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Visual Art
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: Berlin: Landscape of Memory
GENRE: Lecture/Exhibition
GROUP: James B. Abbott
ATTENDED: Thu., April 11, 5 p.m., Center for Emerging Visual Artists
CLOSES: April 26
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: A challenging, in-depth exploration of an important moment in time [the fall of the Wall] and the resulting changes in landscape and Berlin neighborhoods 24 years later.
WE THINK: Culled from a body of work spanning more than 20 years, James B. Abbott's photography exhibition shows Berlin during a period of major transformation, but in a subtle way. Tucked away in an elegant space overlooking Rittenhouse Square, the modest-sized landscapes, while devoid of expressive faces, manage to carry an emotional heft usually reserved for portraits.
As would be expected, sections of the exhibition depict how Berlin has changed in a before/after fashion: a beach club filled with canoodling couples sits in the former no mans land, a McDonalds has sprouted next to Checkpoint Charlie and the area behind the Reichstag, once neglected, now gleams with modernity. Yet the exhibition does not always afford such convenient comparisons. One wall commemorates those shot while trying to flee East Germany, making time and place irrelevant, while another mixes disparate images as if to show that Berlin has not changed that much: after all these years, the city still has a raw, unfinished quality to it as its monuments loom and its graffitied edifices remain undisturbed.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Buffoonery on the soccer field.
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: The Butterfly Project
GENRE: Family theater
GROUP: Wolf Performing Arts Center
ATTENDED: Mon., April 8, 7:30 p.m., Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: The play by Celeste Raspanti, I Never Saw Another Butterfly, based on the book of the same name, uses the art and poetry from the children of Terezin [Concentration Camp] to tell their story of courage and survival. ... a young Jewish girl enters the concentration camp alone. Just when all seems lost, she meets a hopeful teacher who helps her and the rest of the children express themselves through art and poetry.
WE THINK: More a testament than a play, I Never Saw Another Butterfly reveals the terror and dismay felt by children sent to the Terezin concentration camp; of the more than 15,000 who passed through, only 100 survived World War II. Wolf has performed it for free 40 times all over the area over the 2012-2013 season at community venues and schools; on Holocaust Remembrance Day, they got to do it in the Kimmel Center.
An eloquent love story narrated by a survivor is framed by the stark historical facts, staged with brutal simplicity: directors Tim Popp and Bobbi Wolf fill the stage with children who are gradually marched off to death camps until only one is left. At the end, though, Lorna Dreyfuss' colorful tapestry of over 4000 handmade butterflies expresses hope with a triumphant burst of color.
Unfortunately, the Holocaust Remembrance Day performance I attended was marred by camera-wielding parents, who treated this poetic and solemn play about one of history's great tragedies like a TMZ celebrity ambush. Some didn't even have the sense to turn off their flashes, which are useless with stage lighting but are maddeningly distracting to the rest of the audience. We know it must be exciting, but seriously: Just turn off the gadgets and be there. Pay respect with your undivided attention.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Freude, schöner Götterfunken, tochter aus Elysium! Wir betreten feuertrunken — himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: From Seneca Falls to Philadelphia: Fourth of July 1876 and the Women of the Centennial
GENRE: Lecture/exhibition
GROUP: Athenaeum of Philadelphia / Philadelphia Center for the Book
ATTENDED: Friday, April 5, 5 p.m., Athenaeum of Philadelphia
CLOSES: April 27
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: The Athenaeum’s extensive collections regarding the 1876 Centennial Exposition combine in this exhibition with the response of contemporary book artists to the themes of the Centennial, Susan B. Anthony and Women’s Suffrage, and the 1876 Fourth of July.
WE THINK: Even without this year’s PIFA theme for context, stepping into the Athenaeum of Philadelphia feels a bit like traveling backwards in time. A member-supported library designed and built in the mid 19th-century, it’s an obvious fit for an exhibition celebrating Philadelphia women of the centennial. “From Seneca Falls to Philadelphia” features work by ten contemporary book artists responding to themes of patriotism and women’s rights.
Several of the pieces are fictional accounts of Philadelphia women of the era—imaged facsimiles of what their personal journals or photo albums might have looked like. Others are more formally experimental, like Susan Bonthron’s Almost There, a scroll printed with the silhouettes of famous female suffragists and contained by four walls of translucent American flags. The exhibition’s standout piece is Carol Phillips To The Ladies Declaration. A two-dimensional work formed by two joined, light green pages, Phillips’ piece juxtaposes text from the Declaration of the Rights of Women of the United States with text and images from a corset pamphlet distributed by Alice C. Fletcher & Company. (We weren't allowed to take photos in the gallery, unfortunately.)
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Dizzy Gillespie on Philly jazz.
“Let your beauty run wild,” read Philadelphia poet laureate Sonia Sanchez from one of six haikus (followed by a much longer poem assisted by saxophone) she wrote for Wangechi Mutu’s exhibition — the first at the expanded Leonard Pearlstein Gallery at the new URBN building, home of Drexel's art and design programs.
As Dr. Joseph Gregory, chair of the departments of Art and Art History at Drexel and overseer of the gallery, told me that evening, Sanchez was instrumental in bringing Mutu — an Kenya-born artist based in Brooklyn — and her work to Philadelphia. He introduced the two almost a year ago because Sanchez was interested in writing poetry based on Mutu’s work. When he pitched the inaugural exhibition at the Pearlstein to her, “She said yes on the basis of Sonia Sanchez being involved.”
And, as Sanchez said, Mutu’s work does run wild — syncretism being a necessity of her personal history, savage beauty being her aesthetic calling, and collage her primary medium. In that regard, the gallery doesn’t save the best for last, putting the chimeric “Three Huggers” and the even more bizarre series “The Histology of the Different Tumors of the Uterus” right up front. (Glitter will never be the same.)
Also showing are a few of her short films, the most memorable of which is “Eat Cake,” a solo performance (like most of her work) in which the artist squats before a tree in a white (wedding?) dress devouring a chocolate (wedding?) cake. The image reminds one not so much of Marie Antoinette, but of Bertha Mason (née Antoinette Cosway) of Jane Eyre and The Wide Sargasso Sea — precisely the sort of maligned post-colonial female persona that would figure in Mutu’s art.
The exhibition’s centerpiece is “Suspended Playtime” (shown, above), an installation of dozens of improvised trash-bag soccer balls suspended from the ceiling by golden strings. At some point early in the evening a few youngsters decided that it was an obstacle course to be walked through, and not gingerly. The adults soon followed suit, resulting in the coterie of young women who assist Ms. Mutu staying busy throughout the event untangling strings and salvaging dropped balls.
Accompanying the exhibition was the Drexel Dance Ensemble, choreographed by Tania Isaac, whose work clearly shares Mutu’s preoccupations. The dozen or so dancers, outfitted in multicolored and feathered flesh based unitards, entered the gallery from several directions, posing and writhing in pairs until joining together for an extended finale that saw the ensemble divide, subdivide, coalesce, splinter again, recombine, and build its momentum from the slow and eerie to the frenetic. It was an attentive dedication to Mutu’s work, containing within it some of the uncanny mix of violence, provocation, and grotesque seduction that has made the 40-year-old Kenyan so major.
Through March 30.
Every two weeks, Critical Mass will feature one Philly love note in its collaboration with blogger Emma Fried-Cassorla of phillylovenotes.com.
LOVE NOTE RECIPIENT: Duchamp's Étant donnés (Given: 1 The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas, French: Étant donnés: 1° la chute d'eau / 2° le gaz d'éclairage) in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
I AM: Scientist, artist, sometimes writer about science and art, distractable weirdo, slowsee-er
MY LOVE NOTE:
Dear Duchamp's Étant donnés,
Probably what I love about this piece is its hidden badassery. Duchamp, obviously was a complete 
badass, and he gave up the art world (somehow convincing everyone he had devoted his life to chess), to work on Étant donnés. He worked on it in semi-secret, maintaining the chess charade, for decades, (1946-66), and it wasn't unveiled until after his death.
So it is a secret piece and he made it for itself, and never had to confront a critical reception to it, though he did make it to be on display at the PMA. And obviously, looking at it — you realize that it's the work of someone completely obsessed. There is something weirdly tangible about that kind of stalker-y intense love produced in making something while obsessed by it and this piece, which I called "fucking-crazy-secret-naked-dead-waterfall" when I first saw it — and Étant donnés totally has it.
I stumbled on it in 2005. I knew about it, but somehow didn't realize it was at the PMA till my mom (my mom! of all people!) took me into this secret back room in the Duchamp section (thanks to Anne d'Harnoncourt the museum has one of the best Duchamp collections in the world) and pointed me to this mysterious door with strange peepholes ... and ... well, just total weirdness. One person at a time has to peep through the door, and of course you are instantly trapped in this bonkers voyeuristic scene. OK, so there's the mysterious Laura Palmer-y nude (there is a rip near her belly, btw. Check it out, poor thing), but the whole tableau is so weirdly composed and unbent at the same time: the landscape, the perfect, glitttery waterfall, the upraised lantern. It's so still, but it just seems like it's going to degenerate into chaos at any minute. The whole scene is full of untold stories. I don't know what to say. It's strange and brilliant and secret and it was made for here. This thing is a fucking treasure! I love you, Étant donnés.
Love, Alison Dell
P.S. The world should know that the PMA's upcoming "Dancing Around the Bride," celebrating Duchamp's influence on John Cage, Merce Cunnungham, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauchenberg, is going to be pretty great. It opens October 30.
Have a favorite spot you'd like to write a love note to? Send it to the author at phillylovenotes@gmail.com.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is now offering a $5 discount to its current special exhibition "Gauguin, Cézanne, Matisse: Visions of Arcadia" for all visitors to the recently debuted Barnes Foundation. Special exhibition tickets will include access to Main Building, the Perelman Building and the freshly spruced-up Rodin Musuem.
The offer stands until Sept. 3, the last day of "Arcadia," and is being held "in celebration of the opening of the Barnes Foundation on the Parkway and the shared artistic vision between the Barnes and the Philadelphia Museum of Art."
"Arte Bendito/Arte Filantrópico" (Blessed Art/ Philanthropic Art) is an example of one artist, Marta Sanchez, and how her many civic efforts mix with art for art's sake.
Large, ornate banners, the kind seen in old photos of parades with fraternal-organization marchers, line the walls of the front room of Taller Puertorriqueño gallery (2721 N. Fifth St.). They are tributes Marta Sanchez has made to recall 20 years of making Cascarones por la vida. Artists as well as community groups have created the confetti-filled eggs that are a part of fiestas. The whole center of the floor is carpeted with brilliant flats of these eggs, sold to fund art lessons for kids affected by HIV.
An offrenda (altar) of small crosses and other typical religious images raises money for the sisters of the Most Blessed Trinity who are working with newly arrived families trying to master English as a second language.
Sanchez loves trains. Look for their images snaking throughout the exhibition. The major work is one that recalls the tiles often seen in the Southwest, a larger image of a romantic scene or the Virgin of Guadalupe is painted over a series of rectangles. In this case one wall is covered with images that may be purchased separately, but working together they represent "Un Pedazo de mi/A Part of Me" — Sanchez sharing an intimate image of her studio for the benefit of Taller Puertorriqueño.
On the final day of the show, Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m., meet Sanchez and hear her speak about art and philanthropy and how artists underwrite social causes with their work.
To step into the Twenty-Two Gallery is to enter a separate plane of existence, far removed from the frantic pace of the city beyond its walls. 
Melissa M. Bryant reigns over this quiet kingdom, speaking with me at a small table in the center of the paintings that comprise "Interlude," her current exhibition. The artist maintains that “you learn quite a bit about life by being still,” an idea captured in the surrounding oil paintings that are meant to embody mindfulness. Bryant's work is mostly made up of landscapes — her “first love” — as well as several portraits and still lifes. A large canvas of Mother's Day flowers preserves their vibrance before they begin to wilt, and a scene depticting a winter dawn captures a transient moment of morning peace. Her whimsical brushstrokes are remeniscent of the en plein air Impressionists, colorful and full of contemplation.
Only through attentiveness, Bryant maintains, can we truly take the time to appreciate these scenes of nature that surround us. A look at her paintings and a moment in her presence are a welcome respite from the fast-paced working day, and may help you pause to appreciate the breeze in Rittenhouse Park next time you pass through in hurried transit.
Through Sept. 9, opening Fri., July 13, 6–9 p.m., Twenty-Two Gallery, 236 S. 22nd St., 215-272-1911, melissambryant.com.
Inside Butch Cordora’s Washington Square West studio, the local conceptual artist shows me the large, yet-to-be-framed mugshots that now comprise his latest exhibition, "Hot and Busted."
Cordora searched thousands of photographs (2,219 to be exact) on the websites of correctional facilities across the country until he found subjects meeting his aesthetic specifications: “Piercing eyes, square jaws — that kind of soap-opera beautiful, like 'Oh my God, you’re so hot.'” Oh, and they’re all Caucasian.
“I had wanted white guys on purpose,” Cordora explains. When browsing the different websites, he focused on the areas of the country where there would be a larger selection of light-skinned beauts. It would be “too easy,” he says, to add African-Americans, a race he notes is all too often associated with crime and punishment in the U.S. “For the white, straight, handsome male,” however, “the world is their oyster.” These are the kind of faces that HHo
One of the men resembles a young Brad Pitt, with a firm jaw and a faint smile. Some, however, have a more haggard appearance. One looks up with tourmented eyes from a head angle that’s reminiscent of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode III. With tousled hair and pallid skin, his beauty hovers just beneath the surface of obvious strain.
These photographs seem more mysterious and profound than the pop art-y paintings of Cordora’s last show, “Absolution Lab,” and his popular 2010 calendar “Straight and Butch” in which he posed nude with an assortment of naked heterosexual men.
The inspiration for “Hot and Busted” stems from Cordora’s visits to a friend in jail. Though the man in question will not be featured, Cordora claims his mugshot is equally captivating. “You look at him, you’d think he has the world by the balls,” says the artist. However, after 2 DUIs and a house arrest broken on account of soy-related cooking, Cordora’s friend was locked up for six months. The artist visited him every week, and “I just became fascinated – with jail, with the booking process, with the whole idea of taking your freedoms away.” Each mugshot in the show reflects the emasculation and defeat up to the point at which the photograph is taken, explains the artist. Each portrait is therefore not only a face but also a depiction of the harrowing experience of arrest that recalls the mistakes of his friend. “Hot and Busted” is about this push and pull between an attractive face and a crushing experience.
But who are these Luciferan adonises, the focus of the show?
Cordora refuses to reveal names or origins, and he’d prefer you guess their crimes – the list includes everything from armed robbery to failure to possess a saltwater fishing license. Similarly, these convicts and would-be convicts have no idea that their likenesses are being blown up to two feet by two feet and hung on a gallery wall. Questions of morality and legality tossed to the wayside, Cordora cares only that the viewer share his fascination with prison and the contradiction embodied by its most beautiful.
opening reception Fri., July 6, 6 p.m., through Sept. 2, Ven and Vaida Gallery, 18 S. Third St., 215-592-4099, venandvaida.com.
The glint of 23-karat gold immediately catches my eye.
Lining one of the first walls of the Fleisher Ollman Gallery (1616 Walnut Street, suite 100) is Kate Abercrombie's 20 Great American Films, a series of small canvases hinting at figures, some familiar and others more esoteric. Is that E.T.? Marilyn Monroe? Someone from some DVD cover lost in the folds of my memory?
This sense of almost-certainty pervades "A Complete Die, etc.," on view through August 14. The focal point, or "vortex," as curator Anthony Campuzano describes it, is the dice collection of Justin Mitchell. Several large cases in the center of the room contain seemingly infinite dies of all shapes, sizes and colors with symbols ranging from numbers to astrological signs to unfamiliar, rune-like marks.
Eight artists here respond to the "multiple components, fractured surfaces and formal elements" of Mitchell's dice collection, Campuzano explains. Mitchell also has a series of lambda prints, with colorful shapes that hover somewhere between the digital and the architectural. They seem at first to be buildings, or walls perhaps, but the more I look the uneasier I feel. What are they?
Moving through the gallery, the paintings, installations and mixed media pieces by John Finneran, Mark Mahosky, Zach Harris, Jessica Mein, Anissa Mack and Karen Kilimnik instill a similar feeling. These works combine mediums of ink, gouache, wood, sheet metal, birch plywood and even arrowheads, in the case of Mack's stark juxapositions of rock and bright acrylic.
Each artist considers color, symmetry and the collection in a manner that is disorienting but also quite enchanting. Like the thrill of anticipation in the moments just after releasing a die, before it is clear where it will settle.
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