Category Archives: Philadelphia Art Shows

Art shows DoN has reviewed for DoNArTNeWs.

Hiro Sakaguchi, Two Zero One Two at Seraphin Gallery

Hiro Sakaguchi, Two Zero One Two at Seraphin Gallery

October 13th, 2012 artist Hiro Sakaguchi presented an artist talk to a crowd of art enthusiasts at Seraphin Gallery on Pine Street. DoN exerpted and transposed some of the lecture as best as he could.

“This photo was 2011, I think it’s after everything happened in Japan, the tsunami and everything. I had the chance to go to New Hampshire and had the chance to view this mountain. But for me I wasn’t thinking about the mountain, looking at the horizon line, like everybody else, when you have this kind of landscape in front of you. For me, I thought about the tsunami, the tragedy you know and I started thinking about it. So this is the feeling I got on the top of the mountain when I was thinking about my native country, I know what people are thinking about, it’s very meditative that way. This was the first thing I was thinking about and it starts from here. It’s how it started in my head, every artwork. ”

Hiro Sakaguchi, Two Zero One Two at Seraphin Gallery

“Let’s start with drawing here. This drawing is called Flower Happening and as you see, there’s an image of an airplane. I think because of the apocalypse thinking in my head, documentary movies about war, natural disasters type of movies, so, one movie showed airplanes carpet bombing in Germany, Japan, everywhere. So it’s kind of like I had this it occurred to me that this violent act, I wanted to make it to something positive. Somebody told me the other day, like 60s people put flowers into the barrel of guns, you know Make Peace Not War, so putting instead of bomb, I put flowers to make it peaceful. You can see underneath is actually the town where I came from. Chiba City, Japan. This is a drawing and then a painting. The drawing was different, conversation wise, was fast but the painting was next.”

Hiro Sakaguchi, Two Zero One Two at Seraphin Gallery

Table top battle field with toy soldiers whose guns are replaced with flowers, tanks made from thread spools and hills made from Art Forum magazines on a soccer field of fake grass. “I was thinking about this one when I was making it, first of all, as a kid I didn’t have the technique to do this, but if I was ten years old and I did this I would be so happy. But, it came back to me know that I can make a child’s toy on this battle field. And also a toy I kind of think represents society, how our society functions, how we always build a toy, you know? Kids love their toys. It’s a questioning of functional toys and our society. And also a question of human violence.”

“I just got a FaceBook advertisement for a video game saying, “Peace is Not An Option!”. It’s really a violent way we have these games, war as a game. It’s kind of interesting because we don’t have to do it in real life. I always kind of question those things. So this has three things going on here: the field is a soccer field, a game field and also a battle field. And like I said about the question of human violence, soccer is one of the most popular sports in the world but supposedly started from an eighth century England people started kicking someone’s skull. So, it’s a violent game. And yet as a child we crave something like that. Of course, this is artwork, so you’re questioning the function of art. See how thick this Art Forum is?”

Hiro Sakaguchi, Two Zero One Two at Seraphin Gallery

“I enjoy doing splashing, throwing paint, my technique is actually air rifle used to splash the paint. This one is similar, a picture of a battle ship, the idea is a 21st Century Noah’s Ark. So, it’s a lot of bad things have happened in the world, somehow I saw this World War II Japanese battle ship, so similar (to the drawing) I wanted to make something peaceful. So I take all the weapons out and change and added trees, a green roof, and also solar and wind power, and then far away you can see the big tsunami coming in. It’s like like combining a History Channel program with recent events. I think if you go to Japan or Europe, you’ll see these mangled concrete, to stop the force of the waves.”

Hiro Sakaguchi, Two Zero One Two at Seraphin Gallery

“These sculptures, I don’t know if you know this, this whole show is about Love and Peace. This is a toy from when I was a kid, this is a simple toy made from a spool, chop stick and candle. And when you wind it up it moves. And because of the cuts, it can climb over the landscape.”

Hiro Sakaguchi, Two Zero One Two at Seraphin Gallery

“This big painting first I started from that rapid drawing. I imagined one theory of how wars end, a kind of imagined myself, start from that one (the drawing) then expand to that one (the battle ship) to this one. It’s kind of three different stages of my thinking. You have to start from somewhere. For this painting I was thinking of a color field painting with the splash, kind of more of an abstraction. The painting started from a floor splash, paint and let dry, paint and let dry, then I out the drawing. So it is horizontal and vertical where it came together, a combination of drawing and painting.”

Hiro Sakaguchi, Two Zero One Two at Seraphin Gallery

“There is an animation by Takaji Matsudo, he made an animation about a space ship based on WWII battle ship and then in the future aliens attacking it, so people on earth decommissioned this battle ship and made it into a space ship…I never grew up drawing comics but for me I enjoyed history stories, but I thought now it’s kind of funny for me to make a comic image here, right now.”

Hiro Sakaguchi, Two Zero One Two at Seraphin Gallery

This last drawing combines the photograph of Hiro Sakaguchi on the mountain top staring at the moon surrounded by swirls made from another child’s toy, the Spirograph. Today is the last day for this inspiring show at Seraphin Gallery, so while you’re out visiting POST shows take some time to visit and remember your childhood.

Make Love, Not War 2012.

Written and Photographed by DoN Brewer

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Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club

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Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Catharine Mulligan, Untitled, acrylic with chalk and gouache on paper

A Drawing Show of Artists in Philadelphia Selected by Alex Kanevsky and Bill Scott at The Philadelphia Sketch Club is an inspiring collection of drawings which stretches the imagination and boundaries of what one thinks of as drawings. From traditional pencil and charcoal drawings to abstract mixed media like gouache, acrylic and house paint, the show is a carefully curated exhibit displaying the state of the art of drawing as considered by two of Philadelphia’s finest artists. Instead of a salon style exhibit with art packed from floor to ceiling, the show gives each piece of artwork room to breath and the viewer the opportunity to examine the work without others elbowing for attention. The historic gallery/studio looks like a room in a museum.

Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Mary Page-Evans, Merci de K, charcoal, pastel and gouache on paper

DoNArTNeWs asked Alex Kanevsky about the process of assembling the collection for this extraordinary exhibition of diverse drawings. DoN said, “I know you know a lot of people.” Alex replied, “Well, Bill knows a lot more people than I do. The process was simple. We went to a coffee house, we sat down and tried to write a list of all the people who we know and liked. We figured since this is an educational show and did it because we wanted to see these people’s work in one place. We just invited everybody whose drawings spoke to us.”

Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Richard Taransky, Bella Figura, charcoal and white pastel

Kanevsky continued, “And after that list, which initially was fairly limited, it kept on growing because every couple days after that meeting, I would call or Bill would call and say, ‘How about that person?’. And that’s pretty much how it happened.” DoN asked, “Did you do studio visits?” Alex said, “We did some studio visits. You know, this started with a presentation here about a year ago at The Sketch Club and we saw that it would be fun to do this show and we approached the president with the idea. But when it actually came down to organizing things I was away. I was away the whole summer, so I didn’t get to do many studio visits. I knew what people did and whoever I didn’t know Bill sent me the images over the internet. We did make some choices from the images because we knew what the work looked like in general.”

“These are people whose work we know and like. So it didn’t come out of the blue.” DoN asked about how Alex felt about the end result, he said, “I was so impressed. We were worried that it might look spotty or not very cohesive but once we hung it we were both really impressed with the level of the drawings. Some of the drawings here I just absolutely love them. There were some really good surprises, for example, Michael Rossman’s drawings, but I never met him. And I wanted to have those drawings herein the show because I had admired them for about ten years. Then there’s other drawings I like but I didn’t know what they would give us but never the less they are beautiful.”

We talked bout the influence of the internet and how images are flattened out because of screen resolution but Alex Kanevsky expressed his pleasure at the works when they arrived. He said, “There are some good surprises this way. Some of the work I didn’t know at all because they were one’s that Bill liked, but we kept each other in the loop. If I suggested something then I would send him images. It was a really interesting process. Every single drawing is something we are happy to have here.”

Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Bill Scott, Copy of the Cherry Tree, drypoint on paper

DoNArTNeWs talked with co-curator Bill Scott about the collaboration, “I think Alex approached me once up here about doing a show. And then we mentioned it to Bill Patterson and he said, ‘Sure.’ Then we met because he was about to do the Woodmere show, long before, but the one conscious decision was not to overlap, to give a chance to the people that were not in the juried show. We tried to, well it might be a bit of a rub, but we tried to not just have the same show again.”

DoN asked how Bill Scott decided? Was it the most memorable images? “We both picked people and asked them to send us pictures. About half of them got back to us but in the end each one of us picked ones we liked.” DoN asked, “So you each got to pick some? Was there cooperation?” Bill said, “Yeah, we did it all through e-mail when he was away. It was a lot of work.” How did selecting images from the internet work out? “I really like juried shows but for this each of us, if not both of us knew the artists work. So, I knew what I was looking at. I knew what they were and a lot of them I saw in person. I did a few studio visits, Amanda Bush, Mary Page-Evans. Alex knew Richard Taransky. Doris Staffel, I like her. And John Nazarewycz, I love his work, I knew them. Eileen Goodman, I knew already. So, you know, there’s no point to it, it’s just pictures. We wanted to hang a spacious show so that everything would look important.”

Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Skimantas Pipas, Progress, mixed media on paper

Bill Scott said, “I’ve seen a lot of shows that are so over hung that you might get a migraine headache so that you don’t want to be there. You have to soothe everybody’s ego because they’re in the show, I want people to feel good for having come to see it. To feel inspired for having been here. I’d rather have a show where I feel like I’ve actually been somewhere rather than, ‘Let’s get out of here.’ I’d rather leave wanting to see more.”

Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Eileen Goodman, Peaches on a Dress, charcoal on paper

Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Laura Velez, Follow, graphite on mylar

Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Michael Cierve, Mirror, graphite on paper

Saturday, October 20th is The Philadelphia Sketch Club‘s annual fundraising gala called Out of the Past…Into the Future. Featuring fine wines and culinary specialties, the event celebrates America’s oldest artist run arts club with special guest reknowned photographer Zoe Strauss. Dress is creative cocktail, black tie or costume. For tickets contact 214 545 9298.

Written and Photographed by DoN Brewer

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Robert Bohne at Artists’ House Gallery

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Robert Bohne at Artists’ House Gallery

Painter, Robert Bohne has exhibited his oil paintings at Artists’ House Gallery in Old City, Philadelphia four times now. His collection of recent and quite exquisite plein air paintings is a subtle yet sublime interpretation of landscapes and still life subjects. Each of the paintings has an immediacy and atmospheric naturalism that identifies the artist’s painting style. The small scale oils are richly narrative with information design and skilled brushwork. The artist’s eye is apparent in each piece especially with technical virtuosity of color and depth of field, drawing the viewer deep into the landscape or experiencing the delightful wetness of an object with expert application of paint.

Robert Bohne at Artists’ House Gallery

Robert Bohne described the group of paintings above to DoNArTNeWs, “On this wall are some plein air work, one piece, the middle piece, of the fountain was done in Majorca Spain. The original sketch was done in Majorca and I transferred the sketch into an oil painting. The one above that is strictly out of my head, it’s a fictitious cloud, The one on the bottom is one of the piers on the Delaware River.”

“I’m always looking for the light in a painting, a good focal point, and after I find that it’s almost like a leading actor in a movie or a play, that focal point. And then after that I look for the supporting actors, which are less significant pieces of the painting, but, they lead your eye to that focal point.”

Robert Bohne at Artists’ House Gallery

DoN thought this lobster painting looked familiar? The artist explained, “This is not the same as the one at The Plastic Club, this is the second. Actually it’s the same lobster, it’s spent a couple of months in my freezer and it came back out again and re-emmeged in another painting.”

Like impressionist masters, Bohne knows to return to his subjects repeatedly to gain the sense of realism he desires with less and less detail but infinitely more important visual information.

Robert Bohne at Artists’ House Gallery

Robert Bohne at Artists’ House Gallery, photo courtesy of the artist

“This is a painting that sat around for close to a year, I wasn’t quite sure what I didn’t like about it. And then after looking at the George Bellows show just recently, I realized that what this painting needed were a couple of areas of really dramatic contrast. And it was just a matter of putting a small dot of orange and a small dot of white for highlight. And, of course, increasing the shadow area to the left of that and it made the painting pop. And it made it work”

The sense of realism yet obvious impressionism almost makes the plate of shrimp look abstract. The oil painting displays Robert Bohne‘s mastery of the medium and certainly is desirable as a work of art, at once decorative yet with a sense of narrative liveness. Working oil on board, oil on paper or academy board, each painting delights the senses with the artist’s appreciation of artistic appropriateness and style. One aspect of Robert Bohne‘s paintings is that they look really finished, professional and accessible. The paintings are not overwhelmed by a fancy frame instead complemented by surround offering a lovely collaboration of image and frame.

“Debbie West is my framer, West End Frame Shop, she’s in Media PA. Debbie and I spend a lot of time trying to find the frames that won’t overwhelm a painting. It will just become part of the painting. Presentation is a very important aspect of showing work. Presentation and editing. What I mean by editing, there’s a certain painting on the far end which was twice the size it is now. After looking at it for quite a while, I realized that if I cropped this painting in half it would be a much more dynamic composition. And would work much better. And so, this is what I ended up with and I was very pleased with that. I’m sure I’m not the first artist to do that.”, said Robert Bohne.

Robert Bohne at Artists’ House Gallery, photo courtesy of the artist

DoN asked the artist how he knows when a painting is finished? “I don’t know. I try not to have too much of a finished look to my paintings. I want that spontaneity to remain when the piece is finished. One of the things I really dislike is photo-realism, so I want people to see the abstract qualities and some of the spontaneity in my work. I want more of my work to have a degree of life, I want it to breathe. A good example of this is the Marigolds, this is a painting that won Best Still Life in The Philadelphia Sketch Club Small Oils show last year. As you can see, it’s not a lot of detail, very quickly painted, very spontaneous, and yet you know what it is and actually has a quality of life to it.”

Robert Bohne at Artists’ House Gallery, 57 North 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA, through October 28th, 2012.

Written and Photographed by DoN Brewer

except where noted.

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Made in China, Amie Potsic at Ven and Vaida Art & Jewelry

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Made in China, Amie Potsic, photography at Ven and Vaida Art & Jewelry

Amie Potsic lived in San Francisco for many years and found when she moved back to Philadelphia that she had missed experiencing the changes of the seasons. As a world traveler, the photographer shoots pictures everyday and found the relationship of taking pictures at home, where she grew up, can feel fresh and new. For three years Amie took pictures everyday going through the seasons and began to see the Asian influences of her travels in the photographs of Philadelphia trees.

The exhibit, curated by Butch Cordora at Ven and Vaida Art & Jewelry, for the first time gathers images representing all four seasons in one show. The effect is sublime with groupings of images throughout the gallery communicating the beauty of the Philadelphia landscape and how trees can express an underlying narrative. One day the artist saw a protest in Rittenhouse Square that was against the Chinese government torturing people for practicing a religion called Falun Gong and brought the ideas and the esthetics together in a subtle combination of traditional beauty and clever protest.

Made in China, Amie Potsic, photography at Ven and Vaida Art & Jewelry

The collection of images has grown over time Amie Potsic says, “It’s interesting, this is the closure of the project where I now have the four images per season and each season deals with a particular issues.” Important social issues like reproductive rights, religious freedom, censorship and working conditions that we can discuss openly in America but are suppressed by the Chinese leadership. “I think it’s interesting, in the 1980s and 1990s there was a lot of political work, all the post-modernist work was really political and then that sort of fell out and it became that work was not about anything topical per se and I think that shift is coming back. A – there’s a lot of topics worth talking about and B – people are wanting more from their artwork and more of that critical discussion. Having something to say again.”

The Made in China images are beautiful and expertly crafted but they each have a little zinger added with Chinese text paired with the translation in English. First impressions look like a traditional Asian signature but when you look closer the words are political in nature offering a subliminal message about government trying to control the way people think and behave.

Made in China, Amie Potsic, photography at Ven and Vaida Art & Jewelry

“I think there’s an expectation now that artwork be easy to understand. People feel that they think they should ‘get it’. That it should be understandable but that’s not always the function of artwork. There’s a lot of levels of ways you can interact with art on just a visual level, a purely conceptual level and every continuum in between. I think it’s a real stumbling block for people who require that they need to understand everything they’re looking at and not just have an experience. I used to have a class where I taught at the San Francisco Art Institute, I would take them to the San Francisco MOMA, there’s an Yves Klein painting that’s a blue color field painting, a cobalt blue painting, and I knew that when we would meet back at the cafe that there would be this one student who would say, ‘Why is that art? I can do that.’ It was like clockwork every time, but it was the perfect conversation to have because the idea was, ‘But, you didn’t. He thought to do that, he’s making you question what is art.’ And if it pisses you off, all the better.”

Made in China, Amie Potsic, photography at Ven and Vaida Art & Jewelry, 18 South 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, 215-592-4099

Read more about Amie Potsic, Made in China at SideArts.com by Contributing Writer, Cassandra Hoo, Made in Chine, a Thought Provoking Show by Amie Potsic

Written and Photographed by DoN Brewer

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More Photos About Buildings and Food at Gallery 339

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More Photos About Buildings and Food at Gallery 339, Lucas Foglia, Lunea with Deer Rib

“Girls are getting into abstract analysis
That want to make that intuitive leap
They are making plans that have far reaching effects” – Talking Heads, The Girls Want To Be With The Girls, More Songs About Buildings & Food

Gallery 339 at the corner of 21st and Pine Streets is dedicated to fine art photography, the chic space always has something special and inspirational to see. Spending time alone there with the incredible images is one of DoN‘s favorite things to do because there is nowhere else like it to see art by master photographers (except PPAC, of course) but that’s across town. The gallery has become a destination for photography lovers from around the world and it’s right down the street from Haus of DoN. Usually the gallery is dedicated to just a few photographers, focussing on a body of work but More Photos About Buildings and Food is a large group theme show with many of the great photographers who have exhibited in the past at the gallery.

The opening night was more like a party than an opening with a DJ spinning classic Talking Heads songs at ear throbbing volume making it impossible to talk but that only meant the party spilled out into the street. The eclectic mix of images are either about buildings or food, all of them spectacular and special examples of the state of the art in fine art photography. Some are easy to look at, some disturbing and deep, others are pop art or documentary style. The mix is heady and exciting, the crowd was loud and rambunctious – just the way DoN likes it.

More Photos About Buildings and Food at Gallery 339, Martin Parr, Turkey Leg, Disneyland, Tokyo, 1998, chromogenic print

More Photos About Buildings and Food at Gallery 339, Vincent Feldman, Shizuoka Shinbun and Broadcasting System Tower, carbon pigment print

Vincent Feldman lives down the block from DoN and it was a nice surprise to see him and his family at the show, it was an even better surprise to see his work in the show with spectacular prints of Japanese modern architecture. Over the roar of the music we chatted about his contribution to the exhibit. DoN asked how Vincent Feldman, a professor of photography at University of the Arts, got involved with More Photos About Buildings and Food at Gallery 339?

“Well, I live in the neighborhood near the gallery, so I know Martin McNamara, the owner and director of the gallery and he’s actually purchased some of my work in the past. So the work that he owns is what’s being exhibited but they’re a larger scale. I take pictures of buildings and that’s part of the theme of the show, so, it worked out for this exhibit.”

DoN asked how long Vincent Feldman has been involved in photography? “Thirty-plus years, most of my life.” Not long ago the artist unloaded a bunch of enlargers for people to glean from the street which lead DoN to think maybe he had gone digital. “I still have some enlargers, but the prints I’ve been doing lately, I would say, are mostly digital but I always shoot film. It’s four by five negatives, there’s nothing comparable for me to shoot digitally in that size. I use a large format 4 x 5, Toyo, a Japanese company”

Do you still have a darkroom, they seem to be going away? “Yes. There are still a lot of darkrooms, in fact, they seem to be a growth industry since a lot of them have been decommissioned and I teach, too, and a lot of students want to print in the darkroom. They want to make real prints. It’s a magical process, I love working with the computer but I think you should know what real photography looks like before you try and make it with a computer. You can make anything, you can print out an M16 now, a working gun, so what’s to prevent students from doing that, when you give them a computer you’ve got to focus them and the computer’s not a great thing to focus with if you’re just learning.”

“I have a book coming out in the Spring called Philadelphia City Abandoned about the civic architecture of the city. I’m working with Paul Dry a Philadelphia publisher and he’s been really great and hopefully it’s going to be a beautiful book that will last a long time.”

More Photos About Buildings and Food at Gallery 339, Mary Parisi, Wounded Soup, chromogenic print

More Photos About Buildings and Food at Gallery 339, Ion Zupco, American Homes Portfolio, gelatin silver prints

More Photos About Buildings and Food at Gallery 339, David Graham

Gallery 339‘s Martin McNamara has agreed to help jury the upcoming Photographic Society of Philadelphia‘s 150th Anniversary exhibit at the Plastic Club in November, read more about the upcoming show at SideArts.com.

Written and Photographed by DoN Brewer

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