September 2016

Exhibition and Events picks and News, curated just for you

Rise Peacock

• Kitchen Table Gallery is great space that’s not afraid to display daring work. Rise Peacock’s September exhibition of stark minimalist sculptural objects should fall right in line with the compelling art showing at KTG. 

Villus

• Anytime food and art meet we’re excited. “Villus is an international group art exhibition with a focus on food and boundary.” If that doesn’t sell you, each of the participating artists will host a meal during each Saturday of the month. LB member Will Owen curated this exibition – he’s known for the Fung Wah Biennial, held on Chinatown buses between New York and Philadelphia and Baltimore, which also involved food and boundaries. 

Digital Fringe

• Over the last couple of years the FringeArts Festival has built up what they’re calling Digital Fringe: “shows” and art that happen exclusively online.  This year CRUXspace, Philly’s only all new-media art gallery, is bringing a selection of Digital Fringe pieces into the physical realm. And guess what: it’s free! 
  
   

Cellophane by Mac Wellman
Created by Jenny Kessler and John Bezark

• Mac Wellman’s experimental language theater is enchanting, compelling, challenging - everything Julius wants in performance. It’s also, until now, not made it to Philadelphia, and Cellophane is as extreme as it gets. This production exposes language for the witchcraft it is, part communication tool and part obstruction to understanding.

Speculum Diaries
Irina Varina

• The new space for 1fiftyOne gallery, way out in Kensington this time, is launching with this performance by the talented, funny, and remarkably present Irina Varina. Varina's piece is billed as a “solo about longing,” but the last time we saw her perform she delivered an angry song directly to her own vagina, so expect anything.

Explicit Female
Zornitsa Stoyanova

• Zornitsa’s radical, unflinching experimentation in choreography, video, and presence makes performances like this unmissable. Not to shamelessly self-promote, but she wrote a super-interesting piece for Curate This about the changes to her body, art, and life which childbirth brought around. This performance takes that same concept on from many different angles.

Pandaemonium
Nichole Canuso Dance Company / Early Morning Opera

• One of Julius’ first, really memorable Fringe shows was Nichole Canuso’s Wandering Alice. This show not only blew his mind but ruined “immersive” work for him by being truly interactive and engaging. He’s drunk up everything she’s presented in Philly since then, and now there’s this piece, performed with the incomparable Geoff Sobelle on the other side of the stage.

Unlisted Closing Reception

• Unlisted is a thoughtfully curated art fair with 13 “booths” representing local galleries, curators, and artists, organized by David Dempewolf and Yuka Yokayama of Marginal Utility in collaboration with Tim Belnap and Ryan McCartney of the Icebox. It’s well worth a walk around and perhaps even a purchase.

• The Second New Art Writing Challenge Contest is on!  For the second year in a row, this contest, co-sponsored by Artblog and The St. Claire allows art lovers to submit writing to be reviewed by national jurors with the possibility of winning cash prizes and getting published on Artblog and The St. Claire! Submit your writing now until Oct. 1.
• Artblog produced a series of four videos this summer, all related to the Creative Africa exhibition at the PMA, and the family program, Art Splash.  Take a look at the first video – 4 minutes long -- here. 
• Hammam Aldouri raises issues with how the Philadelphia alternative galleries contextualize themselves and suggests thinking more globally. Provocative reading!