Daily Archives: July 22, 2008

Susan Abrams @ The Enclaves Gallery (short video clip)

Susan Abrams exhibit @ The Enclaves Gallery featuring Shoshana.

Susan Abrams makes her own paper, applies emulsion and exposes them to light in her darkroom; working with negatives she captures a wash-like effect, distorting reality, repurposing each line and shadow. Abrams is a teacher in her former life and watching her interact with the kids, explaining her process in simple terms, was a very enjoyable experience. The Enclaves Gallery looks just beautiful with Susan Abrams’ work energizing the space with nature, science and impeccable presentation.

Susan Abrams (left) @ The Enclaves Gallery.

During Susan Abrams reception, DoN met Stephanie Yuhas of Project 21, a collaborative project bringing together film makers, artists, designers, actors…to create teams and make a movie in 21 days, followed by a film festival. Stephanie and DoN dished about local viral video star, Nora the Piano Playing Cat and Angry Video Game Nerd. This is a geat opportunity for the New Media community to get to know each other better, the way the Philadelphia Sketch Club, the Plastic Club, PANMA and DaVinci Art Alliance bring together creative people. Maybe Comcast will put some videos on all those blank “public access channels”? Or on that faboo screen in the lobby?

Second Thursday @ Crane Arts Center – Nexus Summer Community Arts

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Second Thursday evening’s @ Crane Arts is very cool; from the very end of The Avenue of the Arts across town via Passyunk Ave, Sho & DoN drove North to Fishtown. Nexus Summer Community Art Series presents Remembering the Past, Embracing the Future; this unique exhibit features an artistic collaboration between Rwandese children from Rugerero Survivors Village, Rwandese hand-crafter, Patrick Sentama, and Jefferson Medical students, Komal Soin, Karen Connolly, Jennifer Heckman, and Dana Johns.

Combining photographs, handicrafts and children’s art, the exhibition offers a glimpse into another world that is sadly beautiful. The drawings by kids aged 5 – 13 displayed with photos of the conditions the kids live in is really bold, so much narrative with so few words. DoN likes seeing photos and paintings, crayon and camera, hanging together, it creates temporal distortions, photos are fast/crayon drawings are slow; Nexus is so cool to host this frank, easy-going, accessible show filled with deep cultural resonances.

Landscape paintings of Rwanda @ Nexus Gallery

UArts @ URBN

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UArts @ URBN

Shoshana & DoN attended a show of recent graduates of UArts photography majors at the Urban Outfitters headquarters in the Navy Yard, a wonderfully cavernous, bright space with hip, modern amenities for workers and visitors, repurposed from an industry long gone. The occasion was a first for Urban Outfitters, to include art from outside their own studios, a coup for UArts photography majors to have their work hanging in the ultimate New Philadelphia. The display wall was installed especially for this exhibition permitting the artists to exhibit large scale works or groupings in a salon style fashion. The art is superb, the level of skill is extraordinary with unique uses of tools and technology producing fine art photography from staged magic realism to documentary realism to intimate glimpses into childhood memories.

Artist Anna Tas with two examples of her Linticular Prints, the collection will appear in the Please Touch Museum. Tas taps into cultural stereotypes with the shifting shades of humanity playing out cheerfully in simple plastic shapes. The technical term for the type of linticular print used is a “flip” which is really only two images divided into strips, the lens lets the mind’s eye create multi-cultural blends.

Stephanie Ricci with photos of the carousel at Knoebels Amusement Resort; an homage to her grandfather this sampling is from a group of 26.

Photographer Dustin Ream with “Fukayama Japan 01, 2007”. The view is under a Japanese rail line with amusement sculptures, Murikami-like in their super-flatness. DoN & Dustin discussed the similarity to Zoe Strauss’ Under 95 projects, the Shin Honsen train system in Japan and traveling with a rail pass. Ream is going for an MFA @ Tyler.

Photographer Christos Loutovoulis with “In the Name of Cha Ching, the Crucifixtion“, created by applying liquid emulsion to paper then exposed to light from an enlarger, the four sheets of paper are nailed directly to the wall.