Friday, February 27, 2009

Bassem Yousri with Charlotte Rodenberg's Polar Bear
 Some Rules and Hints
for Students and Teachers
By John Cage

RULE 1: Find a place you trust and then, try trusting it for a while

RULE 2: GENERAL DUTIES AS A STUDENT
Pull everything out of your teacher.
Pull everything out of your fellow students.

RULE 3: GENERAL DUTY AS A TEACHER
Pull everything out of your students.

RULE 4: Consider everything an experiment.

RULE 5: Be self disciplined.
This means finding someone smart or wise and choosing to follow them.
To be disciplined is to follow in a good way.
To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.

RULE 6: Follow the leader
Nothing is a mistake.
There is no win and no fail.
There is only make.

RULE 7: The only rule is work
If you work it will lead to something.
It is the people who do all of the work all the time who
eventually catch onto things.
You can fool the fans - but not the players.

RULE 8: Do not try to create and analyze at the same time. They are
different processes.

RULE 9: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It is
lighter than you think.

RULE 10: We are breaking all the rules, even our own rules and how do we
do that?
By leaving plenty of room for 'x' qualities.

HELPFUL HINTS:

Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read everything
you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully and often. Save everything.
It may come in handy later.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Spring 2009 Graduate Photography Survey

CALL FOR ENTRIES for Book Publication
Application Due Deadline: March 19, 2009
Application Fee: $25.00 (for up to 5 images)
Accepted Artists Notied: Early April

Oculus Photographic Arts Group is pleased to announce a CALL FOR ENTRIES for publication in a professionally-printed collection of graduate work from around the country. Images will be reviewed and selected by a panel including Oculus members and a guest juror. All selected artists will receive one copy of the finished book.

Work can be submitted in any concentration of ne art photography. The purpose of this publication is to present a collection of current work from MFA programs nationwide. Serving as both a comparison of a diverse range of work and a look into current trends, this book will act as a survey of the present moment in contemporary photography, specically as it pertains to emerging artists throughout the United States.

Who We Are:
Founded in 2002, Oculus Photographic Arts Group is comprised of the graduate photography program at Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Oculus seeks to increase public awareness of the diversity in the photographic arts and to foster community and dialogue amongst emerging photo-based artists around the nation.

How to Apply:
Entrants are asked to submit up to 5 images in digital format on CD saved as ti les at 300 dpi, 3000 pixels on the longest side. Each le should be labeled with the artist’s last name, rst name, and numbered. For example: smith_john_01.tif. Please also include an Artist Statement of no more than 150 words, and a complete Image/Title List numbered to correspond with your les (include name, title, date, and medium, in that order). For both the Artist Statement and the Image List please submit a printed version as well as a version saved to the CD. The Entry Form can be downloaded here.

All materials must be received in our oce by March 19, 2009. Late entries will not be considered.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

TONIGHT!

Wednesday, February 25, 6 pm
Tyler School of Art, Lower Level South, B04
Introduction by Jenna Price and Sarah Muehlbauer, participants from Performing Land Arts: The Philadelphia Experiment


ROBERT SMITHSON
Spiral Jetty

1970, 35 min, color, sound
The film Spiral Jetty is a "portrait" of Smithson's monumental earthwork of the same name at Rozel Point in the Great Salt Lake, Utah. Completed in April 1970, Spiral Jetty is an iconic earthwork and Smithson's most renowned piece. At 1500 feet long and 15 feet wide, Smithson's spiral of basalt rocks, mud, and salt crystals juts out from the shore and coils dramatically into luminous red water. The film documents the making of this earthwork, which has attained near-mythic status as it has disappeared and then re-emerged from the lake over the past decades. A voiceover by Smithson illuminates the ideas and processes that informed the evolution of the work, with allusions to prehistoric relics and radical notions of space, scale and landscape. Poetic and oddly hypnotic, the film includes stunning aerial footage of Smithson running along the length of the glowing spiral in what seems like an ecstatic ritual. The film Spiral Jetty, together with a series of photoworks taken during the construction of the earthwork, have become integral parts of the overall project.

NANCY HOLT
Sun Tunnels

1978, 26:31 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on video
Sun Tunnels documents the making of Holt's major site-specific sculptural work in the northwest Utah desert. Completed in 1976, the sculpture features a configuration of four concrete tubes or "tunnels" that are eight feet long and nine feet in diameter. The tubes are positioned to align with the sunrise and sunset of the summer and winter solstices, and are also pierced by holes that allow light to be cast in patterns of constellations. A kind of American Stonehenge, Sun Tunnels charts the yearly and daily cycles of the sun, and calls attention to human scale and perception within the vast desert landscape. This document includes stunning footage of the changing sun and light as framed by the tunnels on the solstices.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Monday, February 23, 2009

Tyler School of Art is sponsoring a bus trip to Baltimore on Wednesday, February 25. The bus will leave from the new Tyler building, 2001 N. 13th St. at 8 a.m. and return that evening at 8 p.m. Any student who wants to sign up for the bus and for a pass to attend the ACC sponsored Baltimore craft show (www.craftcouncil.org/baltimore) should come to Room 210 in the new Tyler building to do so as soon as possible. This event is partially funded through the use of GAF funds.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

RECOGNITION / alternative space OPENS IN GERMANTOWN





RECOGNITION / alternative space
243 W. Chelten Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19144

OPEN SINCE JANUARY 15, 2009

CURRENT ARTISTS:
STEPHANIE LINER
JEREMY COX

FOUNDERS:
JEREMY COX & 
SARAH MUEHLBAUER

INTERESTED IN SHOWING?
contact: 
jjcox2@yahoo.com
215.847.6421

LINKS:
www.stephanieliner.com
www.flickr.com/photos/jeremyjcox

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Hartford, CT show featuring Erin M Riley

SIREN'S warning
4 artist 3 countries | new work by women of generation Y


erin m. riley | stephanie a. custance | ann maria healy | jaclyn brown

Jaclyn Brown creates a world of nostalgia, satire and dreams with her oils. Viewing this work is like entering into an X-Rated Mary Poppins film, where past, present and future social structures are questioned through the absurdness. (Canada, current Graduate student at The New York Academy of Art, 2008 resident of the KW Institute in Berlin, Germany.)

Stephanie A. Custance
employs portraiture in her large-scale drawings which are expressively suggestive of societal relationships. Simultaneity is exposed through layering as details are obscured and secondary images reveal themselves. (USA, BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, 2008 resident of Takt Kunstprojektraum in Berlin, Germany.)

Ann Maria Healy
provokes from her drawings and photographs, the impact of depression afflicting her homeland of Ireland. These separate mediums speak to each other in their commitment to form and concept, while alluding to the individuality of true life. (Ireland, current Undergraduate at Galway & Mayo Institute of Technology, 2008 resident of Takt Kunstprojektraum in Berlin, Germany.)

With Erin M. Riley a personal history is dissected in an attempt to find answers to the incessant questions we all face. Issues of birth order, substance abuse and trauma are explored with heart-wrenching tangibility through the employment of weaving and collage. (USA, current Graduate student at Tyler School of Art, 2008 Showcase in FiberARTS, to be featured in New American Painting, April 2009.)

February 16th – 27th 2009
Gallery Hours: Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday 4-7 pm
Or by appointment at scustance@gmail.com

Opening Reception Saturday the 21st, 7 – 10 PM

Artspace Gallery - 555 Asylum Avenue - Hartford Ct, 06105
ARTIST RESIDENCY PROJECT: Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
Award: $ 10,000 project budget, housing and production assistants provided

The Sharadin Art Gallery at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania requests proposals from artists, craftspersons, and designers for the production of an original, temporary, site-specific installation for our exhibition space.

The artwork will remain on view from January 29 - March 5, 2010. The selected artist (or artist team) will be awarded $10,000. The award must cover all material and labor costs associated with the production of the work, all travel expense to and from our site, all incidental costs, meals, and all artist fees and honoraria. The university will provide housing one block from the gallery (Main Street Inn). A group of Kutztown University students will be available to assist with the physical production of the selected proposal.

Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, located an hour north of Philadelphia, and two hours west of New York City, has an enrollment of 10,000+ students. Each year, our College of Visual and Performing Arts awards approximately 225 undergraduate degrees in Communication Design, Fine Arts, Art Education, and Crafts. Our Visual Arts programs are accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design.

Application deadline is end-of-business, Friday June 12, 2009. For more information about our physical space and specifics about applying for this project, please visit the website.

Questions should be e-mailed to: talley@kutztown.edu
E-mail only - NO PHONE CALLS, please!

Thursday, February 19, 2009



















paraphrase/NEXUS

paraphrase/NEXUS is a monthly series in which artists of various disciplines and media create performances that respond and relate to current exhibitions at NEXUS Gallery in Philadelphia.  

Saturday, February 21st, 2009 8PM
performance group featuring dancer Megan Bridge and musician/video artist Peter Price (www.meganbridge.com) and PIMA group (www.pimagroup.org) featuring Melisa Putz will perform works inspired by Unintended Uses, a show of hacked art.









What?: FLUXspace + Fundraiser = FLUXraiser!

Where?: Kung-Fu Necktie (click the link for directions on KFN's website!)

The Intersection of Front and Thompson Streets (1248 N Front Street, Philadelphia PA 19122)

When?: Thursday, February 19th, 2009 - Doors open at 8pm and the party doesn't stop till our DJ drops!

Who?: Whales and Cops, Gemini Wolf, and on the turn tables is DJ KT from Broadzilla DJ's. - Click the links for Band Myspace's to have a listen!

How Much?: Minimum Donation of $10.00 at the Door.

Online Tickets you say? Click Here to get them in advance!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Philadelphia – The City of Philadelphia’s Art In City Hall exhibition program celebrates its 57th group exhibition for local emerging and professional artists. On the Fringe of Fiber highlights the artistic achievements of 50 Philadelphia area artists working in the medium of fiber. The exhibit runs from February 19 – May 22, 2009 on the second and fourth floors of City Hall, NE corner. A reception open to the general public is scheduled for Thursday, February 19, from 5-7pm.

The 50 participating artists are:

Wendolyn Anderson, Virginia Batson, June Blumberg, Linda Celestian, Karen Donde, Shelby Donnelly, Patricia Doran, Stephanie Dorfman, Marie Elcin, Elizabeth W. Fram, Adrienne Gale, Alyson Giantisco, Patty Greenspoon, Lesley Haas, Melissa Maddonni Haim, Ted Hallman, Nancy Herman, Sara Horne, Toni Kersey, Pat diPaula Klein, Diane Koss, Maris Fisher Krasnegor, Marilyn E. Lavins, Betty Leacraft, Susan Leonard, Craig Matthews, Emily McBride, Bette McCarron, Leslie Meeks, Nancy Middlebrook, Valetta, Vera Nakonechny, Pam Pawl, Christopher Ray, Sheila Ruen, Ellen Sall, Sophie Sanders, Martha Savery-Kahn, Lee Harper Schultz, Kathy Selbst, Gretchen Slentz, Marci Smoger, Pete Stevens, Francine Strauss, Jacqueline Unanue, Bette Uscott-Woolsey, Helen Webber, Duane Weber, Kiersten Wildermuth and Jane J. Wilke.

The guest curator for On the Fringe of Fiber is K. Pannepacker, a recognized local fiber artist. Ms. Pannepacker was chosen by the Art In City Hall Exhbiitions Committee to select the work in the show:

I thought continually of contrast and quality. I wanted to not only bring together works in the fiber medium that contained the familiar context of string and structure, but that would also compel the viewer to notice the numerous variations of techniques and materials in the fiber medium today... thus, on the fringe.

With 50 artists exhibiting, expect to see a wide range of works focused on fiber, including high quality textiles, quilts and woven baskets. But also experience works wrapped in glass, hanging hair encapsulated by finger skin molds made from glue, dresses made from hand-made paper, fabric installations, and a variety of mixed media works.

Art In City Hall is a collaborative effort between the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Public Property and the arts community. It is supported by an independent Advisory Council made up of arts professionals and private citizens. Since the program began in 1984, over 1600 emerging artists have shown their talents in the hallways of City Hall through juried group exhibitions based on specific themes. In addition to exhibitions for professional artists, the program also displays artwork from the School District of Philadelphia, and other city agencies and non-profits.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

  • A Conversation with David Eng

February 18, 2:30 p.m., Paley Lecture Hall, Lecture Hall

David Eng presents his engaging point of view on cinema studies, queer studies and Asian studies. A multi-disciplinary scholar, Eng is a professor in the University of Pennsylvania’s English Department, but his specialties lie within and beyond the written word. Eng is a cutting-edge scholar exploring the inter-connectedness of literature, cinema, ethnic studies, sexuality and theory. He will present his new research on “Queer Space in China” through a discussion of the film Lan Yu. Please join us in welcoming one of our city’s most engaging academics. This event is co-sponsored by Center for the Humanities at Temple.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Studio Visit: Shanna Waddell

Shanna Waddell is a first year painter, making collage installations and large paintings, she is also newly interested in one specific transportable housing style, i wont give it away. She is one of the founding ladies of ladies night and hopes to continue that tradition through the rest of graduate school. I asked her three questions, she answered.

What are you working on ? Teepees

What are you excited about right now?
Teepees

What is your favorite animal and/or dragon, robot, or pirate type thing?
teepees

A Lecture by Winifred Lutz
Tuesday, February 17, 6 PM
Tyler School of Art, 2001 N. 13th Street, Room B083, Philadelphia
Winifred Lutz has created major site-integrated sculptural installations and permanent public works in the United States and Europe. Lutz has been the recipient of numerous awards and her work is represented in museum and private collections nationally.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Craft commits suicide; art envy arrested on suspicion

Filed under:Bob Hicks, General, Visual Art — posted by Bob Hicks on October 17, 2008

The victim pulled the trigger on itself, detective Garth Clark says, but it was under the influence of Art.

That’s Art, no last name, sometimes known as Fine Art. And though the corpse keeps getting tricked out for public events like the stiff in the movie comedy Weekend at Bernie’s, the actual time of death was, oh, somewhere around 1995.

That, more or less, is the argument Clark gave to a packed and sometimes steaming house last night in the Pacific Northwest College of Art’s Swigert Commons. Clark, a longtime gallery owner, curator and prolific writer on craft (the guy knows his porcelains), was lecturing on “How Envy Killed the Crafts Movement: An Autopsy in Two Parts,” and he meant every word of it.

As he delivered his wry and scholarly Molotov cocktail, Clark reminded me a bit of John Houseman in The Paper Chase, measured and severe but with a, well, crafty twist of humor to his delivery. He knew he was going to be tromping on some toes, and while he delighted in the process, he did so en pointe so as not to cause too many hurt feelings. “Hi, my name is Garth Clark,” he greeted the crowd. “I’m a recovering art dealer.”

What is this art envy? Good question.

Surely it has something to do with money. Clark quoted one excellent potter of his acquaintance who says he and his friends have a word for potters who make a living entirely from their craft. It’s unicorns, “because we’ve never seen one.”

And surely it has something to do with reputation, with being taken seriously. Artists are simply thought of more highly, as more creative beings, more intellectual, and therefore more important (and, let’s underscore, more worthy of high prices in exchange for their work).

Perhaps it has something to do with escaping an eternal past. “Craft has been overdosing on nostalgia,” Clark averred. “This is craft’s Achilles heel.” That’s not surprising, he added, since the modern movement (which he stretches back 150 years, a very long time for a movement of any sort) was born as a revival, and thus looking backwards from its beginning.

So, he said, somewhere around 1980 craftmakers simply started referring to what they did as art. Museums and other organizations began to drop the word “craft” from their names — sort of like snipping their horse-thieving uncle from the family tree. For a few genuine artists who were trapped by their association with craft — people like Jun Kaneko and Robert Arneson – it was an escape with just cause. For others, it was wishful thinking. “Craft was strongly and sometimes pretentiously influenced by fine art,” Clark said, “but it did not cross the line to become fine art.”

For a lot of people in the audience, them was fightin’ words. What did Clark mean by “craft,” anyway? One object-maker drew applause when she commented that, when she’s in the studio, she doesn’t even think about whether she’s making art or craft, she just thinks about what she’s working on. And there was some sentiment that Clark was making a fuss about something that was really just about words and categories, things that come after the fact. “Everything he’s saying is coming from a gallery owner’s point of view,” the woman sitting next to me whispered in a huff.

And there might be some truth to that. Still, Clark insisted that categories are vital, and they are real. “Ultimately there is something called craft and there is something called art,” he said. “And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

What, then, is the difference? When it came right down to it, Clark had a tough time describing exactly what craft is. And in a sense, he blamed that on craftmakers, because they themselves had abandoned the word. After that, he said, “It was almost impossible to write honestly about a field that pretended to be something else.”

Here and there at Thursday’s event — the annual Jamison Lecture, presented by PNCA, the Museum of Contemporary Craft and the Oregon School of Art and Craft — he seemed to hint that craft is meant for home decoration (but so, of course, are paintings and small-scale sculptures). He got a little closer when he said that craft is a visual art that has “a close and intimate relationship with materials and processes” — in other words, made by hand. (Although a fair share of goods from the Arts & Crafts Movement, such as William Morris’s intricate wallpapers, was designed by hand and produced by machine.)

And craft’s stress on physicality, Clark said, is “part of its problem as art goes to multimedia, using all sorts of things.” In other words, while craft is reaching toward art, art is reaching toward craft — toward an acceptance of all sorts of materials as viable raw material for the making of fine art.

Then again, he says, fine art’s embrace of traditional craft materials has more to do with “postmodernism’s promiscuity” — hardly a marriage of minds. And, he pointed out, in the mid-20th century fine art underwent a more than equal and opposite reaction, “away from craft-based values” and toward conceptualism — a conspicuously idea-driven form of art (even if the ideas are sometimes half-baked) that gets big media play even as it often rejects the entire concept of craftsmanship as old-fashioned and irrelevant. No wonder crafters feel a little loss of self-esteem.

There’s truth in a lot of this. I have no doubt that some practioners of craft have pushed to join the fine-art world for a variety of reasons, from self-doubt to the desire for self-sufficiency. (Some Sunday water colorists insist on calling themselves fine artists, too. So, for that matter, does Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light.) And I have no doubt that some artists/craftspeople/designers have let the art world’s critical machinery set their agendas, rather than the other way around. Life, and people, are like that.

Thursday night’s delicate evisceration was all stimulating and quite a lot of fun, if not always crystal clear: These are confusing waters, even if you have a good depth chart. Clark tossed out a lot of provocative, quotable stuff, including this line on the craft scene’s incestuousness: “Craft is just one cousin away from being a cyclops.”

In one of his major points, he argued that craft should form an alliance not with fine art but with the applied arts — with design: “This is the happy marriage, not the stalking of art.” Craft and design, he said, share a democratic impulse and an appreciation for the finely made everyday thing. In New York, he pointed out, the Gagosian Gallery, a leading fine art venue, exhibited furniture by the star designer Marc Newson and racked up $50 million in sales. And it didn’t present it as fine art. “Larry Gagosian said design didn’t need art to give it veracity,” Clark said. “Craft should say the same.”

Pleasing the Portland crowd mightily, he said that the country’s craft epicenter — by which he meant the American Craft Council — should get out of New York, where it always plays poor cousin to the glamorous fine-art scene, and move to a smaller city where it could be a star on its own. Someplace with half a million people, he suggested, and a big creative culture, and a name that starts with “P.” No one seemed to consider he might be talking about Pittsburgh. Maybe moving was on his mind. After many years with major galleries in Los Angeles and New York, and a regular international reach, he and his partner Mark del Vecchio have moved to Santa Fe and turned their business into a virtual gallery. And his son, Clark says, has recently moved to Portland, so he plans to visit a lot.

Still, the question remains: What do we mean when we say “craft”? Maybe it’s a little like U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s 1964 dictum on pornography: “I know it when I see it.” The borders are fuzzy, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. One man in the audience last night asked Clark whether we were using “craft” as a noun when we should be using it as a verb. Maybe so.

Either way, there’s something physical about the thing. “Craft is at its best when it is dealing with sensuality,” Clark said. “… (I)t grabs you by the throat and just thrills you.”

I’ll buy that. But I’ll say the same thing about fine art, too: Unless it grabs you and shakes you and moves your universe just a little bit, it isn’t great art. A Rembrandt portrait. A Christo fence. The amazing technique of a Kathe Kollwitz or an Albrecht Durer. Hans Holbein the Younger’s jaw-dropping Darmstadt or Meyer Madonna, the centerpiece of the Portland Art Museum’s 2005-06 Hesse exhibition. These pieces ravish you. Then you study them, look for their depths, note their style and context and structure and technique. Then, for good measure, you let them ravish you again. And part of the ravishment comes from their superb craftsmanship.

So maybe the more interesting question is, What is the relationship between art and craft? Does art require craft? If not, has the art world suffered for its loss? Clark says fine art doesn’t need craft. You can make great art without craft, he said, but you can’t make great craft without great skill. This is a far more significant question than many people in the art world will admit. For all of its history, from cave paintings on, art and craftsmanship have been intertwined. At what cost are they separated, if indeed they are? (Of course, you can have fine craft in the service of inert art: A lot of gallery walls are covered with well-shaped dead butterflies. And we all know works of folk or outsider art that move us immensely — but maybe they do so with their own, singular, invented craftsmanship that unleashes their power.)

I’m not so sure, finally, that the differences among fine art and craft and design are all that important, so long as that emotional and intellectual ravishment are there (and they will be there, of course, to varying degrees). To me, the great idea of craft is craftsmanship — that in a finely crafted piece is a beauty, a seduction, an astonishment, an energetic serenity that is sufficient to itself.

Then, is a gorgeous Helen Frankenthaler, for instance, also craft? Well, you don’t touch it. Do you need to touch it for it to be craft? It’s a puzzle. Is there a difference between “craft” and “well-crafted”?

Is part of craft’s worth:

a) its singularity, which one also says about most of fine art (though not prints);

b) the time that it takes an individual crafter to make a particular piece? Is worth a matter of the sweat of the crafter’s brow?

On Thursday night, Clark quoted critic Clement Greenberg, in a 1979 talk to a craft group. “You strike me as a group that is more concerned with opinion than achievement,” Greenberg said.

If we can reverse that in the world of craft, Clark added, we can return to good shape.

By any word, I’ll add, that we choose.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Rhizome is now accepting proposals for our 2010 cycle. The submission deadline is midnight April 2, 2009

The goal of the Rhizome Commissions Program is to support emerging artists by providing grants for the creation of significant works of new media art. By new media art, we mean projects that creatively engage new and networked technologies to works that reflect on the impact of these tools and media in a variety of forms. Commissioned works can take the final form of online works, performance, video, installation or sound art. Projects can be made for the context of the gallery, the public, the web or networked devices.

Proposed projects can be at any stage of production, from conception to distribution. Applications must be made and submitted online. Grant amounts range from $1,000 to $5,000 and can be applied to any aspect of the work, including labor costs, technology, or materials. In this funding cycle, Rhizome will award nine grants: seven grants will be determined by a jury of experts in the field, and two will be determined by Rhizome’s membership through an open vote.

Artists who receive a commission will also be invited to speak at Rhizome's affiliate, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and to archive their work in the ArtBase, a comprehensive online art collection.

We are now accepting applications. The deadline for submission is on midnight April 2, 2009.

Apply/Get an overview of procedures (must be signed in)

Thursday, February 12, 2009

gallery shots from the In Limbo show in the grey area of the Crane. word on the streets there was a man taking notes about the exhibition so hopefully there will be some press.
all pictures courtesy of Jonathan Dickstein
About the Exhibition

NEXUS/foundation for today's art in Philadelphia, in conjunction with The Hacktory, presents "Unintended Uses," an exhibition of hacked and repurposed video games, electronics, kinetics, musical instruments, motion sensors, painting, computers, circuitry and public spaces. The artists are utilizing technology as their palette to open up worlds of new possibilities. The exhibition includes Michiel van der Zanden, Don Miller, Reade Vaisman, Sarah Muehlbauer, Kathy Marmor, Fernando Orellana, Zachary Stadel, Wil Lindsay, dylanSnow/Far McCon/Bryce Gibson, Chris Vecchio, Joey Mariano and David Horvitz. (Click each artist's name to see representations of their work and statements.)

"Whatever code we hack, be it programming language, poetic language, math or music, curves or colourings, we create the possibility of new things entering the world. Not always great things, or even good things, but new things. In art, in science, in philosophy and culture, in any production of knowledge where data can be gathered, where information can be extracted from it, and where in that information new possibilities for the world are produced, there are hackers hacking the new out of the old. While hackers create these new worlds, we do not possess them. That which we create is mortgaged to others, and to the interests of others, to states and corporations who control the means for making worlds we alone discover. We do not own what we produce--it owns us."

-- from "A Hacker Manifesto" by McKenzie Wark

Wednesday, February 11, 2009


Critical Dialogue - Monday, February 16th, 2009

Auditorium B04

JOYCE PENSATO – Monday, February 16th, 2009

Joyce Pensato was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Pensato’s work entails a forceful transformation of iconic, Warholian pop muses: Mickey, Donald, Felix the Cat, Homer, and Stan from South Park. She infuses the expressive language of abstraction into these popular icons creating animated hybrids and frankensteins of the original. These various characters are
transformed into psychological states that can be best described by the titles given: Abdominal Mickey, Evil Stan, and The Donald. Joyce Pensato has exhibited widely, including exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the St. Louis Art Museum. Her work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Dallas Art Museum, and FRAC des Pays de la Loire, France, among others. Pensato exhibited new drawings in November 2008 at the Friedrich Petzel Gallery in New York. A catalog of her work with an essay by Gregory Volk was produced in conjunction with this exhibition.

Tyler School of Art, Temple University
2001 N. 13th St.
Philadelphia, PA. 19125
  • The Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection Presents:

In Search Of Knowledge: A Black History Photo Exhibit

February 12, 2:30 p.m., Paley Library, Lecture Hall

Beatrice Joyner brings her traveling exhibition to Temple University Libraries and presents an important history lesson coupled with an engaging display of original art. Ms. Joyner has lectured around the Philadelphia region. She is also a documentary photographer. Please join us as art and history merge in this engaging afternoon.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

In Limbo

Works from the crafts department's MFA candidates, organized by Katie Miller, juried by Elizabeth Agro, curator at the PMA. At the crane arts building in the grey area, in the icebox will be the traveling exhibition The Love Armor Project.

****The field of contemporary craft is burdened with many questions about its identity; what constitutes craft, where does one place it within the art spectrum and most often asked, what will craft be about in the future? Intrigued by these questions and exploring several others of their own, fourteen graduate students from the Craft Departments at Tyler School of Art decided to look within their own studios for answers. Like many graduate art programs, an unspoken type of segregation occurs between the students of each media causing a lack of dialogue of their artwork, this is a natural outcome of their chosen study of a specific material—metal, glass, clay, wood or fiber. In Limbo is the brain child of and is organized by participating graduate student Katie Miller. For Miller, In Limbo is an opportunity to take the artwork of her fellow students directly from their studios in an isolated academic situation and place their work on view together in an exhibit outside of the University’s walls. Naturally, one aspect of the answer to the question about the future of craft rests with this emerging academic talent. In Limbo provides a glimpse of the current mindset in academia—the use of traditional materials and methods to create untraditional work—as well as what we might expect from the future of craft.

Elisabeth Agro

The Nancy M. McNeil Associate Curator of American

Modern and Contemporary Crafts and Decorative Arts

Philadelphia Museum of Art


Due: March 31, 2009

cov15.jpg (16415 bytes)cov13b.jpg (17547 bytes)cov14b.jpg (15684 bytes)
Above: Some recent covers of Direct Art, V. 15, 13 and 14

Direct Art Competition, Volume 16


This competition is for Direct Art Magazine, Volume 16, Fall 2009 edition. The competition is for twenty six publication awards. Artist winners of the competition will, at no cost to the artist, have their work appear Volume 16 of the Direct Art Magazine. See details of the awards listed below. Read details of Direct Art here: www.slowart.com/about.htm

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Transgressions











The Tyler School of Art Foundations Chair Search Committee invites you to a
presentation by candidate

*Leon Johnson*
Director-In-Residence, The Berwick Institute, Boston Transart Institute

*/"A Blue Hammer, The Bone Factories, and A Duet for Devils"/*

Monday, Feb. 9
11:15am
Tyler School of Art
Room 0b089, lower level

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Art Show at the Starbucks in Chestnut Hill


Matthew Damian Ritchie is in his second year as a graduate student at Tyler.
From my understanding there will be some free coffee there at the opening on Friday February 6th from 7pm - 9pm. See you there

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Drawing/Painting, Wood, Metals and Photography artists

Four Junior Residencies for Emerging Artists in Drawing/Painting, Wood, Metals and Photography.

The Oregon College of Art and Craft Junior Residency is a sixteen-week fellowship program designed to encourage outstanding emerging artists to pursue a focused project in a stimulating art environment. The Artist-in-Residence program is funded by the Collins Foundation.

OCAC offers residencies that rotate through each of the studios: book arts, ceramics, drawing/painting, fibers, metals, photography and wood. For the fall 2009 semester, one appointment will be made in drawing/painting and the second in wood. For the spring of 2010, one appointment will be made in metals and another appointment will be made in photography. The 2010-2011 cycle will offer residencies in the remaining studios.

Work completed during the residency will be exhibited in the College’s Hoffman Gallery as part of an annual exhibition. In addition, junior residents present two public presentations and are asked to work a few hours a week for OCAC.

The College environment is lively and productive with an interesting mix of students, faculty and visiting artists, all of whom work in a variety of craft media. Residents are invited to share their work with the OCAC community and may audit one Studio School continuing education class/workshop during their residency.

Residents receive housing on campus (sorry, housing is limited to residents only, no spouses or pets); a $1,200 fellowship; up to $500 reimbursement for travel to and from OCAC; up to $500 for materials; and up to $100 for shipping their completed work. Studio space is available in the sponsoring department. Residents may not accept competing employment during the residency.

Who Can Apply
Artists working in drawing/painting or wood will be considered in fall 2009. Artists working in metals or photography will be considered for the spring 2010 residency. U.S. citizens or permanent residents only. The College defines emerging artists as post-graduates (post-MFA preferred) with less than five years’ experience as an exhibiting artist. Applicants from culturally diverse backgrounds are encouraged to apply.

Criteria for Selection
Applicants will be judged on the quality of the portfolio presented, as well as the originality and scope of the work proposed. Weight will also be given to the applicant’s potential for working within a community of artists, as well as the relevance of the proposal to the resources available at OCAC.

Application Deadline: Received by March 1, 2009
Applicants will be notified by May 15, 2009

The application can be downloaded here.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

further coverage of the Rose Art Museum

For those of you who haven't been following this story in the news, last week Brandeis University announced its decision to close its beloved Rose Art Museum and sell off all of the pieces in the collection to make up their financial loss of about 25% of their endowment.

While we have been doing all we can to make our voices heard, it looks like this decision really might not change, and the University will loose a major asset, not just one that benefits the Fine Arts Department, but all students and the Boston community at large. For 48 years the Rose represented a true commitment to liberal arts education at Brandeis, one that "affirms the principle that knowledge of the past informs an understanding of the present and provides the critical foundation for shaping the future." - Mission Statement of The Rose Art Museum, 1961

Here are links to some recent coverage in the NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, etc.

(special thanks to Roberta Smith for an excellent article!)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/arts/design/02rose.html?_r=1&ref=design

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/opinion/02mon4.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123361710970041349.html?mod=article-outset-box

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123361856168541417.html


http://www.thejusticeonline.com/
http://media.www.thejusticeonline.com/media/storage/paper573/news/2009/02/03/RoseReactions/Letter.To.The.Editor.Museum.Was.An.Asset.To.Education-3609915.shtml

http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/business/020109_Brandeis_art_museum_to_close

please feel free to contact me about this at jenna.weiss@temple.edu and if you have not already done so please sign our petition at:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/in-opposition-to-the-closing-of-the-rose-art-museum

Monday, February 2, 2009

Wednesday, February 4, 6 PM:
Measures of Time, Travel, and Space: Exploring Land Arts of the American West
A Lecture by Chris Taylor


Chris Taylor lecture Land Arts
Temple University, Engineering Architecture Building, 1947 N. 12th Street, Room 126, Philadelphia
Chris Taylor is a Harvard-trained architect and the director of Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech University, a program he has developed with Bill Gilbert of the University of New Mexico since 2002. In conjunction with Field Reports, Taylor organized Performing Land Arts: the Philadelphia Experiment with Kate Wingert-Playdon, a weeklong workshop for Tyler School of Art. In 2007 Taylor led Atacama Lab: 07, a conference and field workshop extending the interpretive frame and working methods of Land Arts to Chile to examine terraforming in the Atacama Desert. Taylor also explores the interstitial forces creating landscape through his practice, the Architecture Workers Combine, which has built work in New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and Pennsylvania. He is currently a professor in the College of Architecture at Texas Tech University.

This lecture is cosponsored by Temple University's Department of Architecture

Lookin' For Love...Not Just the Brotherly Kind

Dave Kube, a second year photo grad, has three photographs on display at Highwire Gallery in Fishtown area of Philadelphia. The photos are from his series "These Things Write Themselves".
Tamsen Wojtanowski '08 MFA photo is also in this show.

Show Runs from February 6 - March 1

Opening Reception:
February 6, 5 - 9 pm

Gallery Location: 2040 Frankford, Philadelphia

Gallery Hours:
Thursday: 12 - 4
Friday: 3 - 7
Saturday and Sunday: 12 - 5

Why stimulus spending should go to public art

By Ben Adler

In their search to find programs upon which to rest the complaint that the stimulus bill is too generous, some conservatives have seized upon one of their favorite whipping boys: the arts. "Even [House Republicans] can't quite believe it... $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts," declared Rep. Mike Pence (R-Indiana).

Pence intended to be ironic about the NEA's role as an engine of economic activity. But he could have been sincere, since his comments were right on the money. Arts are actually a great form of economic investment, particularly public art, and they should be amply funded in the stimulus package. Every year nonprofit arts organizations generate $166.2 billion in economic activity, support 5.7 million jobs, and send almost $30 billion back to government, according to Americans for the Arts. There is hardly a person more likely to go out and spend her stimulus check than a starving artist.


Unfortunately, $50 million is an awfully small amount: it is 1/600 of the $30 billion allotted for roads and bridges. The House Democratic majority wisely ignored Pence's philistinism and created other revenue streams within the stimulus that can be made available to the arts.

The money for artistic projects is almost by definition ready to be injected into the economy. It may take years to draw up a plan for a highway, obtain the right of way and fend off legal challenges before the bulldozers start rolling. But to buy a canvass and some paintbrushes, or even some metal for a public sculpture, is comparatively straightforward. That puts quick money into the pockets of the companies that build, sell and ship those artistic materials as well.

"The money goes straight into the economy," says Janet Echelman, a sculptor whose giant metallic nets have revitalized public parks and downtowns from Texas to Portugal. "I pay two full-time assistants in my studio, plus consultants who are architects, engineers, and landscape architects, as well as lighting designers. A very large portion goes into fabrication, which is funding workers at a steel factory." Echelman currently has a commission from Phoenix to build a centerpiece for a new downtown park that may face funding shortfalls. There are "shovel-ready" arts projects like hers throughout the country.

Although federal agencies like the Department of Agriculture could, through the Rural Development Program, spend a bit of their stimulus money on art, it will be largely up to state and local governments to determine what proportion, if any, of the various revenue streams will go to the arts. Community Development Block Grants, for instance, can be used to support art projects and institutions. By far the largest pot potentially available for art would be the $43 billion that the House allotted for transportation funding. State art agencies often work to improve the relationship between, say, a highway or a train station and its surroundings, using a small fraction of the transportation project's money for public art projects.

A well-designed public space can boost real estate values and create opportunities for small local business to thrive. Public art in urban environments can also help physically and socially knit together communities. In Houston, Echelman hung a bright orange sculpture from the bottom of a highway on-ramp that flew over a public park. That area, once desolate, has become a popular destination. Judy Baca, an artist in Los Angeles has hired inner-city youth to help her paint public murals, partly to help improve relations between rival gangs. "It has the additional benefit of crime prevention and enhancing the opportunities of under-privileged kids," explains Robert Lynch, CEO of Americans for the Arts. "The process is as important as the product."

Local and national arts organizations are already beginning to appeal to state governments to invest stimulus infrastructure dollars in art. In Massachusetts local organizations have asked Governor Deval Patrick to direct his administration to spend 1 percent of the federal infrastructure dollars on design excellence and public art, and the governor's office has been receptive. "People like living in well designed, carefully thought out urban environments," says Ricardo D. Barreto, director of the UrbanArts Institute at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. "Public art is about more than putting a statue in a corner. It is linked to urban design."

If one agrees, even just in part, with Richard Florida's "creative class" theory -- that a welcoming environment for creative professionals is the key to helping cities and even countries retain a competitive economic edge, as he compellingly argued in The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class -- then supporting the arts in general, and public art in particular, would be the ideal way to spend some of the stimulus dollars. Hopefully the Mike Pences of the Senate will not win that argument next week.

Sunday, February 1, 2009