Category Archives: Philadelphia Art Galleries

Philadelphia art galleries DoN has visited.

Energy & Matter – Diane Podolsky & Bonnie Schorske @ Gallery 22

Gallery 22 in Center City West is an artist collective under the direction of Shawn Murray with rotating exhibits of member artists as well as an ongoing group exhibit. The space is lovely with wonderful light and excellent presentation – the current show Energy & Matter was installed by Shawn and member artist Diane Podolsky, pairing the expressive paintings by Podolsky with photographer Bonnie Schorske. Before last Sunday’s meet & greet DoN had the opportunity for some quiet conversation with Diane Podolsky while Katy the ArT DoG & Lady Doofie (the St. Bernard/Chihuahua mix) lounged on the sidewalk on 22nd Street.

Over the Summer Podolsky held a teaching fellowship with the Center for Emerging Visual Artists to work on an inter-generational art project bringing together young people and residents of a nursing home. The gist of the program was to get older people to pass along stories of their lives to the youngsters, incorporating the tales of their lives into an upcoming art installation. The kids were captivated by the stories told by an ex-professional baseball player from the Negro Baseball League in Philly, a former jazz club singer and folks who lived in simpler times in Germantown. The project involves cut out paper flowers & leaves and paper clothes to be hung on a clothes line in a nine foot long installation with the stories written on the elements. Diane was surprised at how much the kids enjoyed hearing the stories and sewing the paper clothes – many of them had never threaded a needle let alone actually sewing. DoN will keep you posted as to when the completed work with be displayed.

Olea Europaea Biceps Popeyi, Bonnie Schorske, digital capture archival print and Thorns, Diane Podolsky, oil & graphite.

Make a Wish, Diane Podolsky, oil & graphite and Olea Europaea Deja II, Bonnie Schorske, digital capture archival pigment print.

Bonnie Schorske @ Gallery 22.

Diane is quite self effacing about her work even though the bold works are expressive, intriguing and vibrant. Her style is abstract yet naturalistic, combining brushy strokes of muted color with recognizable objects such as chicken wishbones, woody tree shapes and animal forms. Matched with Bonnie Schorske’s impeccable black and white photographs of Majorica, the overall effect is transcendent as if following Alice down the rabbit hole. Bonnie told DoN there is a hidden narrative in the installation which is fun to investigate – kind of like “Where’s Waldo” on an highly sophisticated level. The skill and beauty of the artists’ work is perfectly complementary with dreamy photo realism aligned with neo-geo paintings; Energy & Matter is on display through November 8th to be followed by a one person show of paintings by the incomparable Ed Bronstein, Explorations…..in the Neighborhood featuring paintings created in Katy & Lady Doofie’s favorite place, the dog park!

The group show @ Gallery 22.

Niki Bombshell @ The Beauty Shop Cafe

Plastic Wall Salon 2 – How to Price Your Art

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Wednesday evening @ The Plastic Club, Anders Hanson hosted a lively discussion of how artists should price their art. Many familiar faces were present in the Tea Room, all with the same concerns – how do artists price their work. Off the Wall Gallery @ Dirty Frank’s curator Jody Sweitzer shared lots of good advice from deciding how much you should pay yourself to pricing works in a range that is reasonable yet profitable. Ben Cohen shared a great idea from his last one person show – he priced figure studies done in workshops at really low prices with a raffle coupon attached for one of his framed paintings valued at around $300. Ben found that people bought more than one drawing with hopes of winning one of his paintings and he earned enough to cover the “loss” of the painting and generated good will. Other ideas included pricing by the square inch (Francis Tucker, the great painter and teacher does this – he charges $5 per square inch, you do the math), keeping track of hours and material costs, not giving away work to friends, no undercutting yourself when a client asks the price, keeping your price consistent (don’t price it one way for New York and another for Philly), think like a business person and pick up on buying cues, be present at your openings and follow up, follow up, follow up. On a recent show on PBS called Craft in America, one of the artists said to not count on your gallery to promote your work and keep your own mailing lists (snail & e-mail).

Jody visits artist studios to learn more about the artist and their body of work, picks works she feels will sell, learns the background of the work, techniques, materials, style…so when a patron asks she’s armed with info to share. Off the Wall has a terrific sales record and does great promotion with posters, cards and parties. Rick Wright shared that he has a range of product priced from very low for his famous cell phone photos (phone-to-grams) to higher end large scale works. By selling some works cheap he makes friends and collectors who return and often buy more.

Sweitzer recommended the book “How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist: Selling Yourself Without Selling Your Soul” by Caroll Michels. DoN recommends “I’d Rather be in the Studio” by Alyson Stanfield and “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. As a former sales manager, DoN has a few tips: watch for buying cues (how much is it?, how did you make it?, how long did it take?…) Use the acronym QRISP – quality, reputation, innovation, style and price. Notice price is last not first – don’t spend your collectors money for them, after all, you don’t know how much they have to spend. In this feverish economy, it’s important to remain thick skinned, engage your customers, pick up on cues, have a story to tell, value yourself and stick to your price.

Photographs by George Krause @ The Plastic Club

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The enormous photographs of football players by George Krause in the Plastic Club‘s Tea Room are thoroughly engrossing. The tough stares emitting from the players eyes, the sweat and grit on their faces, the glossy texture of their uniforms offers the viewer the opportunity to examine up close the epitome of masculinity, competitive aggression and stolid determination to win at all costs. DoN spoke with Krause as he installed the works and learned that the prints were created by scanning film negatives and printing the photographs on huge sheets of matte paper. Rick Wright, another great Philly photographer, pointed out how each of the photos are not exactly black and white but saturated with purple, green and maroon giving the images a lively glow.

As you enter the front door of the historic art club, a large book of over-sized portraits is splayed out on a table. At first DoN thought it was a unique way to present some photos that didn’t fit on the wall but instead discovered a book filled with intensely personal portraits of a wide variety of faces from hippies guys with earrings and greasy hair to stern women in power suits.

The exquisite gelatin silver prints beautifully presented answer the question of whether photography is true art is answered with a resounding,”Yes.”

George Krause was born in Philly, attended PCA, received the first Prix de Rome and the first Fulbright-Hayes Fellowships ever awarded to a photographer, two Guggenheim Fellowships and three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. The entire Plastic Club is filled with Krause’s photos including an extraordinary group of life-sized nudes in the newly refurbished gallery in the basement – it’s hard to believe such a treasure is so easily accessible to all at the low, low price of free. The exhibit is on view through October 24th, make the effort to wander over to the Avenue of the Artists and experience a truly unique exhibit of world class photography.