Category Archives: Philadelphia Abstract Art

Non-representational art in all media including drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, prints, video, on-line, writing, etc.

Membership

Philadelphia Museum of Art Introduces New Membership Program for Artists

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is introducing two new memberships designed especially for artists. Starting this month, the Museum will provide a free lifetime membership to each of the approximately 2,000 living artists whose work is represented in the permanent collection. In addition, the Museum will initiate a new discounted Artist Membership, available to all working artists. To launch this program, the Museum is offering the Artist Membership at a reduced price from February 24-28, 2016, during the first five days of the major exhibition International Pop.

Timothy Rub, The George D. Widener Director and CEO of the Museum, said: “Artists are the heart and soul of any art museum, and we must recognize them as such. The Museum should always be accessible to them because they draw inspiration from our collections and, in turn, help us to inspire others.”

An Artist Membership is available for anyone working in any of the many media that are represented in the collection. Artists will be asked to show how they share their work with the public, at the time of the purchase of a membership. This can take the form of a website, Instagram account, Etsy page, Facebook, or publicity material from an exhibition. With the purchase of an Artist Membership, artists will receive unlimited free admission to the Main building, Rodin Museum, the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, plus the two historic houses in Fairmount Park, Mount Pleasant and Cedar Grove, managed by the Museum.

The membership will provide admission and special exhibition tickets for all children (18 and under), previews of select exhibitions, members-only tours, trips to regional cultural attractions, programs presented by artists, curators, authors, and scholars, e-newsletters and a discounted $10 general admission for guests. Special parking rates in the Museum’s garage include the first hour free and $8 for the next four hours. Artist Members will also receive 10% off on Museum dining and shopping during every visit, a 20% off Store coupon, a 20% off Granite Hill restaurant coupon, and 20% reduction in the cost of educational programs and audio tours.

On Saturday, February 27, the Philadelphia Museum of Art will host an Artist Membership Welcome Lounge from noon until 5:00 p.m. Activities that day include a group photograph that is scheduled at 1:00 p.m. in the Great Stair Hall, and The Rose Susan Hirschhorn Behrend Lecture: Roadmap to International Pop, presented at 2:00 p.m. by Darsie Alexander. Ms. Alexander is the lead curator of the exhibition International Pop and Executive Director of the Katonah Museum of Art. She will be joined by Erica F. Battle, the John Alchin and Hal Marryatt Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art to discuss the ways in which Pop artists took the world by storm.

Artist Membership Rates

FREE Artists whose work is represented in the Museum’s permanent collection.

$40 One-year Artist Membership. (This membership is available for $25 if purchased at the Museum from February 24 to 28, 2016.)

On Saturday, February 27, the Philadelphia Museum of Art will host an Artist Membership Welcome Lounge from noon until 5:00 p.m. Activities that day include a group photograph that is scheduled at 1:00 p.m., and a lecture with Darsie Alexander Roadmap to International Pop, presented at 2:00 p.m.

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The Philadelphia Museum of Art is Philadelphia’s art museum. We are a landmark building. A world-renowned collection. A place that welcomes everyone. We bring the arts to life, inspiring visitors—through scholarly study and creative play—to discover the spirit of imagination that lies in everyone. We connect people with the arts in rich and varied ways, making the experience of the Museum surprising, lively, and always memorable. We are committed to inviting visitors to see the world—and themselves—anew through the beauty and expressive power of the arts.

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Wonder

NGCB – EPHEMERAL from Michael McDermott on Vimeo.

Don’t you wonder sometimes?

I’m really honored to be working with Nora Gibson Contemporary Ballet again this season. Our new work EPHEMERAL is our grandest to date. Seven dancers, lighting design by Dutch artist Katinka Marac and an evocative score of environmental elements and sonic stillness.

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EPHEMERAL
Christ Church Neighborhood House Theater, Philadelphia
February 19 – 21, 2016. Tickets can be purchased online also running concurrently will be a dance-film festival that Nora has curated.

David Bowie Night

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Last month planet Earth lost one of its a greatest visionary artists of the last century: David Bowie. David’s music and style had a huge influence on me. As I tweeted the morning of his death: “He taught the world it was ok to be different, it was ok to experiment, it was ok to change.”

In two weeks I’ll be part of an all-star night of Philadelphia musicians playing Bowie’s music. I’ll be playing keyboards with some (very talented) friends. I don’t want to spoil the surprise but we’ll be playing two songs from my favorite Bowie album as well as his last epic artistic statement.

DAVID BOWIE TRIBUTE NIGHT
Thursday, February 11at 8 PM
The Fire
412 W Girard Ave, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19123
$8 / 21+

Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State

michael mcdermott, Don't you wonder sometimes?

March 19, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. – March 20, 2016 at 7:00 a.m.

the fidget space 1714 N Mascher Street Philadelphia
$10 – $20 sliding scale

This is going to be a 12-hour long concert of sleep music! Bring a sleeping bag, pillow and blanket, enjoy some dream tea and snuggle in for 12-hours of dream drones and tape loop lullabies. I’ll be performing ambient music all night with visuals from Alex Bond focusing on themes of Bardo, reincarnation, Dream Yoga and sleep (un)consciousness.

To get a taste of the kind of music you’ll hear, please check out my 2014 sleep music album, Quiescent. It’s an eight-hour mix of music for the four sleep cycles.

Thank you to Michael McDermott for the content of this post.

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Paper

Domenic DiStefano Memorial Works on Paper OpenBarbara DiLorenzo, Moments Before Opening, First Prize

2016 Annual Domenic DiStefano Memorial Works on Paper Open Juried Exhibition, Philadelphia Sketch Club, January 2 – 24

Reception: Sunday, January 10, 2016, 2:00 – 4:00PM where cash awards and Philadelphia Sketch Club Medal will be presented to the winners.

Barbara DiLorenzo is the author/illustrator of Renato and the Lion (Viking Children’s Books, 2017). She studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design and painting at the Art Students League of New York. In 2014 she received the Dorothy Markinko Scholarship Award from the Rutgers University Council on Children’s Literature. She is a signature member in the New England Watercolor Society as well as the Society of Illustrators. Currently she teaches at the Arts Council of Princeton, and is co-president of the Children’s Book Illustrators Group of New York. Barbara is represented by Rachel Orr of the Prospect Agency.”

“DOMENIC DISTEFANO is well-known for his bold and free style of transparent watercolor. An elected member of many prominent art groups, DiStefano has served on the Board of the American Watercolor Society (where he is a member of the prestigious Dolphin Fellowship), and as president of the Philadelphia Sketch Club.

His paintings have received numerous awards. He has served as a juror and given demonstrations and workshops for art groups in the United States and Canada. He is the author of the bookPainting Dynamic Watercolors. One of his paintings appeared in the White House Historical Association’s Calendar for the year 2000 – Rockport Art Association

Jurors:

Domenic DiStefano Memorial Works on Paper Open

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Cairns

Brian Dickerson, Cairns, with an Essay by Miriam Seidel,  John Thornton Films

Brian Dickerson is an artist who knows how to wander, and how to make his way through uncertainty. Seeing the stone cairns of rural Ireland, he recognized them for what they were: mediators of mysterious places, markers for the lost, messages from the past. In Cairns, his new series of constructed paintings, he brings this understanding into a new form.” –Miriam Seidel

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Moment

John D. Taylor, SAVERY GalleryUntitled #69, woodcut, 2013. John D. Taylor, Just a Moment at SAVERY Gallery

Just a Moment, solo exhibition of new prints by John D. Taylor

at SAVERY Gallery

SAVERY Gallery proudly announces the opening of Just a Moment, a solo exhibition of new prints by John D. Taylor.

Opening Friday December 4th, 2015, the exhibition will run through January 3rd, 2016 with a reception for the artist on Friday, December 4th from 6-9 PM.

Just a Moment is a cool and lyrical display in black and white notes on paper that echo the methods wherein they are born, the hand that crafts them, and the Artist’s search for discovery in the process. In her essay on the exhibition, Associate Curator at the University of Pennsylvania Heather Gibson Moqtaderi is witness to the following:

“An undercurrent of mystery courses through ‘Just a Moment’, from Taylor’s cryptic markings to ethereal spaces that feel like windows, portals, or pathways. Untitled #69 invokes the spirit of Robert Motherwell’s Open paintings, albeit in a very different manner, with a three-sided window shape that seemingly continues beyond the page. Taylor’s “window” is all the more enigmatic when paired with the ghostly, darkly inked shape floating nearby. Through these unfamiliar spaces, Taylor leads us to uncharted territory and asks that we make our own meaning.”

Comprised of about 40 Print works framed by the Artist’s own hand in the same rich woods in which he works: ebonized poplar, mahogany and maple, this exhibition is a study in time / tempo / texture and moments. The works themselves are a conversation in contrasts between Taylor’s loose, gestural style, his expressive influences, and his meticulous printing methods. In these woodcuts, texture from the chisel and the wood grain add character to his minimalist compositions, giving lightness and depth to the shapes he creates. His work is at some times clean, almost geometric, and at other times seemingly impulsive and improvisational in its mark making.

Freed from the focus of running an edition, each of Taylor’s prints are unique: meant to capture a moment and hold it for a second until passing into the next. Having succeeded that way, the Artist must move on to the “next now”.

John D. Taylor, SAVERY GalleryUntitled #24, woodcut, 2014, John D. Taylor, Just a Moment at SAVERY Gallery

John D. Taylor is an Artist, Cabinetmaker, Father, and longtime resident of West Philadelphia and Powelton Village. After studying painting at Cleveland Institute of Art in the mid 1960’s, he relocated to Philadelphia to study with Piero Dorazio and Angello Savelli at the University of Pennsylvania. He has long been integrated with the University and the Philadelphia art scene: first as a gallery preparatory at the Institute for Contemporary Art, and currently at the Arthur Ross Gallery where he has headed the installation crew for the past 30 years. He is a prolific artist, creating work in his shop and studio everyday and exhibiting most recently in his 2010 solo exhibition “Current Prints” at Art on the Avenue.

John D. Taylor, SAVERY GalleryUntitled #18, woodcut, 2015, John D. Taylor, Just a Moment at SAVERY Gallery

John D. Taylor, SAVERY GalleryUntitled #55, woodcut, 2015, John D. Taylor, Just a Moment at SAVERY Gallery

Just a Moment is Mr. Taylor’s first solo exhibition at SAVERY Gallery. For further questions, press inquiries, or images please contact: SAVERY GALLERY, 319 N. 11th Street, Philadelphia, PA,

Tory Savery or Caitlin Palmer 267-687-7769 or 610-547-8434 gallery@saverydesign.com www.saverygallery.com

Thank you to SAVERY Gallery for the content of this post.

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