Philadelphia's First Friday

 

Friday, July 5th, 2013 was Philadelphia's First Friday! The experience, like every first Friday here in Philly, was great. There were tons of artists and designers on the streets networking, selling work, and just having a great time. There was a flea market and a great deal of gallery openings too! I had the chance to visit Sub^2 Gallery, Pentimenti Gallery, Muse Gallery, Rosenfeld Gallery, an event by Fringe Arts and more.

Sub^2 Gallery had a lot of great art focusing on pop culture and philadelphia. Pentimenti Gallery (my personal favorite) had a great show, "Global Conscious, Local Artists" starring Shiana Craft, Tim Eads, Tim Portlock, Raul Romero, Emily Schnellbacher, and Jay Walker. Muse Gallery curated a solo exhibition, "Diane Lachman: Color Chords" (beautiful works!) and Rosenfeld plucked my heartstrings by including the artist Mike East, an artist who focuses this particular series of works on Philadelphia's urban landscapes. There is a picture above showing me next to a landscape painting depicting some buildings just down the street from where I live...can you say, "excited?!" (Of course, I'm biased because of my love for Philadelphia, but who cares!)

My visit to the Fringe Arts Proposition Tent was even better (literally the highlight of my evening).  The entire summer Fringe Arts installs a red tent and surrounds it's contents and events around a specific theme; this month's focus was love, so, of course, being a hopeless romantic (my secret's safe with you right?) I had to go. Each tent includes a local artist, an international artist, and a non-profit. Unfortunately, the scheduled non-profit for this tent "bailed" on Fringe Arts forcing them to set up a last minute love workshop (we expressed our opinions about love in 2d art AKA markers, wide-ruled paper, and a little bit of our own creativity). On the upside, they had a fascinating work of art by Yoko Ono (Yes, I typed that right!) and had Leroy Johnson there sitting in front of few of his paintings and one of his sculptures. The first thing I saw upon arrival was Yoko Ono's "Grow Love With Me"; I was stoked! Then, I walked into the actual tent and there in the flesh was Leroy Johnson, an extremely well-known Philadelphia artist; I plopped right down and talked to the man. I was able to ask him all sorts of questions and he would shoot an answer right back somehow managing to make my friends and I laugh along the way. To say the least, Fringe Arts' Proposition Tent was a huge success making this first Friday a grand one!

Please do leave your comments or questions below! :)

More Tours at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

One of the great benefits of being an intern at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is going on exclusive tours with department curators. Pictured above are photos from three different tours in which I recently took part: one in the Indian and Himalayan galleries, one in the European Painting Before 1900 galleries and another in the American Art Galleries. All three curators (Darielle Mason, Joseph J. Rishel and Alexandra Kirtley) gave some fascinating information about the collection they handle on a day-to-day basis. For instance, Ms. Kirtley's fun fact was that the claw and ball foot often associated with Chippendale furniture was, in fact, never sold by Thomas Chippendale. the claw and ball foot was never published in the company's catalogs, therefore not offered to their customers (Of course coming from me this doesn't sound too exciting, but these people, especially Alexandra Kirtley, get you just as, if not more excited than they are about the museum's collection). The great thing about going on tours guided by curators is experiencing their contagious compassion for art.

I highly recommend going on a tour at the PMA. Click here for tour details.

African American Museum in Philadelphia

Last week I visited the African American Museum in Philadelphia which specializes in Philadelphian African American History. Before we begin, I would like to warn you that I had an emotionally complicated experience at this museum.

Now that you are prepared...

The permanent galleries were almost insulting; all the material in the first and second galleries were dumbed down to the point of no return. It is obvious the museum's primary goal is to cater to a very young audience (that's great!), but they completely disregarded the adult's experience. Let's keep in mind that the child will most likely have an adult accompany them throughout these galleries-- why can't we be part of the fun too? As I was walking through the first half of the museum, my standards for the next few galleries rapidly lowered. I was anticipating more poorly curated spaces with experiences like I encountered in the other galleries (benches way too close to video screens).

Instead I encountered a pleasant surprise! Upon walking into the AMMP's special exhibition space I was immediately engaged. "Come See About Me"  is on view in galleries 3 & 4  and its about on the Supremes (only the "world's most famous female trio"[1]). The exhibition includes original posters, magazines, performance videos, and (drum roll please) original gowns from the Mary Wilson collection. Not only is it the largest Supremes' gown collection in the country, the dresses are also owned by Mary Wilson, one of the founding members of the Supremes! Awesome, right? Unfortunately photography is not permitted in the special exhibition galleries, but hey that give you even more incentive to go! Check it out, but do me a favor and skip over the second floor gallery unless you are planning on bringing a few youngsters.

Questions or comments? Feel free to leave them below :)

[1] "Dare to Dream", Accessed 7/6/13, http://www.marywilson.com/biography.html

Philly's 4th of July Frenzy

Every year Philadelphia makes the most of Independence Day, scheduling all sorts of free and ticketed events throughout the city to celebrate. As a newbie to the whole situation, I found almost everything delightful! I attended the parade from 11:00 AM to about 1:00 PM and saw hundreds of people doing the same. The participants and the audience were all just as excited as me to be in the streets of Philadelphia. Immediately after the parade, I went to "Party on the Parkway," which had lovely young women and men doing great dance routines on stage, tons of food vendors, Wawa giveaway tents (they gave away a great iced tea lemonade drink), and some commercial spaces as well. Next on the schedule was a free concert with performers such as Kevin Hart, J. Cole, and Ne-yo. Conceptually this was a great event, but the amount of people that showed up made it unenjoyable with no room to breath, and (with my height) no view of the stage or anyone on it. The performers were also very hard to hear if you were outside concert seating. If you are thinking about coming to Philadelphia for next year's events please do spend the money to get a seat for the concert(s); they will be much more enjoyable that way. Finally, I made it to the fireworks (which, may I say, were the highlight of the evening!) Growing up in a small town didn't allow for many awe-inspiring shows, but let me tell you, Philly's fireworks are the best I've seen yet. Anyway, what I believe made July 4th even better was the diversity of event attendees; people of all ages, colors, and cultures were celebrating together as a family. Philly's truly the city of brotherly (and sisterly) love!

Tour of the PMA's Perelman Building

A week or so ago I had the opportunity to take part in yet another tour, this time focused on architecture rather than an exhibition. Wonderful women by the name of Connie Ragsdale and Linda Field gave all of the interns including myself a fantastic introduction to the the Perelman building's history. The Perelman Building, a recent addition to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, has a rich history as the ex-home of Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company, one of the largest Philadelphian insurance companies of its time. The building just so happens to be made of the same stone (Minnesota dolomite) as the PMA's main building and were both built around the same time (the 1920's). The Perelman building with its Art Deco facades beautifully contrasts the main building which is Greek revival. I guess opposites attract; These buildings are totally soul mates! As pictured in this post, both the outside and inside of the building includes intricate details carved in the stone, cast in doors, and placed on the lobby's ceiling; Each figure or shape intentionally symbolizes a variety of ideas regarding family and the need to protect the ones you love. A multitude of cultures and stories are represented on the side of the building just above the grand windows looking into the Perelman's special exhibition galleries.

The original building included only the section which is pictured above, creating a long, thin "U" shape.

"In October 2004, following a groundbreaking celebration for its donors, the major construction began in earnest and the original building was expanded by a 59,000-square-foot addition."[1]

Once the project began, the back of the beautiful lobby was opened up to accommodate galleries and a cafe (with great food I might add!). The interesting thing about this expansion is that the lobby is the only point in which the new addition meets the the old building even if it does come really close in other sections (I have a great picture showing the closes the two buildings meet outside the lobby connection). Needless to say the new addition compliments the old and now allows the Philadelphia Museum of Art to become part of the history of this grand building.

[1]"A Museum Milestone- A Gateway to the Future," Accessed 7/2/13, http://www.philamuseum.org/information/45-289-100.html.

Happy Belated Birthday to Ellsworth Kelly!

Ellsworth Kelly Sculpture

To celebrate for Ellsworth Kelly's 90th Birthday (May 31st, 2013) and his artistic genius, I visited two institutions in Philadelphia who are exhibiting his work. The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Barnes Foundation both have exhibitions highlighting two contrasting sectors of the artist's work. The Barnes' show, "Ellsworth Kelly: Sculpture on the Wall" (open until September 2nd, 2013), really appeals me due to the each sculpture's monumental size and brilliant color. Moreover, the PMA has a tasteful exhibition, "Homage to Ellsworth Kelly" (open until August 25th,2013), which primarily highlights four of Kelly's paintings: Red Yellow Blue White (1952), Diagonal with Curve III(1978), Black Red-Orange (1966), and Yellow Relief with White (1990).

 

Photograuve & Starting From Scratch

The Prints, Drawings, and Photography department at the Philadelphia Museum of Art currently has two exhibitions on view: "Photograuve: Master Prints from the Collection" and "Starting From Scratch: Etching From Durer to Dine" both open until August 11, 2013. As one of the 2013 summer interns, I had the opportunity to take part in a great curatorial tour of each exhibition. Peter Barberie, the Brodsky Curator of Photographs (Alfred Stieglitz Center) curated "Photogravure: Master Prints from the Collection" and James R. Wehn, Margaret R. Mainwaring Curatorial Fellow of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, co-curated "Starting from Scratch: The Art of Etching from Dürer to Dine" with Shelley R. Langdale, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings. These two exhibitions give their audiences a well-rounded understanding of each medium throughout history.

Space 1026

Space 1026 is a wonderfully run artist gallery that has been in Philadelphia for over a decade. The people are extremely friendly and the space is comfortably casual. During my visit, I saw Geoffrey Kizmiller's exhibition, "Glory Be," a show displaying brand new work from six artists (Eric Brittain, Jessica Hans, Caley Feeney, Clark Mizono, Helen Levy and Erin Jane Nelson). I was introduced to a variety of artists working in their studios "behind-the-scenes" as well as given a tour of the building. Even without all the positive energy and great exhibitions these artists bring to the space, the building itself is a very interesting one with its unique history. I highly encourage anyone near the area to check it out. The entrance is a little tough to find and how to enter the building can be a bit confusing, but once you locate and ring the gallery's unique doorbell you will find yourself heading up a steep flight of stairs that lead you to the space. Once you're in you will be glad you made all that effort!

319 N. 11th Street

319 N 11th St, Philadelphia is a great place to spend a few hours. There are more than four galleries all in this one building. When I visited in late may, I was able to walk through Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Marginal Utility, Grizzly Grizzly, and Vox Populi. All of these are great galleries with top-notch exhibitions.

Officially an Intern!

2013-06-11-13-37-26.jpg

2013-06-11 13.37.26 After lots of hard work and dedication, I was finally accepted into the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Museum Studies Internship Program. I am stoked!  The entire summer I get to work with world renown art professionals while also learning the ins and outs of a large institution. I am interning in the PMA's registrar's office, which manages the museums collection along with incoming loans. Working with art....YAY! I had a week or two to adjust to the program (my first day was June 10th, 2013) before I began this series. Since I haven't posted for quite sometime, I figured this is a great time to come back into the blog-sphere!  The series will record my professional development, give all my readers a behind the scenes look at the PMA's internship program, and show some of the fun art and/or museum related events I attend throughout the summer so keep your eyes and ears peeled for my upcoming posts. :)

"Thoughts of Tomorrow" Exhibition Proposal

Washington County Museum of Fine Arts of Hagerstown, MD Thoughts of Tomorrow PP

Inspired by the 1956 exhibition, This is Tomorrow, at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, the exhibition Thoughts of Tomorrow explores how the human psyche will or may effect the future of not only art, but also the human race. Through the collaboration of artists and interior architects, the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts of Hagerstown, Maryland will provide the public with four different ways of thinking about the future. In the original exhibition Robertson and his team were looking “across the pond” to the Unites States of America. This time around, Thoughts of Tomorrow will be looking at two major world powers, the United States and Japan. Just as the 1956 exhibition, the contemporary show will divide the artists and designers into collaborative groups. Although the past exhibition included twelve groups of larger size, Thoughts of Tomorrow will have four groups consisting of one contemporary artist and one interior architect from Bushey Feight Morin (BFM) Architects of Hagerstown, Maryland. The groups will have the opportunity to create artwork, reuse previous work, and curate their own spaces around the theme of tomorrow.

 

All artists are strongly encouraged to continue exploring how the human psyche affects our lives and future. The contemporary artists, Desiree Holman, Shizu Saldamando, Kevin Zucker, and Motoi Yamamoto, all work in one way or another with the effects of the human mind and its perceptions. For instance, Desiree Holman explores how popular culture affects our ways of thinking. Shizu Saldamando explores social spaces as places for experimentation through intensive realist drawings. Zevin Zucker explores human priorities in his two-dimensional work. Moreover, Motoi Yamamoto is influenced by his past experiences such as the death of his sister causing him to use salt installations as a means of healing. The exhibition will be organized by the content already present in each artist’s practice. For example, Desiree Holman confronts the viewer in a very dramatic and outspoken manner like a storm, whereas Motoi Yamamoto provides much more comfort to his audience; he is the calm.  Since the participating contemporary artists are storm-like, calm and everything in between, the exhibition is metaphorically organized so the viewer experiences the calm after the storm.

As stated earlier, the exhibition will be divided into four primary areas each of which will be devoted to one artist and one interior architect. In the first 720 square foot room, the audience will encounter work by Desiree Holman and her assigned designer from BFM Architects. Primarily a video artist, Desiree Holman, is very interested in “what we can recognize about ourselves by peering into alternate fantasy worldscapes.”[1] Often confrontational, her work causes an emotional storm by presenting a new idea to the viewer. For instance, The Magic Window, her three channeled video work and colored pencil series based on the sitcoms Rosanne and The Cosby Show, forces its audience to ask “How much do we create these televisual fictions and how much do these fictions create us?”

The project statement explains that, “Holman's work concerns itself with how far viewers are capable of projecting themselves into these fictional environments and how much these hyperreal environments tell us about ourselves… Weaving back and forth stylistically between an American sitcom television production and a D.I.Y. video art sensibility, the work aims to examine longing, psychological participation and media representations of family.”[2]

The Magic Window dramatically confronts its viewers about the purity of their own perception of family by the increasingly creepy performance video included in the work where disturbing sewn masks are placed over the actor’s heads. In addition, Holman’s work presented in Thoughts of Tomorrow will reflect how these alternate fantasy worldscapes change how a person views life.

Upon being questioned about the purity of human perceptions, the viewer will then enter the second 612 square foot space occupied by Shizu Saldamando, a fine artist with a focus in the two-dimensional, and her BFM Architects partner. Saldamando’s work often discusses “how American social spaces are the laboratories for new ways of being.”[3] For instance, in the oil painting Cat and Carm, the two individuals are kissing as a way of sexual experimentation. Just like Holman, Saldamando comments on how our environment affects us and our future, but in a less uncomfortable and creepy manner. Going from Holman’s space, where the topic of perception was discussed through fantasy, to Saldamando’s gallery, the viewer is brought back to reality. The work present in this gallery will discuss how perception affects the decisions we make and therefore effects our entire lives.

The third area the viewer enters is the same size as the previous room (612 square feet) but contains the work of Kevin Zucker, a fine artist with a focus in the two-dimensional, and his interior architect. This room is a metaphor for the calming storm. The artist’s work often includes painting, drawing, digital printing techniques, and photography.

The artist’s short biography states that, “Zucker presents us with a visual language that is simultaneously real and artificial, hand-made and mechanical, that takes place in the past, present and future – all coming together and falling apart at the same time. The idea of a painting as a space for the collection, archiving, curation, display, and storage of existing information, rather than as a zone for creation or expression, has been central to Zucker’s recent work.”[4]

Play It as It Lays/Sentimental Education, for instance, uses the imagery of a shelf to portray how different aspects of education are organized and ranked in the human mind. This room will assist the viewer in understanding why certain things are prioritized the way they are, or make the audience question this organization even further.

The fourth and final area will contain the collaborated work of Motoi Yamamoto and his assigned designer. Yamamoto is known for his “Floating Garden” salt installation work, which often resembles a hurricane or typhoon. His art is influenced by the death of his sister causing him to begin a meditative installation process.[5] Yamamoto is using salt, which in Japanese culture is associated with purification and mourning.[6] Not only does he use his artwork to heal his emotional wounds, but he also uses it for good through his Return to the Sea Project, which requires all salt used in his installations to be thrown back into the ocean so various marine life may thrive.[7] This room will include a site specific salt installation along with any accompanying work Yamamoto may choose. On the opposite side of the room, a platform with ramp access will sit so the audience can see his salt installation not only from ground level, but also from above. The fourth room may be seen as the calm after the storm, where we begin to prepare for the future.

Just as Robertson’s This is Tomorrow exhibition, Thoughts of Tomorrow makes the audience confront the past, present, and future. The 1956 exhibition strived to emphasize the future, but in fact it also stressed the past and present. Holman uses fantasy worldscapes to make the viewer think about how our televisual environment is affecting our future. Saldamando brings us back to reality and shows us that the social space we place ourselves in will affect everything in our lives. Zucker forces the viewer to understand why certain things in our lives are ranked or prioritized the way they are. Furthermore, Yamamoto provides us with comfort and understanding of what we need to do to improve our future. In the contemporary exhibition, Thoughts of Tomorrow, the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts uses these four collaborative groups to examine how the past and present will affect the future of not only art, but of the human race.

Bibliography

“Desirée Holman_Statement of Purpose 2009”, accessed 11/25/2012, http://www.desireeholman.com/everything_else/DHolman_Statement.pdf

“Kevin Zucker”, accessed 11/25/2012, http://www.gvdgallery.com/artists/kevin-zucker/#artist-bio

“Motoi Yamamoto- Saltscapes”, accessed 11/25/2012, http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/11/sponsor-motoi-yamamotos-saltscapes/

“Motoi Yamamoto's "Return to the Sea: Saltworks" -- Spoleto Festival USA at the College of Charleston”, accessed 11/25/2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLIJuQSOJis

“Project Statement”, accessed 11/25/2012, http://www.desireeholman.com/everything_else/MagWind_projstat.html

“Salt Project- ‘Returned to Sea’”, accessed 11/25/12, http://www.motoi.biz/english/e_top/e_top.html

“Shizu Saldamando”, accessed 11/25/2012, http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/encounter/saldamando.html

[1] “Desirée Holman_Statement of Purpose 2009”, accessed 11/25/2012, http://www.desireeholman.com/everything_else/DHolman_Statement.pdf

[2] “Project Statement”, accessed 11/25/2012, http://www.desireeholman.com/everything_else/MagWind_projstat.html

[3] “Shizu Saldamando”, accessed 11/25/2012, http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/encounter/saldamando.html

[4] “Kevin Zucker”, accessed 11/25/2012, http://www.gvdgallery.com/artists/kevin-zucker/#artist-bio

[5] “Motoi Yamamoto- Saltscapes”, accessed 11/25/2012, http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/11/sponsor-motoi-yamamotos-saltscapes/

[6] “Motoi Yamamoto's "Return to the Sea: Saltworks" -- Spoleto Festival USA at the College of Charleston”, accessed 11/25/2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLIJuQSOJis

[7] “Salt Project- ‘Returned to Sea’”, accessed 11/25/12, http://www.motoi.biz/english/e_top/e_top.html

This exhibition proposal/ concept is copyrighted Carlee A. Myers.

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