this exhibition was expertly printed by Philadelphia Photo Arts Center.

Susan Bricker was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA in Painting, from Cranbrook Academy of Art and her BFA in Painting at San Francisco Art Institute. Bricker also has a BA in Psychology from The University of Oregon. She has exhibited widely in the US and abroad recently at Mixed Greens, New York, NY and Second Home Projects, Berlin, Germany

Proof of My Unknowing Eyes
Amy Beecher / Susan Bricker
July 8 – 31, 2011

TIGER STRIKES ASTEROID
319A North 11th Street 2H
Philadelphia, PA 19107
http://www.TigerStrikesAsteroid.com
Opening Reception: Friday, July 8, 2011 6pm – 10pm

Please help support our “Kickstarter” Project We have until July 12, 2011!!!!
To make a donation please visit our project page: Tiger Strikes Asteroid Moves and Expands!
URL is: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2082312048/tiger-strikes-asteroid-moves-and-expands

Come out and see Summer Above at TSA - We’re Open This weekend!

2011-06-11T10:11:00.001-04:00

Essay By Wallace Whitney
Come out and see Summer Above at TSA
-We're open this weekend!
While you're at it, please think about donating to our Kickstarter project!
We have 31 days left and we are 74% to our goal- get some great rewards for donating!
Can't donate ﬁnancially?
Please consider helping us by donating your Facebook status and sharing our project with your
friends! Feel Free to pass this e-mail on to interested friends.
Thanks so much for your help and consideration.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2082312048/tiger-strikes-asteroid-moves-and-expands
--
Tiger Strikes Asteroid
319A North 11th Street, 2nd Floor, Suite 2H
Philadelphia PA 19107
Hours: Saturday and Sunday, 2pm-6pm and by appointment
http://www.tigerstrikesasteroid.com

- Terri Saulin for Tiger Strikes Asteroid
terrisaulin.com

2011-06-03T17:17:00.000-04:00

http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/rfp/rfp_item.jhtml?id=341100057

Big Grant Op for New Jersey Resident! Be well ya'll!

Tiger Strikes Asteroid Launches Kickstarter!

2011-04-13T14:25:00.000-04:00

Tiger Strikes Asteroid is Moving!

2011-04-03T17:40:00.001-04:00

ONE NIGHT MEMBERS SHOW

Tiger Strikes Asteroid is excited to announce it is moving! Since it opened in 2009, the gallery has been housed on the 4th floor of 319A North 11th Street. Beginning in May of 2011, we will be housed in a beautiful new space on the 2nd floor of the same building, home to Grizzly Grizzly, Marginal Utility and
others.

Our new home will be unit number 2H. In advance of this move we will be having a one night only show of all Tiger Strikes Asteroid members on April the 15th in our new space and a special mid-month reception for Theresa Saulin's solo show on the 4th floor to coincide with “Gallery Night” in Philadelphia. Both events will take place from 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM on the 15th. Looking forward to seeing you there!

For other Tiger Strikes Asteroid updates, check us out on the web at:

http://www.tigerstrikesasteroid.com

Best wishes for a wonderful Spring!

Tiger Strikes Asteroid

319A North 11th Street, 4th Floor (Soon to be on the 2nd Floor!!!!)

Philadelphia PA 19107

Hours: Saturday and Sunday, 2pm-6pm and by appointment

http://www.tigerstrikesasteroid.com

Beth Cavener Stichter: UPenn, B1 Meyerson, 6PM Wednesday April 6

2011-03-05T10:00:00.000-05:00

Terri Saulin @ Tiger Strikes Asteroid, April 1, 2011

2011-02-28T20:36:00.003-05:00

Press: Phila Weekly

Catalogue PDF: The Solipsism of an Inverted Cartography by Michael Macfeat

Bill Walton

2011-02-15T14:10:00.002-05:00

Fleisher/Ollman is very pleased to announce an exhibition of sculptures by the late artist Bill Walton. The exhibition will survey Walton's wall and floor works made from a spare vocabulary of basic materials and subtle interventions. These intimate investigations, undertaken during a career spanning more than 40 years, are culled from the artist's Estate and several have been loaned by collectors specifically for the exhibition.

Please join us for the opening reception on Thursday, February 24 from 6-8pm.

Bill Walton (1935-2010) was born in Camden, New Jersey and briefly studied at the Institute of Design in Chicago before moving to Philadelphia in 1964 where he was a commercial printmaker by trade and later an instructor at Moore College of Art and Design (1974-1990). Interested in the materials used for printmaking -- wood, lead, steel -- more than the finished product, Walton began to make sculptures after seeing an exhibition of sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He had his first exhibition in 1971 and over his long career exhibited in galleries nationally and at a variety of institutions including the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Yale University Gallery and Wellesley College.

Criticism Seminar (Gerard's Section)

2010-07-01T13:19:00.000-04:00

Hi all. I wanted to invite you to eavesdrop on my section of Criticism Seminar by visiting the blog we've set up. Here's a link, and I'll put one to the sidebar of the site. On the Criticism blog, you'll find links to many of the students in the program.

Hope your summer is off to a good start.

UArts Alumna called 'lowbrow' in review!

2010-06-25T20:23:00.000-04:00

Congrats to UArts MFA Deb Yarrington, who forwarded news from Workhouse Arts Center, that included a photo of her and recent work. You can read the glowing article here. What are y'all up to, anyway?!?

Gettin' the work out there

2010-06-15T18:02:00.000-04:00

Okay, you missed auditions for Work of Art, but there's still time to make the deadline for Vox Populi's 6th jureid exhibit, cleverly titled...(wait for it) Vox VI.

Follow this link to post your work for on-line judging. May you not be found wanting.

2010 "Food for Thought" Lecture Series

2010-06-09T15:09:00.002-04:00

MFA Visiting Artist Lecture Series

The University of the Arts MFA Program in Ceramics Painting and Sculpture announces the 16^th Annual Summer Lecture Series featuring noted visiting Artists and Curators. Held in CBS Auditorium, Hamilton Hall at 320 S. Broad Street from 1-2 PM, this weekday series runs from June 18^th through August 5^th, 2010 and is free and open to the public. For further information, please contact MFA Program Director Joe Girandola, jgirandola@uarts.edu or Program Assistant Kristen Goldschmidt kgoldschmidt@uarts,edu

.JUNE 18 * (This Lecture is on Friday at 6 PM)

LYNN GUMPERT, Director, Grey Art Gallery, NYU-Lynn Gumpert has been Director of the Grey Art Gallery, New York University’s fine arts museum, since 1997. Previously, she has worked as a writer, consultant, and independent curator, organizing shows in New York, Japan, and France. Among the over thirty exhibitions she has overseen at the Grey are The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984, and Electrifying Art: Atsuko Tanaka, 1954–1968. From 1980 to 1988 she was Curator and Senior Curator for the New Museum of Contemporary Art. Ms. Gumpert also authored the first major monograph on French artist Christian Boltanski (Flammarion, 1992) and has contributed essays to numerous publications.

JUNE 23

SIMPARCH, Matt Lynch and Steven Badgett, Art Collective- The American artist collective SIMPARCH that was founded in Las Cruces, New Mexico in 1996 is presently organized and maintained by Matthew Lynch and Steve Badgett. Their practice involves large-scale, usually interactive installations and works that, as the group's name suggests, examine simple architecture, building practices, site specificity and materials that may be salvaged, recycled or generally brought together with a kind of d.i.y. attitude. Often collaborating with other artists, builders, art critics, graffiti artists, filmmakers, and skate boarders, and musicians, SIMPARCH works at providing sites which allow for social interaction and experimentation with design and materials.

JUNE 30

HOON LEE, South Korea- Hoon Lee is the coordinator of the ceramics program at Grand Valley State(MI) University’s Department of Art & Design. The Korean-born artist works primarily at performance-based installations, though his vast interest and experience in ceramics play a role in many of his projects. Lee earned his MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in New York, and a master's degree in ceramic art and industrial design from Seoul National University of Technology, in Korea. He has exhibited in 17 solo shows or projects nationally and internationally, and he recently received the Martin Luther King, Jr.-Cesar Chavez-Rosa Parks Grant.

JULY 7

STUART ELSTER, New York- Stuart Elster is an Assistant Professor, and the coordinator of the Painting and Drawing department at The University of the Arts, and a Critic in the University of the Arts Summer MFA program. He received a BFA in Painting and Drawing from The University of the Arts and an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from the Yale University School of Art.Stuart has been represented by Lucas Schoormans Gallery in New York, and has participated in two person and group exhibitions at Tate, Marvelli, and Schroeder Romero Galleries. Nationally he has participated in exhibitions at the Happy Lion Gallery in Los Angles, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and DePaul University Art Museum in Chicago, and the Herter Gallery at the University of Massachusetts. Internationally his work has been shown in Italy, France, and Austria and in 2008 to 2009, Stuart was included in the traveling exhibition titled Islands and Ghetto’s shown in both Heidelberg and Berlin Germany.A selected Bibliography of Stuart’s work includes, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Tema Celeste magazine. Artist’s profiles and interviews in Heeb magazine and the Kunstforum International.Stuart has been a visiting artist and quest critic at Yale University, Yale University Norfolk summer program, School of Visual Arts, DePaul University, and the School of the Art institute of Chicago.

JULY 14

FRANCIS CAPE, New York- Francis Cape apprenticed with master carver Dick Reid before receiving his MFA in 1991 from Goldsmiths College, London. In 1993 he moved to the U.S. where he has exhibited his work extensively, including at Propsect 1, New Orleans; the St. Louis Art Museum; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT; the Public Art Fund, New York; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH; and in galleries in Germany and the United Kingdom. He was the recipient of a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award in 2001, and of a Henry and Natalie E. Freund Fellowship in 2003. He is represented by Murray Guy, NY; and lives and works in Narrowsburg, NY.

JULY 21

JOAN LINDER, New York- Joan Linder is best known for her labor-intensive drawings that transform mundane subjects into conceptually rich images. Life size representations of figures and objects explore themes such as the banality of mass produced domestic artifacts; the politics of war; sexual identity and power. Linder has exhibited throughout the US and in Brazil, Germany, Israel, Japan and Korea at venues including White Columns, NY; the Queens Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Gwanjgu Art Museum, Korea. Awards include the Lucas Fellowship at Montalvo, CA; MacDowell Colony Residency; The Foundation of Jewish Culture’s Ronnie Heyman Award; and a grant from the Pollock Krasner Foundation. Born in New York, Linder attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1999 and received and MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from Tufts University. Linder is an Assistant Professor of Visual Studies at the University of Buffalo and is currently represented by Mixed Greens Gallery in New York City.

JULY 28

KATHLEEN GILRAIN, Director, Smack Mellon Gallery, NY- Kathleen Gilrain joined Smack Mellon Studios as Executive Director in October 2000. As the Executive Director she oversee all aspects of Smack Mellon programming. Kathleen was the Director of Socrates Sculpture Park in LIC, Queens, NY from 1995 to 2000. Curating exhibitions for galleries, institutions and organizations including Smack Mellon, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus outdoor public art program, Kathleen Gilrain is an artist who has created site-specific public sculptures for: Savannah, GA; the City of Ulsan, South Korea; the South Carolina Botanical Garden, SC; the City of Chicago, IL; The Fields Sculpture Park in Ghent, NY; Socrates Sculpture Park in New York City; the City of Providence, RI; the Connemara Conservancy in Dallas, TX; Klenova Castle in Klenova, Czech Republic; and Cergy Pontoise, France. Ms. Gilrain holds a BFA from The Cooper Union and an MFA from The University Massachusetts, Amherst.

JULY 29 *(This lecture is on Thursday at 1 PM)

WALTER McCONNELL, New York- Walter McConnell is a ceramic artist residing in Belmont, New York. His unfired ceramic installations addressing the relationship between nature and culture have been exhibited nationally and internationally. McConnell states of his work: “My work is a mediation on my relationship to nature within a culture decisively alienated from it. In a technological age, where contact with nature is at best indirect and our experience of it variously defined and mediated by the culture we inhabit, my work is a site where I negotiate conflicting ideas about the natural world and forge a connection to it.” McConnell currently serves as an Associate Professor of Ceramic Art at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, in Alfred, New York. McConnell was born in Philadelphia and attended the University of Connecticut, Storrs, where he received a BFA in Ceramics and Painting in 1978. McConnell earned his MFA in ceramics from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 1986.

AUGUST 4

MEL CHIN, North Carolina- Mel Chin was born in Houston, Texas and began making art at an early age. Chin’s art, which is both analytical and poetic, evades easy classification. He is known for the broad range of approaches in his art, including works that require multi-disciplinary, collaborative teamwork and works that conjoin cross-cultural aesthetics with complex ideas. He developed Revival Field (1989-ongoing), a project that has been a pioneer in the field of "green remediation," the use of plants to remove toxic, heavy metals from the soil. Chin is well known for his iconic sculpture, works that often address the importance of memory and collective identity. Chin’s socially engaged projects also challenge the idea of the artist as the exclusive creative force behind an artwork. “Sometimes, the survival of my own idea may not be as important as a condition I might create for others’ ideas to be realized,” says Chin, who often enlists entire neighborhoods or groups of students in creative partnerships. From 1995-1998 he formed the collective the GALA Committee that produced In the Name of the Place a conceptual public art project conducted on American prime-time television. Chin also promotes “works of art” that have the ultimate effect of benefiting science, as in Revival Field, and also in the recent Fundred Dollar Bill/Operation Paydirt Project, an attempt to make New Orleans a lead-safe city (see Fundred.org.)

AUGUST 5 *(This lecture is on Thursday at 1 PM)

LINN MEYERS, Pittsburgh, PA- Linn Meyers received her BFA at The Cooper Union in NYC and her MFA at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. She has been the recipient of many awards and fellowships. most recently she received a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, and in 2008 she was Artist In Residence at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC (2007-2008) . Meyers’s work is in numerous private and museum collections and has been featured in exhibitions in museums and galleries internationally. Museum venues include The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art in Tokyo, Japan, The Hirshhorn Museum, The Corcoran Gallery of Art and The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC, The Frick Museum, The Mattress Factory Museum and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts in Pittsburgh, PA, and The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose CA. Meyers is represented in Philadelphia by Gallery Joe.

MFA AWARDS 2010

2010-05-20T21:56:00.002-04:00

MFA Program Awards- Spring 2010

Each Spring MFA faculty recognize 3 thesis students who have attained a high level of accomplishment in their studio work.

I am pleased to announce the Spring 2010 MFA CPS Awards to thesis students:

Jessica Clark Painting-Henkels Award

Jessica Cohen Ceramics-MFA Faculty Award

Sean Mattio Sculpture-MFA Faculty Award

In addition to recognizing these students for their fine work, I am particularly thrilled to announce that MFA Graduate H. John Thompson has been awarded the first annual UArts President's Award for Graduate Studies at the University of the Arts. John wasn't able to attend the commencement as he was busy assisting current MFA Student Andrew Walker with an installation that will arise on Broad Street on the Hamilton Hall Platforms this week. John, Andy and I met with President Buffington at 4:45 PM and John received his $1000 Award and congrats from the President himself!

Way to go, Jessica, Jessica, Sean and John!

2nd year MFA student AJ Bredensteiner at Serafin Gallery- Opens Friday!

2010-05-20T21:45:00.002-04:00

Come out to support UArts MFA Painting student AJ Bredensteiner in this amazing exhibition at Serafin!

For Immediate Release:

Exhibition: I CAN’T GET YOU OUT OF MY MIND
Date: MAY 21 – JUNE 22
Opening Reception: MAY 21, 6-8PM

Location: 1108 PINE STREET PHILADELPHIA PA 19107
Contact: ROHINA IQBAL (at) ROHINA@SERAPHINGALLERY.COM

Seraphin Gallery is pleased to announce “I can’t get you out of my mind”, a group exhibition curated by Seraphin Gallery artist Hiro Sakaguchi

As often the case, group exhibitions are successful based off the effectiveness of the theme or the story it evokes. Sakaguchi, in this case, chooses himself as the tying thread by choosing works which gave him a long-term impact upon viewing them in the Philadelphia art scene. As Sakaguchi states, “Simply, I choose artists whose works I want to see again for selfish reason.” Because of Sakaguchi’s selfish pursuit, the exhibition becomes an homage to the artists, offering them a new venue and viewers. Works include minimalist cityscapes, needle threaded paper, and ceramic sculpture. By giving these artists the same platform, “I can’t get you out of my mind” becomes a biography on Sakaguchi’s art aesthetic.

Sarah Roche

Sarah Roche’s 2007 series of paintings, “From Dust till Dawn”, reflects her everyday experiences working as a gallery maintenance conservation technician at the Philadelphia Art Museum. Among this series, one watercolor painting stood out, a self-portrait reflected in a window case of medieval armor. The painting depicts a slightly off centered face looking back at the viewer. At a glance, it appears as though she herself is the wearing armor, calling to mind references of Joan of Ark. The simplicity and strength in this depiction and Roche’s use of paint have stayed in my mind for some time. Roche has created a new version of this piece for “I can’t get you out of my head”, Portrait in Armor, this time made of ink on paper.

Marie Ulmer

The first time I saw Ulmer’s work, I thought that it was made by a young artist in her twenties or thirties. What I found out instead was the works were largely executed by an artist in her youth from the 1930’s and 1940’s. Given the rising phenomena of the popularity of works on paper in the past decade, Ulmer’s work fit right in with the Philadelphia art scene. As Candace Karch states “Ulmer is in her nineties, is quite healthy and continues to make works of art.” But it was her works from 1930s-1940s that stayed in my mind. There is sensitivity in the lines and her personal story of a life of an ordinary woman that struck me.

Philip Adams

About a year ago, Philip Adams displayed a charcoal drawing of a huge tsunami wave that took up an entire gallery wall, while a small surfer was placed among the waves. Upon closer examination, the surfer, it turned out, was President Obama. Ever since, I have struck by Adam’s works. For the Seraphin Gallery exhibition, I chose a hyper realistic charcoal drawing of a portrait on wood panel. Solipsist Will is a portrait of the artist’s friend wearing Ray-Ban reflective sunglasses. As the glasses reflect in the drawing, so does the work reflect youth culture and an air of our times. This charcoal on panel has stayed with me and burnt the image into my mind.

AJ Bredensteiner

The Sacrifice of Eternity for a Dream of Immortality is a large drawing installation piece made by artist AJ Bredensteiner. It is composed of more than 400 drawings of the book “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy.

His conceptual still-life came to be more than 400 drawings which Bredensteiner drew from the book as he turned the pages. Every drawing mimics the exact text as you would find on the correlated page. Bredensteiner devoted five months of his life to this project. He mentions that when you spend that much time in a story, your mind creates an association with your own life story as you are reading the fictive story. Due to my lack of patience, I have no way to find out exactly what AJ is talking about but I’ll take his word for it. His work is a example of a artist fully living within his own art for sake of his art. I have great respect for his sacrifice as an artist.

Artists are faculty members of Tyler School of Art, Drexel University and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, recipients of the Fleisher Wind Challenge, members of Vox Populi artist collective, and alumnus of the Center for Emerging Visual Artist’s Career Development Program. Selected artists are also in the collections of the Victoria Albert Museum, London, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the West Collection.

Curator Hiro Sakaguchi has organized various exhibition projects including: “Caution Art in Here” at Cerulean Arts Gallery in Philadelphia, “My Dog Speaks” at Seraphin Gallery, “Useless weapon” at the Green Lantern Gallery in Chicago, and the “Picture Journal Project” at The Woodmere Art Museum. Sakaguchi own works are internationally exhibited and is in the permanent collection of Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Featured Artists

Phillip Adams

Gabriel Boyce

AJ Bredensteiner

Robert L Chaney

Gretchen Diehl

Mike Kowbuz

A.D. Loveday

Brenna K. Murphy

Erin Murray

Michelle Oosterbaan

Sarah Roche

Marie Sivak

Marie Ulmer

Casey Watson

Rohina Iqbal
1108 Pine Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
215-923-7000

rohina@seraphingallery.com

www.seraphingallery.com

Hey, good news from the College Art Association!

2010-05-12T20:53:00.002-04:00

Thought some of you might be interested in this...

At its meeting on May 2, 2010, the CAA Board of Directors voted to restore several important programs for the next fiscal year, beginning July 1. After a year of conservative budgeting in response to the economic downturn, the board eased financial constraints on the following programs that benefit CAA members.

Below are the highlights; see http://bit.ly/9I8bFP for full details.

Fellowships to MFA students
In 2010, CAA will award five Professional Development Fellowships in the Visual Arts of $5,000 each to outstanding students who will receive MFA degrees in calendar year 2011. CAA hopes that Professional Development Fellowships in Art History can again be awarded to doctoral candidates in 2011.

2010-05-07T16:49:00.002-04:00

Art writing grant(s) that support individual projects

2010 GRANT APPLICATION NOW OPEN
Application Deadline — Monday, June 7, 2010

The Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program supports individual writers whose work addresses contemporary visual art through grants in the following categories:

• Articles
• Blogs
• Books
• New and Alternative Media
• Short-Form Writing

Grants range from $3,000 to $50,000 depending on the needs and scope of the project.
Designed to encourage and reward writing about contemporary art that is rigorous, passionate, eloquent and precise, as well as to create a broader audience for arts writing, the Arts Writers Grant Program aims to strengthen the field as a whole and to ensure that critical writing remains a valued mode of engaging the visual arts.

here are the guidelines

Space Program

2010-04-26T16:19:00.000-04:00

Hi all - I wanted to give you a heads-up about studio space that's available in Philadelphia.

If you've not been to Art Making Machine Studios (3000 N. Hope Street in Philadelphia) you might want to check them out. They have shared wood and metal shop facilities, wi-fi, a kitchen, and other swanky amenities. You might want to check it out, and you can by sending an email to them.

NCECA: Jun Kaneko Lecture

2010-03-27T09:52:00.002-04:00

Who Needs A Pedestal?! Exhibition Opens April 1, 2010!

2010-03-25T19:31:00.002-04:00

What: The University of the Arts MFA Program in Ceramics Presents:
“Who Needs a Pedestal?”

When: Exhibition: March 31-April 3, 2010
Noon-5PM

Opening Reception: Thursday, April 1 2010
5PM-7PM

Where: The University of the Arts
Anderson Hall Gallery 224
333 South Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102

Please join us April 1, 2010 from 5PM-7PM for the opening reception of “Who
Needs a Pedestal?” a juried exhibition of ceramic work of alumni and current
graduate students from the Low Residency MFA Program at the University of the
Arts. The exhibition will be located in Gallery 224 of the Anderson Building at 333
South Broad Street in Philadelphia.
The MFA Program in Ceramics current Graduate students and Alumni selected for
the Exhibition are Xiomara Babilonia(2009), Mary Gamble Barrett(2005), Jessica Cohen(2010), Virginia McKinney(2011), Tammi Razzano(2008), Jamin London Tinsel(2007) and Sara Fine-Wilson(2008).
The exhibition has been organized with assistance from Rebecca Fell, University
of the Arts Museum Exhibition Planning and Design Graduate Student (MEPD, ‘11)
and is presented in conjunction 2010 NCECA Conference: Independence. For more
information please visit: www.nceca.net.

Shay Church- Gray Whales:Philadelphia

2010-03-25T19:16:00.004-04:00

Antonio Fink: NCECA 2010

2010-03-23T15:38:00.002-04:00

The Haverford School
Centennial Hall Gallery, 450 Lancaster Avenue, Haverford, PA
610-642-3020

Antonio Fink 2010 Tiles
Antonio Fink's first tile exhibition took place in May of 1997 at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia. Since then, Fink has developed his tile technique, as well as his depictions of the human face, and figure. The visual impact of these tiles are a conglomerate of influences from Jose Clemente Orozco, Frank Stella, Bellows, Viola Frey Picasso and Matisse, to name a few. This exhibition features contructivist, high relief tiles that are full of color and reflections on contemporary life.
Mar 28-Apr 30. Sun-Sat 11:00am-7:00pm. Reception Apr 2, 6:00-9:00pm

Terri Saulin: NCECA Exhibitions 2010

2010-03-23T15:06:00.006-04:00

Hello All,
Happy Spring!
I am hoping to see you at this year's NCECA festivities.
Perhaps you may be able to catch one of the two shows in which I will be participating.
Nancy Agati is also participating in "6-III."
Here's a Link to NCECA.
There is great work this year.
Hope you get to see it!
Warm regards,
Terri

Art21 wants to hear from YOU

2010-02-26T13:01:00.001-05:00

Got a story to tell about graduate school? There's a really cool opportunity to get it out there through the Art21 Blog's new Open Enrollment column.

It would be so great for students in the UArts program to participate in this because your graduate experience is a unique mix of independence and community. I hope you'll contact them (the deadline is March 5), and that I'll see your blog posts soon...

Best ~gerard

Public Art Opportunity-Philadelphia

2010-02-23T13:53:00.002-05:00

SEPTA Art in Transit Program, Greater Philadelphia
Call for Artists - Art In Transit
Deadline: March 26, 2010

Artists living in the Greater Philadelphia area are invited to apply for a public art commission. Artists are asked to envision permanent artwork that will be seen by tens of thousands of pedestrians, shoppers, residents, motorists and SEPTA riders commuting through or passing by stations each day.

http://septa.org/ait/

The Art In Transit Program is designed to incorporate art elements into renovation and construction projects for selected stations and public transportation facilities. The program allocates up to one percent of the construction budget of capitally funded projects for the design, fabrication and installation of permanent artwork. The purpose of the Art in Transit Program is to create a more inviting and dynamic transit environment for regular and new riders and to foster a feeling of pride within the surrounding community.

More Information
http://septa.org/ait/pdf/margaret-orthodox-call.pdf

Margaret Orthodox Market-Frankford Line Station
4700 North Frankford Avenue, Philadelphia PA

Project budget | $150,000

Exhibition Opportunity for First Year MFA Students

2010-02-23T13:36:00.003-05:00

I am writing to let you know of an open call for first year MFA candidates at Rebekah Templeton Contemporary Art. Chosen artists will take part in a six -week exhibition starting in May 2010. If you know of anyone that may be interested, could you please forward the attached word document(document pasted below) with all of the details?

Sincerely,

Ben Will and Sarah Eberle

Rebekah Templeton
c o n t e m p o r a r y a r t

173 W. Girard Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19123

www.rebekahtempleton.com
267-519-3884

Open Call to First Year MFA Candidates
Deadline March 31st

We are pleased to announce an open call for a yet to be named exhibition that will open on May 14, 2009.

Eligibility:
This Exhibition is open to all first year MFA candidates. We are looking for artwork in all mediums that has not been previously shown in Philadelphia.

Submissions:
Send up to 15 jpegs, no larger than 5" x 7" at a maximum of 300dpi, on a CD. Title the images with your last name and a number (ex. Name_01). Please include a word document, with numbering that corresponds to the file names and lists title, date, medium, size, and edition size (if applicable) for each of the pieces. There is no entry fee for this exhibition. Artist’s statement and resume/cv suggested, but not required.

Send submissions to:
173 W. Girard Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19123

Swoon in North Philly

2010-02-10T11:13:00.003-05:00

Swoon, has made her way to the streets of North Philadelphia to participate in Philagrafika 2010, a citywide festival celebrating the role of print in contemporary artistic practice.
Check out:
ROBOTS WILL KILL

"2D or not 2D" Exhibition Opens Thursday, February 4, 2010

2010-01-29T14:31:00.003-05:00

Image: Jessica Cohen, "Aviator", Stoneware and Casein Paint, 2009

2D or not 2D Exhibition
MFA students in Ceramics, Painting and Sculpture at the University of the Arts
Exhibition juried by Charles Arnoldi and Gregory Amenoff

Please join us on February 4th, 2010 from 3-5 p.m. for the Opening Reception of the “2D or not 2D” Juried Exhibition of current work by MFA students in Ceramics, Painting and Sculpture at the University of the Arts! The exhibition will be located in the President’s Office Exhibition Gallery in Hamilton Hall at 320 S. Broad Street in Philadelphia.

Charles(Chuck) Arnoldi(Venice, CA) and Gregory Amenoff(New York, NY) lectured and visited the University of the Arts during the MFA Winter Critique this past December. The “East Coast/West Coast” debate and open forum furnished the students with a glimpse of how a successful visual artist maintains a studio practice and life. Mr. Arnoldi and Mr. Amenoff selected work from first and second year graduate students to form the “2D or not 2D” Exhibition. Gregory Amenoff, chair of the visual arts department at Columbia University, has over 50 solo exhibitions and noted group exhibitions including Biennial Exhibitions at the Whitney Museum and Corcoran Gallery of Art. Charles Arnoldi has over 50 solo exhibitions nationally and internationally including the Whitney Biennial and Documenta 5 in Kassel Germany.

The MFA Graduate Students selected for the Exhibition are Marjorie Renno(Albano), Erica Bertke, Andrew Bredensteiner, Veronica Bruce, Veronica Cianfrano, Jessica Clark, Jessica Cohen, Martha Ferguson, Michele Kishita, Robert Libby, Sean Mattio, Teresa Palmer, Heather Pieters, Nancy Ring and Andrew Walker.

The Low Residency MFA Program in Ceramics, Painting and Sculpture at the University of the Arts is a two-and-a-half year course of study committed to training artists at the highest professional levels.

Exhibition Details:

What:University of the Arts-MFA Program in Ceramics, Painting and Sculpture
“2D or not 2D” Exhibition- Exhibition juried by Charles Arnoldi (CA) and Gregory Amenoff (NY).
When:Opening Reception : Thursday, February 4th, 2010, 3:00-5:00 PM
Exhibition continues: February 4th – March 22, 2010- (9 AM-5PM)
Where:University of the Arts- President’s Office-320 S. Broad Street-Philly, PA 19102

Miss Martha Graham Cracker

2010-01-28T12:03:00.001-05:00

Hello All,
This Friday, 1/29/10 is Pig Iron Theater's Annual Benefit Show.
Come and see Miss Martha and a slew of others perform.
Hams Across America will take place at the Trocadero Theater, 1003 Arch St. in Phila.
7pm - ?
Go here for more info!!!

And now for Joanna Platt's...

2009-11-27T19:46:00.001-05:00

More thesis fun and games. JoannaPlattThesis_2_.pdf

Karen Topping's Thesis

2009-11-25T12:23:00.002-05:00

Here is a link to Karen's thesis.

Tiernan's Thesis

2009-11-24T16:15:00.002-05:00

If you would like to know what's going on in my work, what's up with all the hair, and what I would look like if my head was cut off and then ritually shrunken by the Shuar people of Ecuador, read my thesis! Tiernan_Alexander_Thesis_Final.pdf. Feel free to comment.

2009-11-16T14:38:00.001-05:00

www.incca.org is a great resource to know about - that I stumbled on 1-2 years ago researching how to document video installations. Even if they are in the Netherlands, they pretty much do everything in English.

They are doing a call for posters addressing 'best practices' conservation and installation of contemporary art for their annual conference Contemporary Art: Who Cares? More info and links below if you are design inclined.

What is INCCA?

INCCA is a network of professionals connected to the conservation of modern and contemporary art. Conservators, curators, scientists, registrars, archivists, art historians and researchers are among its members. Members allow access to each others unpublished information (artist interviews, condition reports, installation instructions etc) through the INCCA Database for Artists' Archives.

I would like to draw your attention to the Call for Posters from the International symposium Contemporary Art: Who Cares? For details and to download a poster application form please go to: http://www.incca.org/cawc-callforposters

2009-10-06T09:50:00.004-04:00

Hey ya'll this is a call for Art (and papers-if so inclined). I was on a panel at the 2008 conference - it was blast and happens during art week in NYC. Its not really a 'show' - but they screened some of my work and with the theme of collective - who knows what you could propose.... I met some slammin' smart people there that are still really supportive of my work. Give it a try - submission due in January.

Stony Brook Art & Philosophy conference Theme for 2010 - Collectives!

As collectives arise and disperse, we often find ourselves with a dearth of criteria by which to judge their success and viability. This conference will investigate the forms, motivations, methods, justifications, and consequences of persons and things acting collectively. We encourage submissions from across the artistic and theoretical disciplines that approach these themes from practical and theoretical perspectives. Projects may be collaborative in nature, and may examine the collective as an entity or activity.

Everything you need to know here: Stony Brook 2010 Philosophy And Art Conference

2009-10-01T17:20:00.002-04:00

The seminal candy work circa 2008 premieres in DC. Wish me luck. Thanks-Karen

District of Columbia Arts Center
2438 18th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009

www.dcartscenter.org
202-462-7833

October 16 - November 15
Opening Reception: October 16, 7-9pm
Curated by Lea-Ann Bigelow and Blair Murphy

Featuring work by Deborah Carroll Anzinger, Peter Gordon, Michael Matason, Lisa McCarty, Kathryn McDonnell, Karen Joan Topping and Jenny Walton

In a show of new work, DCAC’s resident collective explores the artistic process as a mode of inquiry, a space of exploration focused less on the production of definitive answers than on the acknowledgment and negotiation of paradoxes and contradictions.

Terri Saulin: Lines of Flight

2009-08-12T12:22:00.000-04:00

September 17 to October 20, 2009

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 17, 7:00-8:30 p.m.
Artist talk begins at 7:15 p.m.

Flipping, deleting, expanding, speeding up, slowing down, layering and distilling visual material into art pieces, Terri Saulin creates artwork organic in nature and layered with meaning. Her interest in biology, botany, classical music, geology, and gastronomy are evident in every nook and crevice of her densely textured ceramic pieces. Although her process begins in sculpture, it develops into drawing (a backward play on the traditional preliminary sketch to final sculpture). Drawings and plaster prints, supplemented by their ceramic references will be exhibited in Lines of Flight.

Finlandia University
601 Quincy Street
Hancock, MI 49930
carrie.flaspohler@finlandia.edu

FOOD FOR THOUGHT LECTURE SERIES

2009-06-06T08:03:00.001-04:00

The University of the Arts’ MFA Program in Ceramics, Painting and Sculpture announces the 15th Annual Summer Lecture Series featuring noted visiting artists and critics. This year’s initial lecture will be held at 6pm on Friday, June 12th. All other

Host:	University of the Arts, MFA Ceramics, Painting, Sculpture
Type:	Education - Lecture
Network:	Global

Start Time:	Friday, June 12, 2009 at 6:00pm
End Time:	Wednesday, July 29, 2009 at 9:00am
Location:	CBS AUDITORIUM, UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS, HAMILTON HALL
Street:	320 S. BROAD STREET
City/Town:	Philadelphia, Jordan

Phone:	2157176489
Email:	JSHANKER@UARTS.EDU

SUSAN STEWART FRIDAY JUNE 12, 6PM
Susan Stewart is a poet and critic who has authored several books of essays on art, aesthetics and poetry including: The Open Studio: Essays in Art and Aesthetics, (2004). Poetry and the Fate of the Senses (2002); Crimes of Writing: Problems in the Containment of Representation (1991); Nonsense (1989); and On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (1984).

Her honors include a Lila Wallace Individual Writer's Award, two grants in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Pew Fellowship for the Arts, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. She was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2005. Stewart is currently Professor of English at Princeton University where she teaches the history of poetry and aesthetics.

PETER KRASHES WEDNESDAY JUNE 24, 9AM
Four years ago, Peter Krashes’ work shifted away from the magnificently painted series of distorted, liquid images that he had been exhibiting. Developers were given permission to exercise eminent domain to build a stadium in his Brooklyn neighborhood, threatening the community. He took on: “…life as a community organizer with a work practice as an artist that embraces my efforts outside of the studio... Put simply, I play a role in shaping what I paint before I paint it. A letter in my work is a letter that needed to be sent, a meeting is a meeting I helped to organize… As a result, the paintings are the last step in a process I have been engaged with from beginning to end….The imperatives I feel outside the studio are explicit so the outcome in the studio is particular and linked to the real world.”

CORIN HEWITT WEDNESDAY JULY 1, 9AM
In his recent performance/installation at the Whitney, Corin Hewitt turned the museum’s Lobby Gallery into a semi-private theatrical photo studio that he worked in 3 days a week. Equipped with food, shop tools, kitchen appliances, art supplies, photo and office equipment, Hewitt explored a range of material processes through “cooking,
sculpting, heating and cooling, casting, canning, eating, and photographing of both organic and inorganic materials” creating a body of 71 photographs over the three month period.

NICOLE CHERUBINI WEDNESDAY JULY 15, 9AM
In an essay by Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio for the exhibition One Part Clay, Nicole Cherubini’s work is referred to as “…not polite”, saying: “It is in its way anti-pottery, anti-craft and anticonventional beauty. She is an artist working outside the usual expectations of ceramics. The bridge between art and the design-look is missing. The work is still primarily clay albeit playing host to a wide array of other, mostly found, materials. Her craft is determinedly without finesse, cherishing its inelegance like a clunky badge of honor, but it is not without intelligence. She knows what she is doing and what disturbances she wants to create and just how far off balance she wants to keep the viewer.”

KRISTIN JONES WEDNESDAY JULY 22, 9AM
Kristin Jones’ most recent project, Tevereterno (Eternal Tiber), has been working toward revitalizing Rome’s river by transforming it into a site for the cultural life in the city. “Here innovative contemporary work will bring the river to life by drawing the public to a new experience of the Tiber. The evolving program invites international artists to create proposals for site-specific, multi-disciplinary installations inspired by the river.”. Tevereterno is a solo project by Jones, who has also worked collaboratively for years with Andrew Ginzel. A statement made about their collaborative work applies to this solo project as well: “A fundamental sense of wonder at the perception of time and the natural world motivates us to construct contemplative work aimed at magnifying a sense of place and present.”

LISA SANDITZ WEDNESDAY JULY 29, 9AM
Living in upstate NY, single industry cities (Tannersville, Gloversville, etc) caught Lisa Sanditz’ attention. Her most recent paintings are based on single-commodity towns that she visited in China. In a TimeOut New York review, T.J. Carlin wrote: “Sanditz’s work is undeniably crowd-pleasing in its brilliant use of color, and she has a great excuse for this beauty: It’s the double-edged sword that forces us to balance our enjoyment of these scenes with our understanding that they represent our exploitation of the developing world. Such compositions as Oil Painting Village, which subtly probes the idea of art as another item in a production line, inject a sense of self-deprecating humor. It’s refreshing to see work that’s at once a truly aesthetic experience and a political statement.”

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

2009-05-22T19:41:00.001-04:00

2009-05-19T14:12:00.002-04:00

mmm mmm. you may have already seen this on the art blog today. I thought this was just too important and user friendly not to share again. My other alma mater, The American University's Center for Social Media breaks down fair use into a mash up all its own. Go here for the written guide in simple people words, sure to become a favorite...

Printmaking Without A Press with Shelley Thorstensen July 10, 17, 24 & 31

2009-05-16T23:31:00.000-04:00

THE PRINTMAKING COUNCIL OF NEW JERSEY

SUMMER WORKSHOPS

Printmaking Without A Press

with Shelley Thorstensen

July 10, 17, 24 & 31

Friday, July 10, 10am-4pm

Don’t Even Call this Rubber Stamp: Relief Print and Frottage

Beginner - Learn to carve big and small relief prints free hand or from transferred photographs. We'll use easy-to-cut rubber stamp material that works on paper and/or fabric, with oil or water based inks. Techniques include making repeat patterns for fabric, thin or thick paper. Use them to chine collé into prints, collage into works on paper, and/or integrate them into book arts. Learn a surprisingly simple way to use offset techniques to print onto 3 D surfaces. Pre-carved mirror image blocks made by artists will be available for you to use to make repeat patterns and background materials. Bring sketches, ideas and photographs to photocopy; carve and print; and bring home blocks you've carved to keep printing and creating. Advanced students can create multiple blocks to make Chiaroscuro Relief Prints, or CMYK registration techniques. Students will leave with at least 2 carvings printed relief, repeat and frottage on lots of papers and variations. Fees: $ 100 members/$120 non-members. Materials: $15. Register on-line at www.printnj.org.

Friday, July 17, 10am-4pm

The Gelatin Print Extravaganza

Beginner - Gelatin printing is a form of edition and monoprinting. You'll use gelatin plates with water-based mediums. The process is like magic - simple and versatile and is equally well suited for professional printmakers, professional artists, and those wishing to expand their artistic vocabulary. The basic materials are non-toxic and clean up with water. We'll supply the gelatin plates on trays (print size 12" x 14"), you bring brushes, water-based mediums. We can send you a list of the best kinds – but everything works! Mostly, bring your imagination and be prepared to have fun and make gorgeous prints. Collage, stamping, stencils, overprinting – the possibilities are close to endless. Permanent results, perfect for archival printmaking papers. Advanced – Now you know how! Create and/or refine or work with editioning possibilities. Email Shelley and she’ll work with you to set up what you need. Students will leave with many gelatin prints on paper. Fees: $ 100 members/$120 non-members. Materials: $15. Register on-line at www.printnj.org.

Friday, July 24, 10am-4pm

The Definitive Plaster Print

Beginner - Any etching technique can be printed in plaster – as a way to proof prints; as a step to continue into the work with paint and pencils; to carve into the plaster; or as a beautiful plaster print (an end in itself). We'll work small (about 10" x 10") but size does not have to be a limitation with this process - with little artistic engineering. There will be examples and ideas on how to make very large plaster prints. We'll make easy-to-understand plaster prints and see how all etching techniques can be used to make these prints, including drypoint on plexi or metal, and etched and relief plates of all kinds. Bring small plates to print, or we'll supply the basic ingredients for plexi drypoint that can be printed many ways including using surface rolls, selective wiping, stencils, and even chine collé with paper. Advanced – Learn ways to make bigger and lighter stretched prints, and use additive techniques. Email Shelley and she’ll work with you to set up what you need. Fees: $ 100 members/$120 non-members. Materials: $15. Register on-line at www.printnj.org.

Friday, July 31, 10am-4pm

Painting for Printmakers (It’s Inside Out!): The Cast Acrylic Print

Beginner - Paint and scribe into the surface of the plate with acrylic paint. Once it’s quickly dry, it is backed with adhesive materials and can be transferred to paper, fabric or plaster. This technique allows for the inclusion within a single image, of other media (wet or dry) such as paper, fabric, dry acrylic elements, watercolor, waterbase crayons, pencils, felt pens, waterbase inks, water mixable oil paints, oil pastels and oil paint sticks because of the bonding ability ties of acrylics. It is equally useful for handpainting, collage (cut them up and re-group them!), stencils and monoprinting. Use all the techniques you've learned in the past weeks or start fresh with acrylic paint. Advanced – Learn the process using etching plates. Fees: $ 100 members/$120 non-members. Materials: $10. Register on-line www.printnj.org.

440 RIVER ROAD<SOMERVILLE, NJ 08876<908-725-2110<WWW.PRINTNJ.ORG

THE PRINTMAKING COUNCIL OF NEW JERSEY

REGISTRATION FORM

Printmaking Without A Press

with Shelley Thorstensen

July 10, 17, 24 & 31, 2009

Shelley Thorstensen is an artist/printmaker living and working in Philadelphia. She has an MFA in Printmaking from Tyler School of Art and a BFA from Syracuse University in Experimental Studios. Recent solo exhibitions include The Preponderance of Evidence, at The Print Center in Philadelphia and Houghton College, Buffalo. Group exhibitions include Intaglio a go go, Etching Moves Forward, curated by Ron Rumford at the Print and Picture Collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Synesthesia, curated by Annabelle Rodriguez at The Painted Bride in Philadelphia and Four Plus One at Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester NY. Shelley has taught many places such as Rutgers Mason Gross, Moore College of Art, Minneapolis College of Art, Tyler School of Art, and Women’s Studio Workshop. Shelley Thorstensen is represented by Dolan/Maxwell Gallery, www.dolanmaxwell.com.

To register for workshops, please print this form and mail to: PCNJ, 440 River Rd, Somerville, NJ 08876. Class size is limited, so please register early!

Name_____________________________________________________________________

Address___________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

Phone_______________________________, Email________________________________

Please register me for the following workshops:

⁮ Friday, July 10, Don’t Even Call this Rubber Stamp: Relief Print and Frottage

⁮ Friday, July 17, The Gelatin Print Extravaganza

⁮ Friday, July 24, The Definitive Plaster Print

⁮ Friday, July 31, Painting for Printmakers (It’s Inside Out!): The Cast Acrylic Print

Check one: Member__, Non-Member__, Would you like to become a member? Yes ⁮, No ⁮

Membership Fees:

____ Individual $ 35 ____ Sustainer $100

____ Family $ 50 ____ Senior/Student $ 25

Workshop Tuition $__________________

Materials Fee $__________________

Membership $__________________

Total $__________________

Check Enclosed Yes ⁮, No ⁮or Charge my Visa or MasterCard (circle one)

Number__________________________________Expiration Date___________

Signature_________________________________________

440 RIVER ROAD<SOMERVILLE, NJ 08876<908-725-2110<WWW.PRINTNJ.ORG

Shelley Thorstensen
120 W Lancaster Pike
Oxford PA 19363
(609) 932 6475
jane_doe_press@yahoo.com
portfolio:www.dolanmaxwell.com

Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Accepting Applications

2009-05-01T17:56:00.001-04:00

holycreamoly - another crazy amazing arts writing grant op - you know who you are -
Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Accepting Applications

The Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant provides project grants to individual authors whose work addresses contemporary visual art. The program is spearheaded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts as part of its broader Arts Writing Initiative and is administered by the Creative Capital Foundation.

The Arts Writers Grant Program issues awards for books, articles, short-form writing, blogs, and new and alternative media projects. The program aims to support the broad spectrum of writing on contemporary visual art from general-audience criticism to academic scholarship.

Only individuals are eligible for a grant. Applicants must be an art historian, artist, critic, curator, journalist, or practitioner in an outside field strongly engaged with the contemporary visual arts. Nominees must also be at least 25 years of age and be a published author (specific publication requirements vary depending on project type).

Applicants are not eligible if applying on behalf of an organization or for a project in which his/her primary involvement will be as an editor. Full-time students in degree-granting programs (with the exception of those students who are simultaneously maintaining professional careers as arts writers) are not eligible.

The program supports approximately twenty to twenty-five projects a year. Grant amounts range from $3,000 to $50,000 each, depending on the scope and complexity of the project.

Visit the program's Web site for project-specific requirements and application procedures.

http://www.artswriters.org/guidelines.php

http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/rfp/rfp_item.jhtml?id=250900025

Fear(s) of the Dark

2009-04-19T19:26:00.005-04:00

This film is a Blockbuster exclusive. If there's one near you, make sure to rent it.

The disparity between great art and bad art is ridiculous. In the world of bad art, an amazing film like Fear(s) of the Dark doesn't seem possible. In the world of good art, Paul Blart: Mall Cop doesn't seem possible. One of them is bluffing.

What about art criticism?

2009-04-16T13:21:00.002-04:00

I thought y'all might be interested in the April 23 Junto hosted by P'unk Ave, whose website promises "a discursive discussion, beer". In addition to the beer and discursiveness, you can hear from Sid Sachs, Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof, Katie Murken, and Andrew Suggs about art criticism. Yeah, art criticism!

Hope to see you there ~gerard

holy moly

2009-04-15T10:41:00.003-04:00

As much as possible given the time and space allotted. from Galerie Leonard & Bina Ellen on Vimeo.

OK - I seriously do not know what to think about this...as someone who has worked behind the scenes in museums, (in the collective I work with in DC - DCAC's Sparkplug more than a 1/3 of us have 'done time' in museums as I know 1-2 of you in SUMFA do now). This is a painter-centric type of rant - which is a little funny coming from me - but here it goes...

I have seen 'the stacks' and know the beautiful collisions that can happen on those racks where items are put together solely based on available space-like a little Daumier painting ending up next to a big Bonnard, where proximity creates affinity. Dollars to donuts that's the kind of thing you'd have to travel through space and time to actually see hung up in a museum - unlikely matches happen, but rarely.

It also struck me that this show looks a lot like the proverbial mid-century SOHO painters loft (Alice Neel's is infamously described in my circle of education) where finished paintings line every available space not needed for walking or working. This kind of chaos is often where us 'art professionals' work - why not drive that point home to the pedestrian public?

Well frankly, because when I see it on 'tv' I realize how freaking insane it looks - how does clearness of message arise out of this horror vacui?

Well brother - it just does. Contemplate that.

Make Sense

2009-04-06T20:27:00.001-04:00

Before the Internet, when texts were confined to publications or notebooks, they were solid (or at least encased). They had a place, a center, and their meaning was partly derived from their participation in objecthood. They had to be copied, printed, and passed around from hand to hand. One could trace their history and track their movement.

These days, however, texts are like water. They spill and run through the infinity of cyberspace, being absorbed into everything or evaporating before you know it. As a writer, I’m almost afraid—better yet--embarrassed, to pour. Without cups to catch and hold them, texts just slip through our hands into the abyss.

Better to be a visual artist then! The problem discussed above is of no concern to the painter or the sculptor (we’ll suspend consideration of the photographer) since we deal in objects. A word is a word whether it’s in a book or on the Internet. But a painting on the computer screen is not a painting. It’s a picture of a painting and it doesn’t come close to recreating the experience of an actual painting. One can only judge the size of a painting relative to his or her height and one can only examine the thickness of the paint by viewing it from all sides. To see a large painting in person is to enter it; to see one on the Internet is only to catch a whiff.

At a time when the Internet is swallowing all—newspapers, books, the mail—it can’t touch art objects. Going to a gallery cannot be replaced by browsing the web. If someone makes a drawing, there’s still a delay between its construction and its public presentation unlike blogs, which can be “published” immediately upon completion by anyone, anywhere. The gallery system continues to function as the publication industry did before the Internet. It decides who’s in and who’s out, acting as a necessary filter to retain the value of the goods.

Make an object and be proud! That object holds a significance that exists in no other place. By locating meaning, you are making sense in a world that desperately needs some.

2009-03-24T09:48:00.005-04:00

Elsewhere Artist Collaborative

WOW - this gem was brought to me by my BF listserve - artinfobank - so brilliant - residencies in a former thriftstore that was never cleaned out - a shangrila of stuff to make art with - I can hear your 'mouths' watering - xo Karen

Residencies at Elsewhere

Elsewhere’s dynamic architectures and the immense 58-year collection of American cultural objects (thousands of toys, books, periodicals, clothing, fabric, games, trinkets, bric-a-brac, furniture, antiques, army surplus, and historical documents) housed on-site serve as a resource for the cultivation of new creative processes and the creation of new works.

Elsewhere’s residency program invites emerging and established artists and scholars to create site-specific works using the plethora of objects and dynamic spaces as materials for works or as a foundation for conceptual or technological projects. Residents launch projects from within the theoretical framework of an evolving exhibition of objects and artworks across media, composing an experimental museum rethinking the premise of the collector and collection, questions of history and myth, the stasis of the art object, the role of the artist, and the relationship of process within production.

Elsewhere offers a dynamic alternative to the museum and gallery spaces and traditional residency formats. Artists find Elsewhere residencies to be intensive, conceptually challenging, and highly playful. Working within transforming installations, artists engage interactive environments as platforms for conceptualizing their practices. An Elsewhere residency becomes an ongoing artistic happening formed by an evolving dialogue that explores responsive artistic practices as a means of communication within an artist community. While artists are given control over their individual work for the time of their stay, artists collaboratively build upon others’ visions in response to the developing installation. The opportunity to build alongside, work with, or even transform past artists’ work yields layered histories of experimentation, communication, and art production that resituates the creative possibilities for the museum-as-medium.

While all work produced with Elsewhere’s objects stays within the space (works in reproducible media are shared with Elsewhere and curated within the environment), artists have the opportunity to expand and apply their body of work on an unprecedented scope and scale while furthering the development of a collaboratively built museum. Elsewhere’s collaborative framework cultivates continued feedback and response throughout the creative process from the directors and other artists. Interns and production staff assist artists with documentation, creation and curation.

Residents are encouraged to spend one month creating in the space. No proposals are requested. Instead, we ask artists to draw their ideas from the space itself, its resources, and the multiplicity of systematic arrangements and performative organizations that interweave resource, artwork, and collaborative artistic response.

Residents pay a $200 residency fee and $50 deposit to hold space upon acceptance of invitation. Residents are required to fund their own travel, although Elsewhere, as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, can assist artists with granting opportunities. Collaborative or collective groups are encouraged to apply. Shorter residencies and student-residencies are available.

The application requires a written portion including a written application, resume/CV, digital work samples, and a phone interview.

Eileen at the Locks Gallery

2009-02-23T20:55:00.002-05:00

Try to make it out for Eileen's opening at the Locks Gallery this Friday...

http://www.locksgallery.com/exhibit/2009/neff/neff09.html

Self Exposed

2009-01-31T09:21:00.024-05:00

Mike liked to sketch faces. His drawings were similar to this Cezanne sketch:

(picture used with the courtesy of http://www.jamesharrisgallery.com/Previous%20Exhibitions/junctions.htm)

However, during a trip to NYC, Mike's world was rocked by Kwang-Young Chun's Aggregations (pictured below):

Afterwards, he abandoned his face studies and dedicated himself to exploring the sculptural potential of paper (a practice related to but not the same as Chun's).

Does this mean that Mike's facial explorations through drawing were insincere (because he dropped them at the first sight of something cooler) or that Mike's facial explorations were sincere but Chun's work opened a new creative path in Mike's mind that was more "authentically representative" of his creative self than his sketches?

Of course, one would actually have to know Mike to answer this question but I propose it because it gets one thinking about the recurring proposition: How does an artist stay true to herself? This inquiry relies on many assumptions, one being that there is a "true self" and another: that the potential for singular and honest artistic expression exists in each artist.

Cultural critic Lionel Trilling recounts J. J. Rousseau's ideas of how the pure self becomes corrupt in his 1972 book Sincerity and Authenticity:

The individual who lives in an urban setting is subject to the constant influence, the literal in-flowing of the mental processes of others, which, in the degree that they stimulate or enlarge his consciousness, make it less his own. He finds it ever more difficult to know what his own self is and what being true to it consists of...Rousseau's "savage" lives within himself--proof of perfect autonomy.

The biggest problem with this line of thinking is that ignorance then becomes the goal. Hiding from new information is the cure for the disintegration of the self. When one thinks about it, this logic is absurd because from the moment of birth one is subject to an "in-flowing" of information that is not one's own. Only an impossible, abstract version of a horrible person who couldn't absorb any information could be the ideal pure self.

My interest here isn't to make people defiant of cultural refinement. I'm not saying "Don't look at other people's art, be true to your self," but rather focus on the gate. What's in your garden? What's outside of it? Where did the stuff that's in come from? Why do you keep other stuff out? Are you conscious of what is in and is out? How much so?

Let's say that Mike's facial studies were beget from the habitual drawing of the human form in a drawing class rather than a pure fascination with the subtle movements of a smile. This state is less sincere than that of Jennifer's, who was hypnotized by the peculiarities of the mouth and thought that drawing was the best medium to examine this phenomena.

The core of this thought process is actual interest vs. simulated interest. When I was a child, I liked sports because my dad did. I simulated his interest. However, as I got older, I developed a love for the passion and dizzying movement involved in the game. My simulated interest progressed into an actual interest.

Maybe Mike's interest in the face was only simulated and Chun's work opened a path that began as simulated but will evolve into actual.

Here, I have to keep the internal/external dichotomy of the self in mind. What portion of our interests are for ourselves and what portion are for society?

Trilling mentions Alex de Tocqueville's assessment of America in the 1800's. He said:

The democratic dispensation required [Americans] to shape their speech not by the standards of a particular class or circle but by their sense of the opinion of the public...[This] democratic style doesn't signify an absence of sincerity; it does however, indicate that the personal self to which the American would wish to be true is not the private, sold intractable self of the Englishman...[This] American self can be taken to be a microcosm of American society...

This passage describes an open self, one that is simultaneously sincere (as in true) and general. But if the self is general, how can it exist? If the American self is one shaped on the public, then the public, as being the whole, consumes the self. Logically, this leads to all being the same. Of course, us being singular entities, we are physically separate. And our placement and filters distort our in-flow, causing default peculiarities.

Therefore, the artist's job is to seek and identify these default peculiarities, these variables we've been dealt, and see how they shape the world distinctly from one's vantage point (if the goal is unique, honest expression). I watch South Park (general sameness), but I watch it from Williamsport, PA (default distinction) and see it as related to my locale and my experiences.

Mike should be conscious of the fact that his new interest in paper came from Chun and that perhaps he's currently mimicking Chun's interest for the sake of Aesthetic pop. But he should also make sure that his interest in paper and his future direction with paper is not defined by Chun's. If it is, it can't help but be false. He must discover aspects of paper that are colored by his experiences; ones that make a favorable impression on him because he's him.

Chun's interest in mulberry paper came from his Korean's cultures traditional use of mulberry paper. Mike unconsciously cut up paper while he was bored in class in high school. This can be claimed as an honest interest due to a past experience. If he explores paper in that context by making tiny notebook paper sculptures, he's being true to himself. This would then be a synthesis of an inner interest combined with an external stimulant to form a particular, honest path. If others have cut up notebook paper to make sculptures in exactly the same way as Mike, it's a victory for the innate generality of the self caused by common experience, but it's sincere.

Art Lies!

2009-01-15T22:47:00.004-05:00

The following is a link to an art magazine's website...

http://www.artlies.org/index.php

The quarterly is called ART LIES! I've only read a few articles but the writing seems well-informed and cutting edge, so, I thought I'd spread it around a bit.

Enjoy!

Malvina Reynolds - No Hole in My Head

2009-01-13T16:44:00.000-05:00

SHE RULES!!!!

Light reading - Thesis '09

2008-12-16T20:05:00.003-05:00

I wish I could have had these up for the critique this weekend, but it was not to be. But I've finally put up a link to the thesis papers I've received (others will be added as they are sent my way).

You can start reading here.

Congrats to all the thesis students for an outstanding show and a weekend of interesting discussion. It's a privilege to have worked with you andd I hope you'll all keep in touch.

Some images from Winter Crit and Thesis Presentations...

2008-12-14T21:04:00.005-05:00

...maybe more to follow. Hope all are well ~gb

What with thesis coming up...

2008-12-07T16:45:00.002-05:00

...in the past I've posted the drafts of thesis papers presented at Winter Crit on my own website. I will be happy to do that again if there's interest (and approval from the authors). I've emailed the students I have digital copies from, but comments here encouraging them and promising you'll read 'em would no doubt help...

Immersion at the Kimmel Center

2008-11-15T14:08:00.006-05:00

Immersion
November 14, 2008 - January 15, 2009

In today’s fast-paced, media driven world, moments of immersion can be fleeting. This exhibition presents matrixes and multi-layered works that invite our delving into subjects and images that captivate and hold our attention.

The exhibition features five artists from Moore College of Art & Design’s faculty whose work in various media deals with concepts of immersion. Participating artists include: Nicole Dul, adjunct faculty, basics and fine arts departments; Karen Lefkovitz, adjunct faculty, basics and photography & digital arts departments; Tara O’Brien, adjunct faculty, graphic design department; Alice Oh, associate professor, basics and fine arts departments; Theresa Saulin, adjunct faculty, fine arts department.

Nicole Dul presents two different images of immersion as it relates to the landscape. Her colorful, multi-layered paintings of Mexico present a rhythmic barrage of images that provide a snapshot of the many facets of a place and culture. Her black and white lithographs of stark and dilapidated interior spaces are emotionally evocative images that immerse us in a world of emptiness and despair.

Karen Lefkovitz’s photographs depict a child immersed in play. The images appear surreal in the way that they invite us to join into the fantasy world of a child’s imagination, where inanimate objects are transformed into a crowd of quirky characters who inhabit a child’s rich inner world.

One can easily relate to getting lost in a good book. For Tara O’Brien, books are a metaphor for the structure and process of creating a life. We delve into it, get lost in the pages, the action, the characters, never knowing how it will end. She creates stoppages and moments of reflection in each of her sculptural forms that serve as metaphors for contemplation of the story each of us is immersed in.

Alice Oh’s abstract layers of paint and repeated forms immerse us in a microscopic world of our own body’s physiology challenging us to look closer at the matrix and patterns of light and color of life’s cellular structure that simmers beneath every surface.

Theresa Saulin’s delicate, alternating smooth and densely textured, porcelain sculptures are physical explorations of philosophical ideas. Without beginning or end, the sculptures suggest forms from nature but, just as easily, they mimic the branching, burrowing, nonhierarchical structure of the internet. Saulin’s objects are both immersed in being about an endless process as well as a final product.

About Moore College of Art & Design’s Galleries at the Kimmel Center The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts provides two exhibition spaces on the Center’s Second Tier Promenade for artwork by students, alumnae and faculty of Moore College of Art & Design thanks to the generosity of an anonymous Kimmel Center donor. This year, Moore celebrates 160 years of educating women for careers in the visual arts. The nation's first and only women's art college, Moore's student-focused environment and professionally active faculty form a dynamic community in the heart of Philadelphia's cultural district. The College offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with ten majors. In addition, Moore provides many valuable opportunities in the arts through The Galleries, continuing education programs for professional adults, the acclaimed Young Artists Workshop for girls and boys grades 1-12, The Art Shop and the Sculpture Park. For more about Moore, visit www.moore.edu.
The Galleries at Moore are open to the public, free of charge. Visit us on 20th Street and Race on the Ben Franklin Parkway. Hours: Monday – Friday 11am – 7pm and Saturdays 11am – 5pm. For current exhibitions visit www.galleriesatmoore.org.

Moore College of Art's "Footsteps" Project in the News!

2008-11-15T10:05:00.002-05:00

Hi Folks,
Here is the article in full...
http://epaper.philly.com/artMailDisp.aspx?article=13_11_2008_141_006&typ=0&pub=519&mode=1
My "boot" (shown on the left) is now living at The Graham Building on the SW corner of 15th and Ranstead. Ranstead is located between Chestnut and Market Streets in Philadelphia. It was an interesting project to work on. I learned allot about some new materials and how a project like this is coordinated and distributed. Good stuff!!!
Best,
Terri

Oh, that Cunning Countess

2008-10-28T10:44:00.069-04:00

Cross in the Mountains or Tetschen Altar
Caspar David Friedrich, 1807-08
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemaldegalerie, Dresden
(image used with the courtesy of http://www.joybunny.artfriend.com)

Art students know the situation well. It's the big critique and they have to present their work in their studio or in a classroom as if it was in a gallery. Perhaps this means painting a wall white, tidying a corner, adjusting the lighting, or preparing a pedestal among other things. But no matter how hard they try, anxious what-ifs float around like, "Would it fold this way if it was in gallery?" And a feeling of artificiality, like watching a concert on DVD, permeates the exchange.

This act of "putting on airs" characterized the setting of Caspar David Friedrich's presentation of the Cross in the Mountains in 1808. He made the painting, as one story goes, specifically to be an altarpiece in a small chapel within the Tetschen Castle in northern Bohemia. After its completion, however, it didn't have a public place yet and due to his friends' demands, he reluctantly decided to show it in his "atelier" i.e. his home studio.

As German painting scholar Joseph Koerner documents in his book Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape, educator Johann Jacob O.A. Ruhle von Lilienstern (a mouthful, eh?) wrote, "In order to counteract the bad effect of the totally white walls of his small room, and to imitate as well as possible the twilight of the lamplit chapel, a window was veiled and the painting, which was too heavy for an ordinary easel, was erected on a table over which was spread a black cloth." Amusingly, today, most of our efforts are put towards achieving white walls. One can imagine Friedrich saying, "Now, if the painting was in its proper setting, the effect would be such and such as I intended." or "Pay no attention to unwanted variables A, B, and C..."

As most art students do, Friedrich put on this show with the hope of the work eventually achieving its intended setting. The immediate display simply being a trial run for the real thing. The problem for Friedrich is that its promised place wasn't available. To explain further: Countess Maria Theresa von Thun-Hohenstein supposedly had commissioned the work specifically for placement in her husband's private Tetschen chapel. It turns out that the painting was originally dedicated to Friedrich's king, Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden and not commissioned by Maria. Only when the king was overthrown in 1809 did Friedrich then agree to sell it to Maria. He and his "circle of friends" reconstructed the story of the origins of the work to make it seem as if he had created every detail to suit the Countess' chapel perfectly.

After Friedrich had sold the work to Maria, he wrote that he would like to "oversee the painting being installed and consecrated as a working altar." However, the work was never actually going to be placed in its promised spot. In fact, there was already an altarpiece designed by Joseph Bergler, the director of the Prague Art Academy, in the chapel in question. So, when Friedrich inquired about a visit, Maria had to make up a story that the piece was actually going to be installed in a chapel in Prague. When he said he would then come to Prague, she had to "give him the slip" again.

Hilariously, instead of the work being in a chapel it was in Countess Maria's BEDROOM! She had concocted the scheme to convince Friedrich to part ways with his masterwork. No wonder she didn't want him to come and see it...it was hanging above her bed. Rather than being a central object in worship ceremonies, I'm sure Friedrich would've loved to have seen his work shaking as the countess made love to her husband! When Friedrich was adjusting the black cloth in his atelier I'll bet that he never considered the possibility of undergarments hanging on his painting...and maybe the cat at rest on top? Perhaps he would've been better off naming it "Headboard" instead of Tetschen Altar. :P

The Boundless Landscape

2008-10-23T13:28:00.027-04:00

Capuchin Friar by the Sea by Caspar David Friedrich
Oil Painting
(used with the courtesy of www.humanitiesweb.org)

I've been reading about Caspar David Friedrich, German landscape painter from the 1800's, and his boundless landscapes. The sentiment that I get a whiff of even by studying pictures in books is expressed exquisitely by Carl Gustav Carus, one of Friedrich's disciples, in the following words:

Stand on the peak of a mountain, contemplate the long ranges of hills...and all the other glories offered to your view, and what feeling seizes you? It is a quiet prayer, you lose yourself in boundless space, your self disappears, you are nothing, God is everything. (1)

Immediately German filmmaker Werner Herzog came to mind. Other than with my own eyes, the times I've experienced said feeling profoundly was through Herzog's films like Fitzcarraldo, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Grizzly Man, and the portions I've seen of Encounters at the End of the World. Here's a still from Fitzcarraldo:

Still from Fitzcarraldo
(used with the courtesy of http://brzinnyc.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_archive.html)

Conveniently, this shot of actor Klaus Kinski even includes Friedrich's Ruckenfigur motif, that of showing a figure, male or female, from the back. The scene from the film that I recall so vividly, and of which I draw a sufficient parallel to the mood of Friedrich's work, is that when Fitzgerald (Kinski), is playing opera as his boat of disgruntled natives travels down the river. In this particular scene, Herzog highlights Fitzgerald's small presence in the vastness of Peru's landscape. The connection between how impossibly grand and brilliant nature is and how diminutively small Fitzgerald is easily relates to Friedrich's rendering of the monk by the sea. And Friedrich's Woman in the Morning Sun among others.

In the more than a century of separation, however, one big difference changed from Friedrich's perspective to Herzog's. Friedrich's boundlessness was a mirror of God's infinity while Herzog's is one of The Great Void. Friedrich wanted to exhibit the religious presence of nature while Herzog wants to show the terrifying, indifferent beauty of it. Don't associate "religious presence," however, with joy. Friedrich, despite God's existence, felt painful isolation in the "anxious silence" of landscapes similar to the way Herzog does.

In the Friedrich works I've "seen" (by way of reproduction), the landscape dominates the helpless figures. And while the same occurs in Herzog's films, in Fitzcarraldo, Fitzgerald attempts, unsuccessfully, to fight against the deafening quiet of nature by playing opera. It's an astounding scene in which opera represents civilization and the riverscape, the harsh brutality of existence. Herzog remarked of the jungle, "The birds don't sing; they scream out in terror." While Fitzgerald screams, Friedrich's Friar stands defeated.

(1) Taken from An Outline of 19th Century European Painting by Lorenz Eitner

The Mirror Stage

2008-10-15T15:54:00.065-04:00

Video Stills from Keith Sullivan's Dasein
3 channel video installation for flat screen monitors
15:00 running time
Lycoming College's Digital Media Gallery
Williamsport, PA

While I watched Keith Sullivan pantomime drumming, singing, dancing, and dunking a basketball in his multi-channel video installation Dasein (pictured above), I imagined him doing the same. As I envisioned Mr. Sullivan viewing and listening to himself, he suddenly turned into me. Then, strangely, I stood there looking at myself.

To explain: I am a video artist who has also put myself in some of my work. While I always convince myself that I do so with good reason, others aren't so sure. Some of my closest friends recently told me that the biggest flaw in my art was my "egotism." I took note of their critique but didn't agree. It wasn't until I saw myself reflected in Sullivan's art and got a glimpse of what it must've been like (fictionally, of course) to see Narcissus gazing at his own reflection that I thought, "How vain!" Whatever points Sullivan has (and due to the mention of Ginsberg and semiotics, I'm sure he has many), they are lost in his enjoyment of himself.

And, much to my dismay, what is true of him in this respect is true of me. "Dammit," I thought, "I just like watching myself do things." Sullivan and I both disguise our mirror-impulses with philosophical backgrounds. We think that since we have read Heidegger, our being is more aware and therefore, innately artistic. This point reminds me of an episode of Malcolm in the Middle in which Francis berates Malcolm for his elitism. Francis says something to the effect of, "You think, because you're so smart, that you experience things deeper than the rest of us. So, you complain until you've made sure we all know how aware you are."

The title Dasein says it all. It's an exclusive term. if you've read philosophy you're in, if you haven't, you're out. And it's a German word for "existence" or "being-here." As if that were enough. "I'm here, I'm smart, and you should care."

To not be too hard on him (and me), I'll say that Sullivan does pull off some nuanced karaoke and his Jordanesque dunking is a hoot. One can tell that he's spent a lot of time perfecting his performances and the production value of his videos is impressive. The black backgrounds achieve an atmospheric quality like those old, minimalist Shakespeare plays one can find on VHS in library basements.

But, again, Sullivan is too satisfied with doing things that other people did because he is doing them. Sullivan's work, and some of mine, fits all too well into what Rosalind Krauss calls "The Aesthetics of Narcissism."

--------------------------

Keith Sullivan is an interdisciplinary artist working in video, photography, performance, and installation. He received a Master of FIne Arts degree in visual art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2007) and a Bachelor of Arts in sociology from Emory University (2000), where he graduated with highest honors. His work has been shown in New York, Boston, and Atlanta.

Footsteps Opening Reception

2008-10-10T20:52:00.002-04:00

Hello Friends!

Please join us for the opening reception of Moore Footsteps
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
7:00 - 8:00 pm

To celebrate Moore's 160th Anniversary, Moore Alumnae have organized the Moore Footsteps exhibition.
Darla Jackson '03 created 12 six-foot boots.
Selected alumnae have altered the boots, illustrating their ideas about women and the arts.
All of the boots will be on exhibit at Moore for one week before being installed throughout the city.
Participating artists include:

* e Bond '96
* Heather Bryson '92
* Dorothy Collins '93
* Collaboration -Aubrie Costello '07,Laura Graham '03, Darla Jackson '03
* Karen Daroff '70
* Gail Gaines '89
* Rochelle F. Levy '79
* Longina Rossi '70
* Theresa M. Saulin '92
* Jane L. Walentas '66
* Cathleen White '96
* Janell Wysock '04

Sponsored by Fran '66 and Bill Graham
http://moore.edu/

Instant Art Grant Program

2008-10-07T17:01:00.002-04:00

The Instant Art Grant Program - The funniest home videos are here

Blindness

2008-10-04T10:09:00.026-04:00

Futuristic or Post-Apocalyptic movies have a tendency to be ridiculously awful and this one does nothing to improve upon that history. While not as bizarrely cheesy as The Day After Tomorrow, as endurance-testing as The Postman, or as banal as Code 46, Blindness is nothing short of laughable.

One only has to watch the Sci-Fi Channel for a few Saturdays (Or any of the Resident Evil or Underworld series) to realize that the first sin of bad science fiction movies is self-seriousness. When everything is dark and gloomy and nobody's laughing, you know you're in for a tough ride. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the TV series that mastered the art of blending irony and humor with sci-fi drama, should be required viewing for any future director of the genre.

Try not to chuckle when people begin stripping at random times (just because I can't see doesn't mean I won't want to be WARM) or when Julianne Moore is being tackled by zombie-like blind people (who inexplicably all found her in a hurry) in a grocery store as she struggles to hold on to the food she just found.

One positive element of the film is how Meirelles enlivens transitions by weaving the camera in and out of strange spots. One never knows where a scene will start or end and whether we'll be able to see it clearly. His best tricks call to mind the hazy imprisonment of Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

The coldness of Meirelles' characters seems less like the result of a skillful hand and more like the consequence of ineptitude. So, if you enjoyed the scarily realistic City of God and the suspenseful but forgettable Constant Gardner and are hoping for another score, you'll be disappointed.

The Plum Tree Massacre

2008-09-25T10:17:00.099-04:00

When my girlfriend Liz gave me directions to our new apartment in Williamsport, PA, she said, "Turn right onto Cemetery Rd and then left at St James Place." Temporarily ignoring the Monopoly reference I said, "Cemetery Rd? How close is the cemetery to our building?" She replied, "The strange thing is that I haven't seen a cemetery anywhere. Maybe you'll find it when you get here."

Several weeks went by and I had yet to find any cemeteries. It was somewhat eerie walking down a street named "Cemetery Rd" and not knowing where the graves were. "Perhaps this house was built on top of the graveyard and it's haunted by the unsettled souls." Liz said.
"You're paranoid." I replied.

As we were driving home from the library one day, we saw what seemed to be the whole town standing along E. Fourth Street, waiting. Unbeknownst to us at the time, every year on September 11th, all the motorcyclists in Williamsport drive through center city in tribute to those who died in the attacks.

We dropped the car off at the apartment, walked a few blocks and joined the crowd right as the motorcycles began barreling through (there were 1600 in all).

After I had my share of leather jackets, waving flags, and children running around, my wandering eyes spotted a large rock with a plaque on the lawn of the church at the corner of Cemetery Rd and E. Fourth Street.

I looked closer and read:

The fact that I had passed this rock nearly every day for weeks without noticing it attests to its unassuming appearance (or my obliviousness). The same modesty that makes it easily overlooked begets a sense of sincerity and necessity that may have been trampled by a spectacular sculpture.

Words like "settlers," "indians," and "massacre" suddenly transformed the corner of this street from a thing unnoticed to a documentation of the bloody history of America (one that was far more engaging than shiny bikes and neon Mohawks but they do their best). A little section of town that seemed Dollar Tree empty a moment before changed into an important piece of our story.

I was compelled to go digging for any information about this tragedy. "Whose stories are locked within this rock?" I thought. Due to a recent string of disappointing gallery shows, it felt good to be captivated by an object in an entirely different context and for a reason far removed from the artistry of the thing.

In 1778, a group of sixteen revolutionaries, six men, eight children, and two women, traveled through Central Pennsylvania in order to get to Lycoming Creek, meet with relatives, and settle. There had been several recent attacks by Indians, "Brits", and Loyalists, so, John Harris, a man who had heard gunfire earlier that day, warned the group, led by Peter Smith, that they should turn back. Smith, however, said that no amount of firing would stop them. They kept on.

Before they got to the creek, gunshots fired. One man fell dead and apparently, the other men, with the exception of Michael Campbell who charged the attacking Indians, attempted to flee while the women and children were being struck down. The only two to escape were a boy and a girl, the children of William King, a lieutenant in the revolutionary army. They ran off and told local men of the skirmish.

However, due to their frenzied condition, the children weren't clear about the details of the attack. The locals thought that a canoe had been overtaken, so, they errantly went to the river and didn't find any trace of a struggle.

After a few hours, a messenger who had heard gunfire reached Colonel Hepburn who rounded up several of his soldiers to go see what happened. Among them was lieutenant William King.

By the time the soldiers neared the scene, they only found two bodies and due to the darkness, couldn't make out the identity of either. They decided to wait until morning to continue the search. When they returned the next day, they found the entire group shot, "tomahawked," and/or scalped. All were dead except William King's wife who had been tomahawked and scalped and yet, amazingly, had survived. She apparently recognized her husband as he approached but almost immediately upon grasping his knees, she died.

King's kids who had escaped were passed along to safety and eventually ended up in Canada. He, after seven years, somehow managed to track them down and reunited with them. William King died in 1802 and is buried just near the memorial.

Now I know why it's called Cemetery Rd.

"This terrible massacre occurred at the point where West Fourth street, Williams-port, crosses the little stream which flows down Cemetery street. At that time a natural thicket of wild plum trees grew there, which yielded fruit of remarkable size and flavor for nearly a century after the tragedy." - History of Lycoming County Pennsylvania

I didn't relay this story to make you sad, although it did. I didn't relay this story for you to pity these people, although you did. I relayed it because

I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and so effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognised their voice the spell is broken. We have delivered them: they have overcome death and return to share our life.

-Marcel Proust from Remembrance of Things Past

Every time Liz and I pass the rock, we grow serene smiles that I can only attribute to an experience of the sublime.

-----------------------------------------------------

If you want more information on this story (there are lots of interesting details I omitted for brevity), check out (especially the second link):

http://www.lycolaw.org/history/sketches/06.htm

http://www.usgennet.org/usa/pa/county/lycoming/history/Chapter-07.html

A Tribute to David Foster Wallace: 1962-2008

2008-09-21T11:36:00.001-04:00

Transcription of the 2005 Kenyon Commencement Address - May 21, 2005

(If anybody feels like perspiring [cough], I'd advise you to go ahead, because I'm sure going to. In fact I'm gonna [mumbles while pulling up his gown and taking out a handkerchief from his pocket].) Greetings ["parents"?] and congratulations to Kenyon's graduating class of 2005. There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"

This is a standard requirement of US commencement speeches, the deployment of didactic little parable-ish stories. The story ["thing"] turns out to be one of the better, less bullshitty conventions of the genre, but if you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise, older fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude, but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance, or so I wish to suggest to you on this dry and lovely morning.

Of course the main requirement of speeches like this is that I'm supposed to talk about your liberal arts education's meaning, to try to explain why the degree you are about to receive has actual human value instead of just a material payoff. So let's talk about the single most pervasive cliché in the commencement speech genre, which is that a liberal arts education is not so much about filling you up with knowledge as it is about quote teaching you how to think. If you're like me as a student, you've never liked hearing this, and you tend to feel a bit insulted by the claim that you needed anybody to teach you how to think, since the fact that you even got admitted to a college this good seems like proof that you already know how to think. But I'm going to posit to you that the liberal arts cliché turns out not to be insulting at all, because the really significant education in thinking that we're supposed to get in a place like this isn't really about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about. If your total freedom of choice regarding what to think about seems too obvious to waste time discussing, I'd ask you to think about fish and water, and to bracket for just a few minutes your skepticism about the value of the totally obvious.

Here's another didactic little story. There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: "Look, it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing, and it was fifty below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out 'Oh, God, if there is a God, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me.'" And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. "Well then you must believe now," he says, "After all, here you are, alive." The atheist just rolls his eyes. "No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp."

It's easy to run this story through kind of a standard liberal arts analysis: the exact same experience can mean two totally different things to two different people, given those people's two different belief templates and two different ways of constructing meaning from experience. Because we prize tolerance and diversity of belief, nowhere in our liberal arts analysis do we want to claim that one guy's interpretation is true and the other guy's is false or bad. Which is fine, except we also never end up talking about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from. Meaning, where they come from INSIDE the two guys. As if a person's most basic orientation toward the world, and the meaning of his experience were somehow just hard-wired, like height or shoe-size; or automatically absorbed from the culture, like language. As if how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of personal, intentional choice. Plus, there's the whole matter of arrogance. The nonreligious guy is so totally certain in his dismissal of the possibility that the passing Eskimos had anything to do with his prayer for help. True, there are plenty of religious people who seem arrogant and certain of their own interpretations, too. They're probably even more repulsive than atheists, at least to most of us. But religious dogmatists' problem is exactly the same as the story's unbeliever: blind certainty, a close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn't even know he's locked up.

The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. I have learned this the hard way, as I predict you graduates will, too.

Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness because it's so socially repulsive. But it's pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.

Please don't worry that I'm getting ready to lecture you about compassion or other-directedness or all the so-called virtues. This is not a matter of virtue. It's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self. People who can adjust their natural default setting this way are often described as being "well-adjusted", which I suggest to you is not an accidental term.

Given the triumphant academic setting here, an obvious question is how much of this work of adjusting our default setting involves actual knowledge or intellect. This question gets very tricky. Probably the most dangerous thing about an academic education -- least in my own case -- is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract argument inside my head, instead of simply paying attention to what is going on right in front of me, paying attention to what is going on inside me.

As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now). Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.

This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.

And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in day out" really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.

By way of example, let's say it's an average adult day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, and you work hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early because, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home. You haven't had time to shop this week because of your challenging job, and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the work day and the traffic is apt to be: very bad. So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. And the store is hideously lit and infused with soul-killing muzak or corporate pop and it's pretty much the last place you want to be but you can't just get in and quickly out; you have to wander all over the huge, over-lit store's confusing aisles to find the stuff you want and you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts (et cetera, et cetera, cutting stuff out because this is a long ceremony) and eventually you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough check-out lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day rush. So the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating. But you can't take your frustration out on the frantic lady working the register, who is overworked at a job whose daily tedium and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of any of us here at a prestigious college.

But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and you pay for your food, and you get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death. Then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, plastic bags of groceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly to the left, all the way out through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive, rush-hour traffic, et cetera et cetera.

Everyone here has done this, of course. But it hasn't yet been part of you graduates' actual life routine, day after week after month after year.

But it will be. And many more dreary, annoying, seemingly meaningless routines besides. But that is not the point. The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me. About MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it's going to seem for all the world like everybody else is just in my way. And who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are, and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line. And look at how deeply and personally unfair this is.

Or, of course, if I'm in a more socially conscious liberal arts form of my default setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic being disgusted about all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV's and Hummers and V-12 pickup trucks, burning their wasteful, selfish, forty-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper-stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest [responding here to loud applause] (this is an example of how NOT to think, though) most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers. And I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel, and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and selfish and disgusting we all are, and how modern consumer society just sucks, and so forth and so on.

You get the idea.

If I choose to think this way in a store and on the freeway, fine. Lots of us do. Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn't have to be a choice. It is my natural default setting. It's the automatic way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center of the world, and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities.

The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, it's not impossible that some of these people in SUV's have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he's in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way.

Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have harder, more tedious and painful lives than I do.

Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you are supposed to think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it. Because it's hard. It takes will and effort, and if you are like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat out won't want to.

But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she's not usually like this. Maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible. It just depends what you what to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won't consider possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.

Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're gonna try to see it.

This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.

Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.

They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.

And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and [unintelligible -- sounds like "displayal"]. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational the way a commencement speech is supposed to sound. What it is, as far as I can see, is the capital-T Truth, with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away. You are, of course, free to think of it whatever you wish. But please don't just dismiss it as just some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this stuff is really about morality or religion or dogma or big fancy questions of life after death.

The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death.

It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:

"This is water."

It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now.

I wish you way more than luck.

MANNY COON

2008-09-20T11:11:00.001-04:00

Calling all Art Writers

2008-09-10T17:21:00.001-04:00

September 10, 2008
SEPTEMBER 22 DEADLINE
FOR ARTS WRITERS GRANT

http://www.artswriters.org

The Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program awards project-based grants to individual authors writing on contemporary visual art. In its 2008 cycle, the program will fund approximately 20 projects in amounts ranging from 3,000-50,000 USD. All writers who meet our eligibility requirements are encouraged to apply.

For guidelines, eligibility requirements and application materials, please visit http://www.artswriters.org

Deadline for Applications: September 22, 2008, 4:59 p.m. EST.

41 Essex street
New York, NY 10002, USA

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Helvetica

2008-09-01T11:38:00.003-04:00

I recently saw the odd documentary Helvetica and wanted to pass on the recommendation to anyone who is interested in design and the world of fonts and type. The movie tells the history of this ubiquitous typeface and through interviews with many designers discuses the various trends in font use and design over the past 50 years.

2008-08-31T11:14:00.002-04:00

If you have not heard, SUMFA Alum Jane Craven has a piece in an Urban Sculpture Park in Long Branch, organized through The Shore Institute for the Contemporary Arts. The New York Times has written an article on the park and has reviewed her excellent work! The paper version includes a few more pictures - online there is only one, and the article is in today's (Sunday, August 31st) New York/ Region section- ie: New Jersey http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/31artsnj.html?ref=nyregionspecial2

For Example...

2008-08-30T08:34:00.030-04:00

June 12, 2000 cover of Time
Illustration by Brad Holland
used with the courtesy of http://www.time.com

Brad Holland isn't big on the zaniness of 20th century and contemporary art. At 17, he skipped art school, moved from Ohio to Chicago and then to New York, and became a famous illustrator working for the likes of Playboy and eventually Time. His philosophy is that modernism was all about "rule breaking" and that postmodernism is just playing in chaos.

Recently Mr. Holland lectured to support his show, "Third Eye" at Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport, PA where he reliably supported statements like the following one taken from his article "Express Yourself: It's later than you think" (published in Atlantic Monthly in July 1996):

Postmodernists believe that truth is myth and myth truth. This equation has its roots in pop psychology. The same people also believe that emotions are a form of reality. There used to be another name for this state of mind. It was called psychosis.

While I read his words prior to the lecture and while I listened during it, I cheered him on: "Art should be more than shock. Yes! Art should be more than silly. Yes! Art should be more than pranks. Yes! Abstract Expressionism has turned into interior decoration. Yes! Avant-garde culture is outdated. Yes!" However, something unexpected happened. When Holland started using examples for how ridiculous contemporary art has become, I stopped pounding my fist and started reflecting. His perfect model for the absurdity of experimental art was a New York Times article about an artist eating Sheetrock. He mockingly said, "Oh, but she isn't a performance artist! You can't watch her eat it. She munches at night while no one is looking." As he said this last part, he shot the audience a look that read, "Seriously, folks?"

Despite the strength of the work at Holland's show in the beautiful space that is Pennsylvania College of Technology's gallery, all I could think about was this anonymous artist who was eating Sheetrock in secret. What stuck with me wasn't necessarily the shock value of someone eating Sheetrock, a stunt that one might see on MTV's Jackass, but rather that she did it when no one was looking. So, I went home and found the aforementioned article online. It was published on February 6, 2005 and the artist's name is Emily Katrencik. The Sheetrock she ate was part of a wall in the LMAKprojects satellite gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn that separated "the gallery's exhibition space from the bedroom of its director, Louky Keijsers."

Emily Katrencik nibbling away
Image used with the courtesy of http://www.nytimes.com

In my mental recreation, Katrencik becomes like Franz Kafka's "hero" in The Metamorphosis: a shunned creature who sneaks out at night seeking nourishment but isn't sure where to find it and is too ashamed to be spotted. One who is driven by instinct to perform a destructive deed but survives by way of the calcium and iron in the Sheetrock (who knew?). One who is deprived of freedom and is forced to sustain by any means necessary like the women in Suzy McKee Charnas' dystopian The Slave and the Free who are turned into baby-making machines and left to survive off of their breast milk.

At the same time, Katrencik is exposing by dissolving the wall between the private and the public, the professional and the personal. Through invading Louky Keijsers' bedroom and uniting it with the gallery, Katrencik is building a bridge between the sometimes distant and uppity gallery owners in NYC and the viewing public. But she's not only "tearing down the wall" Berlin-style, she's ingesting it, making herself and her health vulnerable like a Bushido warrior who's willing to risk everything for his cause.

Holland said, "If you can't laugh at that, there's something wrong with you." And he's right. On some level, Katrencik's art is silly but it's also thought-provoking, unsettling, intimate, desperate, educational, layered, and memorable. Every time I'm ready to dismiss contemporary art as meaningless, frivolous, devoid of artful composition, casual, or shallow, something comes along like Katrencik's art to remind me that maybe all those rules being broken did lead somewhere and if navigated right, maybe the pluralistic sea does have pearls.

In "Third Eye," Brad Holland's Pearl consists of two sciency men measuring the size of a wondrously large, rosy-pink pearl in a clam. It seems out of place for these men to be trying to qualify this surreal treasure because whatever world they're in, their tools aren't going to be sufficient. It would be like counting inches in a dream.

Pearl Brad Holland
acrylic on panel

The problem with placing a cut off point and saying, "Here's where art stopped making sense!" is that it impairs one's tools for comprehending what can make contemporary art good. I'm not accusing Holland of anything because I make this mistake too and many people are looking out at the art world and thinking, "Where did this go wrong?" I'm just saying that assumptive dismissal is the inevitable conclusion of closing oneself off to anything that isn't in a traditional frame.

Dear Gilles and Felix,

2008-08-26T14:53:00.003-04:00

Hello Friends,
I'm doing a small installation in the window of Moore College of Art and Design's ARTShop. The opening is Monday, September 8, 2008 from 5-7pm, 20th and Race Street in Philadelphia. All are invited to attend!
Hope you are well and looking forward to Fall!
Best,
Terri

President BUSH PARDON's HIMSELF against POTENTIAL WARCRIMES

2008-08-26T10:38:00.001-04:00

Whip it at the WIP Show

2008-08-04T13:09:00.007-04:00

Greetings,

We the artists of the UArts Summer MFA invite you, the public, to attend the crowning achievements of our collective summer. This show presents the soft pencil traces, the starting marks of the potential lifelong trajectories of our artistic lives. Pretty super stuff. It's a chance to see a swatch of lives on the brink, not of fame (necessarily, but who knows...) but of that amazing thing your life becomes, post-click. It's not the period at the end of the sentence but the very well worded starting clause that longs to be completed.

On that note we invite the established into the academic. Please come, if not for art than in the name of free food.

Thanks so much, we hope to see you there:

Wednesday 8/6/08
6pm-8pm
(open studios begin at 4pm)

W.I.P Show @
Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery
333 S. Broad St
Philadelpia, PA 19102

Drawings
Arronson Gallery
320 S. Broad
Philadelphia, PA 19102

We are also hosting open studios, starting at 4pm

--J.A. Clark

MFA Alum in PMA Collection!

2008-07-19T10:26:00.002-04:00

Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I am pleased to announce that….
The Philadelphia Museum of Art has acquired my large photogram titled Optical Bridge.
It is in the museum's permanent photography and print collection.

Sincerely,
Walter
http://www.walterplotnick.com

Wooster Collective

2008-07-19T10:14:00.005-04:00

Hi Folks,
Here's a great link showcasing ephemeral street art.
Often very smart stuff!

www.woostercollective.com/

Sadashi Inuzuka Coming to UARTS 6/23!

2008-07-16T18:09:00.002-04:00

Hi Folks,
Check out an interview with Sadashi from The Why Series!

This week's lecture...

2008-07-07T13:42:00.003-04:00

This week, we're welcoming Jane D. Marsching to the program, where she'll talk about her work and offer crits. Given the multi-disciplinary nature of her practice (Ms. Marsching works in photo, video, writing, has a curating practice, occasionally works in collaboration, on research-based projects...among other areas of interest), it would be wise for you to check out what she does and contact your faculty if you're especially keen on getting a visit from her. The image above is from a 1998 project in Philadelphia; more recent work can be seen here.

For more, you can go to her website from here. Enjoy.

Visitors from other studios

2008-07-07T13:39:00.003-04:00

I finally saw the photos Fred Gutzeit took of his visit - they're great. See Andrew Rodgers, looking tough? Thanks, Fred. You can see more on his blog. Enjoy.

Free Art? ICA Goes Mad!!!

2008-07-01T22:08:00.003-04:00

(from an email sent by the ICA on July 1)

Beginning July 1, 2008, ICA will be free to the public for the first time in its history!

This initiative is made possible by a generous gift from Glenn R. Fuhrman. ICA Overseer and contemporary art collector, Mr. Fuhrman is an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School (undergraduate 1987; graduate degree 1988).

The Fuhrman gift will underwrite admissions at the ICA for the next five years allowing access to all exhibitions. ICA plans to celebrate this new initiative with a community-wide event Thursday, September 4, 2008. This event, which will also be free and open to the public, will kick-off our fall exhibition schedule to include the work of artists Douglas Blau, Robert Crumb, Kate Gilmore and Odili Donald Odita.

Still haven't a clue what's what? Go to the ICA website.

BBC Photos

2008-06-30T18:18:00.007-04:00

BBC News "Day in Pictures"
(click on the link above)

The BBC posts gorgeous pictures from around the world daily and this time, there are two artistically-flavored ones...on of a Martin Creed exhibition at the Tate Britain and the other of an anonymous sand artist.

All Change Hats

2008-06-23T09:29:00.002-04:00

I wanted to just give a heads-up about a blog posting by Chloe Veltman (Sports Writers have the Edge) I found on ArtsJournal.com.

Veltman writes about an experiment conducted by the Guardian in which the paper's sports writers covered art events and the art critics covered sporting events. She comes out strongly in favor of the sports writers, though the whole enterprise gets a less-than-ringing endorsement.

It caused a little bit of deja-vu for me because I vividly recall when the Boston Phoenix played this game with its culture critics in the late 80s or early 90s, sending the movies writer to a restaurant, the art writer to do dance, the dance critic to the movies, etc. It was a really interesting moment for me as a reader (and one I pestered my editors to recreate when I starting writing for a weekly...finally getting the chance to do books and restaurants and even a theater review) because it suggested that what really mattered in criticism in these media outlets was not a deep knowledge of the specific subject at hand, but a deep knowledge of some subject coupled with really great writing skills.

Artists might bristle at this idea, but it's something I hope we'll explore a little in the class this summer: to what extent are critics writing for an audience of rreaders as opposed to an audience of insiders?

Making You

2008-06-22T10:03:00.049-04:00

Love - is anterior to Life -

Posterior - to Death -
Initial of Creation, and
The Exponent of Earth -

- XXXVII, Emily Dickinson, 1864
(copied with the courtesy of http://www.emilydickinson.it/j0901-0950.html)

Richard Hell "You Make Me" Outtake from photos for his album The Blank Generation
(Click on the link above to see the photo)

The preceding juxtaposition is not my own. We can thank Jessica Jackson Hutchins' (b. 1971 in Chicago, IL) recent show "The Exponent of Earth (You Make Me)" at the Derek Eller Gallery in Chelsea for this sublime contrast of classic literature and early punk. When I read a press release (found at http://chelseaartgalleries.com) and discovered that Hutchins had mashed Dickinson with Hell I thought that it was a lame attempt to unite disparate elements (poetry and punk together at last! We get it). I wasn't affected until I actually placed the poem next to the picture and dove in between.

As Dickinson's words ignited a debate in my mind about whether saying "love is all" was more pukingly sentimental or seductively eternal, Hell's open chest wound just knocked me out. So, not only is love all but you give it to me. This unification leaves the "I" incredibly vulnerable and if it wasn't for Hell's punk aesthetic, this bleeding patchwork would be too much to bear. There's just something disarming about a man looking so raw and yet being so exposed (the line "You Make Me" is directly taken from the picture).

And that's just the title. What about Hutchins artwork? How does this riveting name actually relate to the show?

Jessica Jackson Hutchins
Convivium, 2008
table, linen, paper maché and ceramic
52.75 x 56.75 x 53.75 inches
(image used with the courtesy of http://www.derekeller.com)

The following is my account of the exhibition before my knowledge of the origins of the title:

Upon walking into the Derek Eller gallery, I realized that I was being confronted by that pesky "anti-aesthetic" again and this fact usually leads me to the questions, "How could this artwork possibly fail?" and "If it's supposed to be awful, where does that leave a judge?" Hutchins' sculptures are made up of old furniture surmounted by globs of plaster and papier mache along with poorly made ceramic kitchenware that seem like rotten cherries atop melted ice cream.

It wasn't until I saw Convivium (pictured above) that I was granted entry into Hutchins' world. The definition of "convivial" from Merriam-Webster is "relating to, occupied with, or fond of feasting, drinking, and good company." The "um" on the end calls to mind "continuum" which is defined as "a coherent whole characterized as a collection, sequence, or progression of values or elements varying by minute degrees." We can then view Convivium as a collection of the elements of feasting with good company. However, the piece itself is far from jovial. The table is dirty and looks like it was extracted from an abandoned basement where someone was desperately trying to recreate the--at this point--romanticized memory of a family gathering with old pictures of flowers, some bags of plaster, and ceramics made for necessity rather than beauty.

If you're keeping score, we have 1. love is all 2. you give me love 3. I'm in a dark, dirty, soul-crushing, abandoned house trying to build that love for myself with the only stuff I've got. It's sweet in a depressing, post-apocalyptic kind of way.

Thank you, Mrs. Hutchins.
Sincerely,
Matthew Parrish

Great website

2008-06-21T12:13:00.002-04:00

Hey guys -
After stumbling upon a very interesting artist at Max Lang yesterday in Chelsea, I stumbled upon what looks to be a pretty interesting website while doing searches on her. I saw work on this page that I thought several of you in the program might find interesting, so decided to post it for the whole class to enjoy...
It's called the Daily Serving.com but I believe the link i found was an older one to these artists I thought were interesting...
http://www.dailyserving.com/2007/02/

Hope you all had a good time yesterday...
Melissa

Mark Dion’s Bartram’s Travels Reconsidered

2008-06-19T10:56:00.000-04:00

June 19, 2008
The Weekend Guide
What to Do This Weekend
follow the trail!

SEE
Mark Dion’s Bartram’s Travels Reconsidered
What: Artifacts, drawings, and other magical creations (natural and unnatural) that Dion curated on Bartram’s Trail and displayed in Bartram’s Garden.
Why: You’re lacking inspiration.
When: Fri., 5:30-8:30 p.m.
Where: 54th St. & Lindbergh Blvd. (215-729-5281). R.S.V.P. to rsvp@bartramsgarden.org.

Swoon Discusses Portrait of Silvia Elena, Now At Honeyspace May 30-July 5, 2008

2008-06-18T20:22:00.005-04:00

Hi Folks,
Swoon's Portrait of Silvia Elena will be at Honeyspace Art Gallery, May 30 thru July o5, 2008.
I'd love to hear a response to the work as I can not make the NY trip.
Honey Space is at 148 11th Avenue, between 21st and 22nd Streets, Chelsea; honey-space.com
Best,
Terri

About artists

2008-06-16T08:19:00.002-04:00

It's always good to see artists being talked about in the press, so I was pleased to see the lengthy profile of Marlene Dumas in Sunday's New York Times Magazine. Hope you have a chance to flip through it. Enjoy!