Matthew Damian Ritchie at Art Star Craft Bazaar

Matthew Damian Ritchie, one of our MFA painters, had a booth at this year's Art Star Craft Bazaar, selling his paintings, drawings and some merch. It looked awesome, contact him to buy them directly.

Drawing
Painting:Merch: Contact him if you are interested in purchasing!!
The t-shirts are adorable, and he has stickers.

SOLID GOLD - Vox Populi

to MFA painter, R. Nick Barbee who got into the Solid Gold show at Vox Populi.

SOLID GOLD
June 6 - June 27, 2008
Opening Reception: First Friday, June 6, 2008 6-11pm

Vox Populi
319 N. 11th Street 3rd Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19107

Stoöp Deux II

June 4, 2008 2pm in PE 306
Tyler School of Art Campus
7725 Penrose Avenue
Elkins Park, PA 19027

Art and Politics

It is time for the second Stoöp.
A conversation about the intersection of politics and art.

Here are some interesting links you may want to check out to be prepared for the discussion:

Artforum
Events in 1968

Learning Curve: Tom Holert on radical art and education in Germany

Articles about Mark Lombardi's drawings

"Obsessive -- Generous" Toward a Diagram of Mark Lombardi

Thanks to Chad Curtis, Mark Shetabi, and Philip Glahn

Jules et Jim - François Truffaut

I am taking the International Cinema art history class this summer and the concentration is "representations of love" and more specifically love gone wrong. This is a very romantic scene out of Jules et Jim, which we watched in class tonight. Out of context it is romantic, in reality the woman, Jeanne Moreau, is singing to her lover, soon to be ex husband and soon to be husband, currently a lover, but never becomes husband. I'm not sure how accurate the subtitles are, but my favorite part is when she closes her eyes and smiles while she is singing. Enjoy!

209 Mini Gallery

I was just made aware of a tiny gallery just under most of our noses. Called the 209 Mini Gallery, owned, built and run by a painter in the MFA program named Matthew Ritchie. Its an ingenious use of public space, though it looks like he works way too big to show all of his work in the mini gallery, the hardwood floors are a nice touch.

If only we had a space to show work that was on public view, decently sized, and safe. Maybe in the new building.

Art Star Craft Bazaar - tell them you heard about it here!!

The 2008 Art Star Craft Bazaar

Who: 150 artists & live music by Falkonr and others bands TBA
What: Affordable, unique, and high quality art and crafts. Free and open to the public.
When: Saturday, May 31st from 11-7pm & Sunday, June 1st from 11-5pm
Where: Penn's Landing Great Plaza - on Columbus Boulevard between Walnut Street and Market Street (click here for directions)

Saturday Music Line-up: Holly Billaday, Joshua Marcus, Padre Pio, Toy Soldiers, The Neighborhood Choir, The Mural & The Mint

Sunday Music Line-up: Rocco of The Elevator Parade, Jay & Jeff of Like a Fox, The New Motels, Emily Bate, Falkonr

Call for Entries: Photo Synthesis

DaVinci Art Alliance "Photo Synthesis" a multimedia juried awards exhibition of art employing photography or any photographic process. Only $15 dollar entry fee.

Semi Review

Roberta Fallon reviewed the "semi" exhibition in the Philly Artblog. Its pretty interesting! Lots of pictures and insight.

The Cheltenham Center for the Arts

Tyler School of Art: 1988 - 2008: Twenty Years Fast Foward

June 1 -28, 2008

Gala Opening Reception
Sunday, June 1, 2-5pm
The Cheltenham Center for the Arts
439 Ashbourne Road, Cheltenham, PA
215-379-4660

Beer | Knight's Head Brewing
Food | Joshua's | The West Avenue Grille | Under the Oak Cafe | The Drake Tavern | Abner's Authentic Barbecue | Curds and Whey

Musical Entertainment: David Cohen and James Callas
Suggested donation: $10 at the door

Sponsored by the Tyler School of Art Alumni Association

I, Erin M Riley have two tapestries in this show, Lauren Abshire has two pieces in the show and Matthew Damian Ritchie has two paintings in it too!

It looks like this opening will be bountiful, I hope you will come out.

PDS in Las Vegas, NV

So PDS went to Las Vegas, Nevada last week for their department's biennial domestic trip. I asked them for images to show off for the blog but instead of waiting for that to happen, I google image searched for dirt.

Here is some dirt.

Not all of it is authentic Las Vegas dirt but its convincing.














Update! Thanks Jess Perlitz! One more picture of dirt, but including the PDS department looking for Micheal Heizer's earthworks and a few at a bone yard of old neon signs.

Philly: A Fly Event!

More Details Coming Soon!!

says Andrea from Graphic Design

Zach Whitehurst - inarticulation

Zach Whitehurst
MFA Thesis Exhibition

5.21.08 - 5.24.08
Reception: Friday 5.23.08 6-8p.m.

inarticulation

Temple Gallery
259 N. 3rd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
215.925.7379
Hours: Wed. - Sat. 11a.m. - 6p.m.

Daria Ujma & Melissa Laine Scotton

Daria Ujma & Melissa Laine Scotton
MFA Graphic Design Exhibition

Closing Reception - May 24, 2008 - 6-9 pm



Daria is Polish, so are her perogies. Her perogies are delicious; so is her graphic design. She would love for you to come and enjoy both at the show!

Melissa loves graphic design, almost as much as she loves cupcakes. She would love for you to come to the show and share in her love for both!

Daria Ujma - spaslok2@yahoo.com
Tyler Gallery | Tyler School of Art | 7725 Penrose Avenue |Elkins Park, PA 19027 | 215.782.ARTS

Fleisher: Challenge Artist

Established in 1978, the Challenge Exhibition Series is a regional juried competition that is committed to enriching and expanding people's lives through art. Four shows, held each year from September through February, feature the work of twelve regional artists chosen from over three hundred entries.

Zach Whitehurst, one of our glass grads has made it through the first round!! Just waiting to hear back about the final jurying. Good luck! His thesis show opens friday..

PhillyArtGalleries.com

I came across the website PhillyArtGalleries.com and thought I would recommend it to artists who are planning to stick around the Philadelphia area, who might be opposed to websites, but not opposed to posting your art on a site so that by chance people might see it and be interested. It has a lot of resources as well as artists' profiles on it like Inliquid does but there is no jurying process for the artists featured. Its a place to start!

Shelby Donnelly - Confessionary Sugar

Shelby Donnelly

Confessionary Sugar

MFA Thesis Exhibition
May 14 - May 17, 2008
Reception: Saturday, May 17, 6-8pm

Tyler Gallery
7725 Penrose Avenue
Elkins Park, PA 19027
215.782.2776

Hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 10am - 5pm


Image: Document, 2008, silk and thread, 31" x 60"

Sarah Kurz - FULL OF YOU

Sarah Kurz
FULL OF YOU

Tyler School of Art
MFA Thesis Exhibition
May 14-17, 2008

OPENING RECEPTION TONIGHT!!! 6-8pm

Temple Gallery
259 N. 3rd Street
Philadelphia, PA
Contact: sarahkurz@gmail.com
Image: What, You Want To Hold Me?, oil on canvas, 16" x 20" 2008

Art on Paper Magazine - Letters to a Young Artist

So at the end of last semester, I received an adorable mini gift bag filled with chocolates, and to anyone this would be exciting, and I was excited, only I am vegan, so that excitement only lasted so long until I had to find someone else to eat them before I turned into an ex-vegan. The chocolates were a thank you for a job well done, from my semester of teacher assisting for Lori Glessner in Fibers.

This semester, incredibly for me, good luck or something, she got me the small hand held book Letters to a Young Artist which was published by the Art on Paper Magazine. Couldn't have been at a better time, though I think its safe to say we all need encouragement continually. I guess being vegan has its benefits, like swapping out edible gifts for equally satisfying books. Well its interesting, and I was going to post an entry or two from it but there is a warning in the back saying not to reproduce any part of the book. So you can borrow it.

Joan Jonas:
"The answer is in the Work. To Work. To care about the Work."

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

This graffitianimation is really pretty awesome, its a shame how much graffiti they covered up to make it but it'll all be back quick im sure, thats the name of the game. The residue from animating the imagery is the best i think, the fuzzy lines and blacks turned to grays, the noise kind of made my head hurt, maybe in a good way.

Robert Rauschenberg

We all gotta die some day, 82 is pretty good for an artist who probably never wore a respirator, gloves or other precautions against his art materials. If only we all can make it that long. Definitely a handsome fellow in his younger years. Our art lives can be like his.

Ronald J. Cala - Exit

Ronald J. Cala

Exit

MFA Thesis Exhibition

Closing Reception: May 17th, 2008 7-9pm

Tyler Gallery
7725 Penrose Avenue
Elkins Park, PA 19027

West Prize

So the West Prize is a pretty huge competition with amazing prizes (lots of money). There is an online submission form and its free, and from the time I spent clicking the "click for additional work" button you can submit 6 or more images for FREE!!

A cool thing is that you can see what has been entered and who you are competing with, there isn't much up yet, but its due in October so we have a few months.

Its for painting, sculpture, photography and installation.

The West Prize will be awarded to ten international emerging artists in 2008. The prize will award $100,000 in acquisitions between the finalists and host a finalist TEN exhibition with accompanying publication. A grand prize winner will be chosen from among the finalists to receive a $25,000 cash prize in addition to the West Prize acquisition.

Oak Lane Reservoir

View Larger Map

So you are driving back or to the Temple Gallery in Tyler's new van (if you are lucky) and at intersection at 65th Avenue and 5th Street someone says,

"remember when there were cardboard cut outs of dogs in there? why are there life jackets? can you swim in that? when will they fill the pool? So you think there is water under that cover? does it collect rain? "

and on and on until some other subject comes up. So in order to shed some light on the matter I looked up what it is, because, personally Id rather know something than have the same conversation once a week. It is the Oak Lane Reservoir.

What is a reservoir? A reservoir is a lake-like area where water is kept until it is needed. They come in all shapes and sizes. Reservoirs are owned by a water company or authority. There really is not much information about the Oak Lane Reservoir except for its longitude and latitude, which doesn't help much. Personally, I would like to know how deep it is.

Maybe I should interview the person in charge of the place?

Lauren Abshire - You Are Here

Lauren Abshire

You Are Here

May 7 - May 10, 2008

Temple Gallery
259 N. Third Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106
215.925.7379
Hours: Wednesday - Saturday 11am - 6pm

Reception: Friday May 9, 2008 6pm - 8:30pm

lauren@laurenabshire.com
Image: Untitled, 2008, digital print, 5.47" x 4.21"

Andria Bibiloni - Im Real

Andria Bibiloni
I'm Real

Temple Gallery
259 N. 3rd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19027

Thesis Exhibition May 7 - 10, 2008
Gallery Hours: 11-6pm
Reception: Friday, May 9th, 6-8pm


Along with Andria's thesis exhibition she has been working on a project at The Lighthouse, at 141 W. Somerset Avenue, Philadelphia, PA. After Joan Dreyer's thesis show (which opens today) peer review yesterday Crafts drove down to see the project on its opening day and it is pretty incredible. This is what she has to say on the installation:

In medieval Inda, societies in the northwestern part of the country built stepwells in order to make ground water more accessible to the community. The repeating series of staggered steps made it possible to reach water no matter how much rainfall had collected. In the wells, people could bathe, wash clothes, and make spiritual offerings. Descend was inspired by this ancient architecture because of its communal significance.

Since this stepwell is situated at The Lighthouse, an element of the Puerto Rican culture has been included through atmospheric lighting. On the southern shore of the island, a bioluminescent bay called La Parguera attracts nighttime visitors because of its amazing radiance. Here, family and friends gather under the moonlight to swim in the glowing water where tiny microorganisms let off phosphorescent light as they are stirred by motion.

Descend was made possible in part through a grant from the Office of the Provost at Temple University and special funding made available through the Carnell Professorship.

Special thanks to professors Pepon Osorio and Winifred Lutz for their generous guidance and dedication to the success of this project. Manny thanks to Danny Diaz, Johnny Irizarry, Sharyn O'Mara, Terry Dolan, and Bill Wilkinson for making the facilities and funding for project materials available. Thanks to the many Lighthouse staff members who supported this project by providing access to the pool area, especially Collin Thomas, Robert Delgado and Joan McGeehan. Thanks als to Jessica Westle, Harry Stormes, Ben Gordon, Armando Morales, and Bianca Bibiloni for their assistance.

Images: Decend by Andria Bibiloni, photography by Armando Morales

Dave Kube's work on display at WWCC

William Way Community Center's Juried Art Show.

May 9 - July 26, 2008
Reception: Friday, May 9, 6-8pm

William Way Community Center
1315 Spruce St.
Philadelphia, PA 19107
215.732.2220

Hours: Monday - Friday: 9am - 10pm, Saturday: 10am - 7pm, Sunday: 10:30am - 7pm

Dave Kube, a Tyler photography grad student, will have two images on display at the William Way Community Center's 3rd Annual Juried Art Show.

MOAR semi!

Such a good evite, kind of cheezzyy but its cute. Especially love the "tyler mfa" details.

Go to the opening at the Crane, obviously, but also do not forget to show Rebekah Templeton Gallery some love for the two MFA-ers that are in that show!! And dont forget Shelby Donnelly's show that is coming up soon in Tyler Gallery!!

And Stoöp, werent there more than 5 people there? Email me!

Cavan Drake - Panaginip

Cavan Drake
Panaginip

"It was an extra-ordinary sensation. I had never felt quite like it before. I was free above the planet earth and I saw it so it was rotating majestically below me."
-cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov

May 7 - 10, 2008
Gallery Hours: Wed - Sat 10-5pm
Reception: Saturday May 10th, 6-8pm

Tyler Hall Gallery
7725 Penrose Ave
Elkins Park, PA 19106

Cdrakes@hotmail.com

Semi - A juried exhibition of works by Tyler School of Art MFA students

Press Release:

The Ice Box and Gray Area at Crane Arts
1400 North American Street, Philadelphia PA 19122
April 30 – May 11, 2008

Hours: Wednesday – Sunday, noon – 6pm

Reception: Thursday May 8, 6-9pm

Juror: Elizabeth Grady

Essay written for the exhibition:

The MFA students at the Tyler School of Art represent a remarkably diverse group, both in terms of the conceptual underpinnings for their work, and the forms and media that they've chosen as their means of communicating their concerns. To jury their work and create a strong, cohesive exhibition therefore poses a fascinating challenge for the curator. The nature of pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree dictates that early-career artists should absorb knowledge and a conceptual framework within which to situate their practice, but more importantly that they find their own voices and learn to clearly express their singular visions. It is the curator's responsibility to allow each voice to be heard, while creating a sense of some of the underlying dialogues and commonalities inherent in the group. This daunting task is made easier by recourse to a prevalent model for international exhibitions, the biennial. Whether in Sydney or São Paulo, Venice or New York, these exhibitions claim to cull the best of the art of their present moments, leaving their organizers to create connections and find formal and theoretical parallels where none might at first be seen to exist. In considering the Tyler exhibition as a kind of mini-biennial, I have followed two primary models, that of Venice, where each nation often chooses just one artist to represent it, allowing that artist the space to create a unitary project. This may be seen in the room installation of the dioramas of Jenny Buffington or in the grouping of figurative sculpture by Louise Radochonski, both in the Gray Area. The other is that of the Whitney Museum, among others, where works are grouped loosely by theme, as may be seen in the smallest room in the Gray Area with work that deals with the social and physical structures that make up and impact the human body. There are strengths in each mode of presentation, and my purpose has been to create an exhibition of a number of sometimes complementary, sometimes contradictory, moments, to encourage among the students and visitors alike a critical approach not only to the art, which can stand on its own, but to exhibition strategies, whose purpose, polemic, and intent, is often less transparent.

When entering the exhibition through the Ice Box, one first encounters, on the left, the works of Jerry Kaba and Christopher Hall. Perhaps appearing to be an odd pairing at first, a quick examination of the forms they use and the titles of their pieces suggest a common engagement with, and critique of the overblown history of the art of the second half of the twentieth century. With Outmoded, the minimalist scatter piece in vivid red, Kaba installs a modular piece with an industrial appearance, reminiscent of the two main directions of minimalism – industrial production, as in the work of Donald Judd, and the seemingly formless installations of Robert Morris, among others. Each element has a scale that relates to the human body, leaving open the question of whether it is the minimalist form he uses that he sees as outmoded, or humanity in the face of the post-industrial wasteland it has created for itself. More lighthearted is the approach of Christopher Hall, whose combination of collage, gestural painting, and intentionally crude writing in his paintings might seem a mere pastiche, but his titles, like Modern Art and Seminal Sacrifice, let us in on the joke. He mocks the masturbatory arrogance of postwar painters, and the armchair-revolutionary political posturing of others from the sixties through the eighties, sending up the self-importance of the history of painting.

Across the room, Dylan Beck's work presents the viewer with a maze with no outlet in his Road to Nowhere. Working with some of the same minimal precedents as Kaba, in the repetition of forms and industrial-style molding process, it is exurban sprawl in the real world that is the scatter piece he organizes into a commentary on the uniformity, lack of individuality, and consumerist aimlessness of suburban life. Consumerism is inherent in the formal structure of the piece, as the forms for the houses are derived from molds taken from styrofoam product packaging. One of the things that make the work so compelling is its use of such familiar shapes, and common materials, like the plywood used to build the very houses he depicts. The result is a kind of Jungian common myth, where universally recognizable forms conjure a range of meanings in a non-alphanumeric language that crosses the barriers of the spoken word.

This semasiographic language of universal form is used to very different effect in the work of Daniel Ostrov. He, too, is concerned with human shelter and sanctuary, but the somehow familiar environment that he evokes is one of a lost, common past. This sense of shared memory, and our recourse to utopian visions of an imagined "simpler" time in human history is expressed using elemental materials like salt, glass, sinew, wood, and bones. For him, the shelter created in the gallery is more an emotional haven from the complexities of the modern world than an expression of a real, contemporary environment, but his reliance on common visual reference points evokes both collective memory and the warmth and safety evoked by nostalgia.

Invented reality and memory also figure prominently in the work of Daniel A. Bruce and Nick Barbee. Bruce's piece, Fabulation, emphasizes the invented nature of our own conceptions of power and value. The mysterious bit of gilded industrial detritus could be seen as a valorization of human endeavor, or of decay. Similarly, the fox is a beautifully preserved and undeniably noble expression of the power of the natural world, but is nonetheless dead as a doornail. We are left to invent our own stories about the objects he presents us with, to decide on how they relate to one another and what that means for us. Once more it is the formalist structure imposed by the repetitive framework of the corroded pipes, recalling a minimalist past, that cues the viewer to think of the two mysterious objects presented in a larger theoretical framework., and to invent a paradigm by which it might be explained.

Barbee is more critical of history, rejecting the seduction of nostalgia and the loveliness of formal elegance in his work. As is often the case, the lack of finesse in his paint application is a signal for the viewer to engage the work critically. In this case, the paintings take the form of public monuments on large pedestals, but the people and events memorialized are of questionable moral authority from some perspectives. In depicting "Gentleman Lee", General Robert E. Lee of the Confederate Army, he tells us through the inscription on the monument that, "It's Complicated." Such examinations of the meaning of collective history, and the way that our identity is constructed based on the side we take in viewing such monuments (honorable defender of home and tradition, or seditious slave-owner?). In all, memory and nostalgia play a significant role in the work of several students in this exhibition. Vincent Balistrieri, too, engages with symbols, often of his own invention. The surrealist juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated but clearly recognizable forms suggests an access to the psyche, as does the invention of intriguing but unidentifiable images. As with Bruce's work, we are left to come up with our own notions of the artist's intention.

Working in an entirely different mode, we find the participatory work of Jess Perlitz, whose sculpture, Another Planet, provides a literal platform for communication. She and Bruce, in his second work in the exhibition, Roundabout, play with sensory perception using sound and kinetic elements to toy with the senses. In both works, the viewer is invited to play, in a sense. In Perlitz's work, we can shout into the normally quiet gallery space, subversively violating the tacit rules of appropriate social behavior in an art viewing setting. Bruce's kinetic elements require touching, which is similarly subversive and participatory, even as the observer becomes lost in the hallucinatory effects of the giant spinning disc which comprises the main element of the piece.

David Kube and Zach Whitehurst share one of the far corners, and each deals with emotions and social insecurity in its own way. Whitehurst's dunce cap piece, self-portrait (for anyone) brings to mind elegantly and simply any time we have been punished for a social transgression. Embarrassment, self-examination, and the consequences of actions are eloquently summarized in this deceptively simple work. David Kube self-deprecatingly calls one of the two works he shows here, These Things Write Themselves, as though he played no role in his own work. As it appears to be a self-portrait, or perhaps a portrait of moments in the life of a friend, it's as though the artist did not really make his own work, or come up with his own ideas. Things They Said wittily pairs statements of relationship euphoria and disappointment with fast food and candy packaging crushed on the pavement, the image reinforcing the emotional impact of the words. Memory, implied narrative, and identity formation clearly play strong roles in the works of both of these artists.

Works that engage the body in various ways occupy two of the three rooms in the Gray Area. Alyssa Heidinger's Exoskeleton and other bracelets call to mind bodily structures without allowing the viewer to identify them easily or even at all. The delicacy of the forms reinforces the notion of the fragility of life even as it adorns the bodies it echoes. This reads as sculpture that necessarily takes the form of jewelry, and not as mere body decoration. A more direct engagement with the body can be seen in the work of C. Pazia Mannella, whose explorations of the messages sent by sartorial choices (should I wear zippers or snaps?) suggest the tension between our desire to enhance or form through clothing, and the consequent limiting, and even constricting messages we trap ourselves into when we choose a certain outfit. To dress as a businessperson or a club kid is to determine how one will be perceived, which is power, freedom, vulnerability and imprisonment all at once.

The tension between body and politics, the individual and society is also thematized in the work of Joan Dreyer, whose Flag and Anonymous stitch together x-ray fragments. In the former, the analogy is crystal clear, but in the latter, the tension between our private and public selves is at issue. When we talk about emotions, we talk about what's on the "inside", but here, only a specialist could recognize the subject from the photos. The further in we go, the less we seem to know. In this way the artist comments on our reliance on surface appearances to create and relate to our own and others' identities. Finally, the body is made monumental in the work of Louise Radochonski. Drawing on many of the themes addressed so far, the work explores materials, sculptural and body structures, psychological expression, and existential exploration. The metaphor of the broken body is not a new one, but receives generous care and attention in these large-scale works.

The built environment is addressed once more by Beck and Jenny Buffington. Buffington critiques the Disneyesque creation of artificial worlds in her small dioramas of places that profoundly thematize the clash between humanity and the forces of nature. Niagara Falls, one of the most remarkable natural wonders of North America, is revealed by garish lighting and a oddly dwarfed sense of scale to have been tamed by tacky tourism and trite honeymoons of the imagination. The Dubai Islands, on the other hand, reveal a phantasmagoric reality that has been constructed in absolute spite of nature, filling in the sea and resisting the harsh, water-scarce desert climate by the sheer power of will and money. Both sites act as amusement parks for adults, but at what price? The price for intervention and the dumbing down and homogenizing of the world through the creation of artificial environments and peculiarly antiseptic places is demonstrated in Beck's photo mural, Normal, IL – a place that he has distorted to demonstrate its remove from anything normal. With Beck we come full circle in our exploration of history, memory, human bodies and identity formation, and all of their relationship to the history of art.

It is my hope that this exhibition honors the hard-won confidence and strength of expression shown by this selection of fifteen Tyler MFA students.

Elizabeth M. Grady is a curator and critic, Project Coordinator for Andrea Rosen Gallery and Matthew Ritchie Studio (creating the structure for the Ritchie archive and organizing his forthcoming monograph), Adjunct Professor of Art History at the Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), and Special Assistant to the Estate of Diane Arbus. She has curated numerous exhibitions nationwide, most recently in the 2007-08 season, Displacement, the launch exhibition for a new green performance art nonprofit in Brooklyn, Host at the Soap Factory in Minneapolis and Promised Land at Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York. She has worked for various institutions in their curatorial departments, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Upcoming publications include "The Popular Opposition: Politicizing modern art in the National ! Gallery in Berlin," in Julie Codell, ed., The Political Economy of Art. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2008; and the as-yet untitled main essay in the forthcoming Matthew Ritchie monograph.