Allentown group home, art gallery proposal draws criticism from residents
By
Colin McEvoy | The Express-Times
The Express-Times
Follow
You are currently browsing posts tagged with Art
Sudarshan art photo bags Rs 5lakh
BHUBANESWAR: A sand art photo of Lord Jagannath created by famous sand sculptor Sudarshan Pattnaik was sold for a whopping Rs 5 lakh. This was the first time his art fetched him a hefty return.
The artist got the pleasant surprise when an art-loving organization, Anmol Resources Pvt Ltd, purchased his sand art painting on the concluding day of his exhibition here on Tuesday. I am grateful to the buyer Anmol Resources Pvt Ltd for recognizing my art, said Sudarshan, who bagged the world sand art championship award held in Berlin in 2008.
Art Comes Alive With "Commotion," A Groundbreaking Philadelphia Public Art …
PHILADELPHIA, Apr 17, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) –
A partnership between PECO, the University of the Arts and the
Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (PRA) is taking a revolutionary
approach to PRA’s 53-year-old Percent for Art program. The approach has
resulted in the creation of an innovative series of hands-on community
art workshops focusing on visual art, sculpture, dance, drama, music and
sound installations in Grays Ferry, Point Breeze, and neighborhoods
south of South Street.
PRA’s Percent for Art Program, the first in the country established in
1959, provides developers with the opportunity to enhance communities
with original works of public art throughout the city.
The Percent for Art Program requires redevelopers who build on land
acquired from and assembled by the PRA to budget at least one percent of
the total building construction costs toward the commissioning of
original public art, now inclusive of public art programming.
As part of a project to construct a new electric substation in the Grays
Ferry section of the city, PECO provided $250,000 to support the
development of the public art project to be produced in collaboration
with area residents.
The funding was used to develop an undergraduate class, led by John
Phillips, an intermedia artist and visiting associate professor at the
University of the Arts. This new class focuses on the history and impact
of art in local communities and culminated in the development of
“Commotion,” a six-month-long community-based public art experience.
“We wanted to bring a new approach to this project by providing both an
educational opportunity for students while engaging the local community
to get them involved in the experience,” said Jeff Gordon, PECO manager
of Corporate Relations. “We are extremely pleased with the results of
our partnership with the University of the Arts and hope that it helps
future participants look for opportunities to collaborate.”
“Commotion” has brought together seven noted local artists working in a
variety of media to collaborate with residents and area schoolchildren
in a series of workshops and hands-on arts activities. The work will be
shown at a festival in June at various sites within the community.
“This is an entirely new approach to public art that engages student
artists in the process of conceiving and creating new work in, with, and
for a community,” said Sean Buffington, president of the University of
the Arts, “Our students–under the guidance of an experienced senior
artist–collaborated with residents of the neighborhood to devise an
authentic and meaningful community arts experience.”
“The Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority’s Percent for Art program has
created works of art that inspire, engage and sometimes even define
communities across the city,” said Ed Covington, executive director of
PRA. “This experience continues the tradition of the Percent for Art
program and takes it a step further by partnering with some of the
city’s exciting writers, dancers and visual artists to provide local
residents with hands-on art making workshops, as well as access to
original works of public art.”
Nearly 400 works of public art have been installed in all areas of
Philadelphia since the program’s inception including iconic Philadelphia
pieces such as the Clothespin by Claes Oldenburg at 15th and
Market Streets, Wave Forms by Dennis Oppenheim at 34th and
Chestnut Streets and most recently, Urban Topiary by PrePost
Studio at 3rd Street and Germantown Avenue.
About The University of the Arts
The University of the Arts (
www.uarts.edu )
is one of the only universities in the United States dedicated solely to
educating creative individuals in the visual and performing arts and
design. Its more than 2,100 students are enrolled in undergraduate and
graduate programs in six fields of study — Visual Arts, Design, Film,
Music, Dance and Theater — on its campus in the heart of Philadelphia’s
Avenue of the Arts. The institution’s roots as a leader in educating
creative individuals date back to 1868.
About PECO
Based in Philadelphia, PECO is an electric and natural gas utility
subsidiary of Exelon Corporation
/quotes/zigman/252515/quotes/nls/exc EXC
-1.17%
. PECO serves 1.6
million electric and 494,000 natural gas customers in southeastern
Pennsylvania and employs about 2,400 people in the region. PECO
delivered 82.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 38.1 billion
kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2011. Founded in 1881, PECO is
one of the Greater Philadelphia Region’s most active corporate citizens,
providing leadership, volunteer and financial support to numerous arts
and culture, education, environmental, economic development and
community programs and organizations.
About the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority
The PRA was established in 1945 under Pennsylvania’s Urban Renewal
Act. Its purpose is to promote the public’s health, safety and
welfare by recycling blighted land and structures into planned and
productive uses.
SOURCE: PECO and UArts
The University of the Arts
Carise Mitch, 215-834-5188
cmitch@uarts.edu
or
PECO
Ben Armstrong, 215-841-5555
benjamin.armstrong@exeloncorp.com
or
OHCD
Michelle Sonsino Lewis, 215-686-9727
michelle.sonsino@phila.gov
Copyright Business Wire 2012
/quotes/zigman/252515/quotes/nls/exc
Add to portfolio
EXC
Exelon Corp.
US
: U.S.: NYSE
$
38.82
-0.46
-1.17%
Volume: 5.73M
May 3, 2012 4:01p
P/E Ratio10.35
Dividend Yield5.41%
Market Cap$33.44 billion
Rev. per Employee$982,198
Financial Glossary
Words used in this article:
Ann Romney and the art of umbrage
Ann Romney and the art of umbrage
By
Usually, the term “faux outrage” loosely translates from the French into “someone else’s outrage, which I am not acknowledging as in any
Ann and Mitt Romney on Illinois primary night last month
(Jim Young – Reuters)
way valid on account of I don’t want to.’’
But in a political system in which attacks are so reliably monetized,
Ann Romney couldn’t help woohooing about how profitably she’d been disrespected by Democratic consultant Hilary Rosen, who commented on cable news that Mrs. Romney had “actually never worked a day in her life.’’
Ca-ching, the candidate’s wife exulted.
At a fund-raiser in Palm Beach, Florida, over the weekend, Mrs. Romney not only showed no hint of outrage, faux or otherwise, but was really kind of giddy: “It was my early birthday present for someone to be critical of me as a mother,’’ reporters overheard her telling supporters. “And that was really a defining moment, and I loved it.’’
Now, when I wrote last week that the Romneys owed Rosen a thank-you note, I didn’t expect them to agree while wearing a microphone. But as a spouse unfairly maligned, a mom denied her due, what was not to love? And no one can say her delight was inauthentic.
The woman whose job Ann Romney is running for has been attacked, too, of course, for everything from the size of her “posterior” to her aggressive agenda of veggie-pushing.
Yet mostly, Michelle Obama has passed on the perquisites of victimhood. Perhaps because, as she told Gayle King the one time I do remember her giving voice to some umbrage: “I guess it’s more interesting to imagine this conflicted situation here and a strong woman. But that’s been an image that people have tried to paint of me since the day Barack announced. That I’m some angry black woman.”
She hasn’t made that mistake again. And Ann Romney wasn’t so foolish as to pretend to have been wounded by Rosen’s remarks, either; that’s why God made surrogates, and the campaign sent them out to do so in her stead, on behalf of mothers everywhere.
So far, it doesn’t seem to have hurt her any to have been caught celebrating Rosen’s remarks. It probably won’t, either, because after Obama and half of his campaign team rushed to say spouses should be off limits, they’re not about to double back and make a big deal of it.
Now that the Romneys have been busted high-fiving over the insult, though, milking it any further is not a plan, either — and I hope they won’t try to spin comedian (and self-funded Green Party presidential candidate) Roseanne Barr’s rude and baseless speculation about how much help Ann Romney had while raising her five sons as anything other than a bid for attention.
(“Mrs. Mitt Romney claims to have worked her toned *&% off, raising five Romney males all on her own, as privileged wives often do,” Barr wrote in the Daily Beast. “But, no, Ann, I call bull*&^% on your Big Mama story, girlfriend.” Okay, and I call what she said on that column, though it’s not worth getting excited over.)
The “real housewives” of the campaign trail do have a hard and often thankless job, and a schedule that involves plenty of actual work. Yet politics is also enough like reality TV that it is infinitely better to be the aggrieved party — the housewife having wine tossed in her face for the umpteenth time — than the one who’s doing the tossing.
But then you just pat it dry, without looking either too offended or too pleased, and get right back to selling the candidate.
Melinda Henneberger is a Post political writer and anchors the paper’s ‘She the People’ blog. Follow her on Twitter at @MelindaDC.
By
|
11:39 PM ET, 04/17/2012
Personal Post
Next:
Michelle Obama’s popularity and America’s obsessive gaze
Spectral Imprints, Abraaj Capital Art, Art Dubai 2012
Featured at Art Dubai 2012, Spectral Imprints, the 4th edition of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize, was conceived and implemented to encourage critical discourse. As shown below, it does so, nicely. Its the only competition that focuses on often-underrepresented contemporary artists from the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia (MENASA). Significant, that, given how the regions history re-writes itself on a daily basis. The curating is organic: awards are based on proposals and not completed work (work is created after the prize is conferred; the work itself represents collaboration between artists and a guest curator). Guest curated by Nat Muller, the exhibition features the work of Raed Yassin (Lebanon), Wael Shawky (Egypt), Risham Syed (Pakistan), Joana Hadjithomas Khalil Joreige (Lebanon), and Taysir Batniji (Palestine).
With poetic majesty and keen insight, the exhibition describes arts sieve-like relationship of the past to the present. It shows how artists continue to struggle to make sense of the world, a struggle made all the more difficult by the fragility of personal and collective memory. In The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper wrote as much when he said that history (he meant institutional but he could just as well have been writing about personal) has no meaning because, as per the Searchlight Theory of Science, what we (historians, artists, just plain folk) see depends on our point of view. No ones omniscient, after all.
As if thats not enough, art now struggles against the possible obsolescence and impermanence of its material sources. Good art, as per the Walter Benjamin introductory quote Muller cited (For every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably,) is backwards compatible. As such, its informative, inspirational, and tutelary. So, to some extent, is computer software. But thats no guarantee that digital images and documents — artists source material, along with memory and experience, all refracted through the imagination — created in the past but not hard copied will be readable, much less exist, in the future.
The work in the exhibition reflects this tension between articulated but fleeting memory. Raed Yassin, Wael Shawky, and Risham Syed emphasize this fragility in their medium — ceramics or tapestry; Joana Hadjithomas Khalil Joreige and Taysir Batniji emphasize it in their subject matter. The result is a riveting look at how artists lay out the processes by which their work continues the past into the present (and presumably into the future) and the dangers it faces in doing so.
Created at Jingdezhen, Chinas porcelain center, Raed Yassins China consists of seven porcelain vases that represent landmark events in Lebanons civil war. Though the frieze-framed events are contemporary, the concept — decorating vases and other ceramics to document military victories — goes back centuries. Utilitarian as well as didactic (not to mention fragile), these vases show how history remains an influential (if not decorative) force in daily life. Since each requires a tour around the vase to read the presented story, the vases also suggest how 1. History has no beginning and no end, just endless cycles (as Winston Churchill once noted, one damn thing after another) and 2. History cannot be presented, and thus read and understood, in any all-inclusive manner.
Wael Shawkys A Glimpse of Clean History, ceramics, wood, and velvet, is based on a painting by the French painter Jean Fouquet (1420-1481), Urban II 1035-1099 preaching the crusade at Clermont in the presence of King Philippe I 1053-1108 of France in 1095. The painting shows Pope Urban II delivering a speech that supposedly began the First Crusade, a key event in Middle Eastern history. The piece consists of a puppet theatre; the dolls are made of ceramic. For one minute, the curtains open and the viewer can see this significant moment, frozen in history. The figures are white, as if innocent and absolved of sin. After a minute, the curtains close. The piece comments with great insight on the way history is parceled out via points of view. Since we can only see a frozen moment, we can never understand its complexity and many flavors.
Risham Syeds The Seven Seas is a series of seven handmade quilts that refer to the British Empires 19th and early 20th Century cotton trade. With fabric culled from Turkey, Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka, UK, India and within her native Pakistan, each piece shows maps of port cities that constituted significant European trade routes. These cities include Izmir (Turkey), Colombo (Sri Lanka), Mumbai (India), and Ras al-Khaimah (United Arab Emirates). Besides serving as commercial trade centers, they also served as sites of anti-British rebellions in each region. Each quilts cobbling together and stitching echo the superimposition of historical narratives on contemporary ones, brought together in an analog fashion that predates the global skeins of the World Wide Web by centuries.
Joana Hadjithomas Khalil Joreiges, video installation, A Letter Can Always Reach its Destination, projects non-professional actors whose non-professional scripts consists of ephemeral and epidemic email spam scams. The amateur status of the actors suggests how the World Wide Web, with no barriers to entry, permits everyone (creators and consumers) access to at least fifteen minutes of fame, con men (and women) included. Originating from countries with rampant corruption, the fictive scripts pullulate with a real-life backstory and presents an interesting intersection of the real and imaginary: non-existent scams, sent by real people under false pretenses, present the opportunity (unfortunate) for equally real victims to unknowingly participate in the scam.
With To My Brother, a series of hand carvings from photographs on paper, Taysir Batniji etched sixty inkless drawings on paper. Based on family photographs, each image presents joyous and, as it happened, all-too-brief moments from his brothers 1985 wedding in Gaza. An Israeli sniper killed him two years later. Representing not just individual but, in the broader case of Palestine, wide-spread loss, the piece quivers on the border of personal and national tragedy. The lack of ink correlates with these graphically embalmed images lack of blood.
Perhaps the real value of Spectral Imprints lies in reminding us of those moments when contemporary art does acknowledges art of the past. Perhaps therein lies the real shock of the new: to paraphrase the title of a Robert Irwin book, Seeing is Remembering the Name of the Thing One Sees.
Art Dubai closed on March 24. For more information, email abraajprize@artdubai.ae or visit www.abraajcapitalartprize.com, www.facebook.com/AbraajCapitalArtPrize, and twitter.com/AbraajArtPrize.
Cranbrook Art Museum Renovation & Collections Addition Reopens
DETROIT, MI, Apr 17, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) –
The Cranbrook Art Museum recently reopened in Bloomfield Hills,
Mich. following a $22 million renovation and addition, designed by
SmithGroupJJR. The 2 1/2 -year project entailed construction of the
museum’s new Collections Wing and restoration of Eliel Saarinen’s
iconic 1942 structure.
The new three-story structure adds 31,200-square feet to the museum’s
existing gallery and offices. This transformational model allows for
open display of Cranbrook’s collected works — 6,000 pieces of art,
architecture and design — in handsome storage vaults accessible to
students, academics and artists. The addition also creates a much
needed receiving area for new pieces arriving at the museum.
“The completion of the new wing definitely positions the museum to
bring its collection to life for a new generation of artists,
students and visitors,” said project designer Paul Urbanek, FAIA,
LEED AP BD+C.
The existing museum also received substantial upgrades as part of the
building project. The main mechanical plant was redesigned to
regulate temperature and humidity at a constant level year round.
These and other improvements created a sophisticated conservation
environment for the museum’s artwork — critical to ensuring the
institution maintain its accreditation from the American Association
of Museums (AAM). AAM certification impacts a museum’s ability to
lend and receive prominent exhibits.
“The goal was to overhaul an aging building in dire need of
insulation, vapor locks and modern climate-control systems without
appearing to have touched a thing,” said museum director Gregory
Wittkopp.
Design Approach
The Collections Wing is composed of three
rectangular volumes decreasing in height and width as the building
progresses northward, away from the museum — one of Cranbrook’s most
iconic architectural monuments. The west facade is a modest brick
wall that steps down as the volumes recede. Void of fenestration, its
deep brown-toned bricks are clear-coated and trimmed with fine
stainless steel blades, providing a crisp, yet understated complement
to Saarinen’s original design. A lone stainless steel bench is the
building’s only accent. Marking the convergence of the new
Collections Wing and the square arch atop the Chinese Lion stair,
this element creates a space where visitors can reflect upon the
subtle connection between Saarinen’s classic design and the new
addition.
Also unique to the facility is a series of 12-foot high zinc-clad
steel panels that enclose the Collections Wing’s service court. The
panels act as a counterpoint to the lead-coated copper panels on the
red brick New Studios Building, designed by noted Spanish architect,
Rafael Moneo.
Completing the exterior composition is a large, square stainless
steel-clad projected window. Here, the deep brown masonry wrapping
the structure from the west unites with a light red brick — matching
that used by Moneo — on the east facade. The intersection of these
elements visually connects the new facility with neighboring
structures and defines the Seminar Room within.
Interior Details
The Collection Wing’s interior is an expression of
utilitarian concrete block construction enhanced to an artistic
light. Joints of standard gray block have been raked and the
concrete’s soft coating retained to create a subtle, luminous
backdrop to finely crafted details throughout. Primary openings
within the block have stainless steel plate surrounds. Mahogany plank
doors with custom stainless steel push/pulls are introduced to
accentuate the act of crossing each threshold. Circulation paths give
way to recessed niches of stainless steel and granite, which provide
additional spaces for the display of art.
Cranbrook: Past Influences, Future Vision
Cranbrook Academy of Art
has been described as “America’s Bauhaus,” denoting its impressive
contributions to American modernism. The new Collections Wing
enhances Cranbrook’s vision to promote learning about art within a
renowned architectural icon.
About SmithGroupJJR
SmithGroupJJR is one of the largest
architecture, engineering and planning firms in the U.S., ranked #1
for design quality based on design awards won in Architect magazine’s
2011 annual best firms ranking. The firm is also the recipient of the
2011 Landscape Architecture Firm Award from the American Society of
Landscape Architects. A national leader in sustainable design,
SmithGroupJJR has 354 LEED professionals and 72 LEED certified
projects.
Image Available:
http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=1951909
For additional information contact:
Katie Mellon
katie.mellon@smithgroupjjr.com
313.442.8179
Amy Russeau
amy.russeau@smithgroupjjr.com
313.442.8061
SOURCE: SmithGroupJJR
mailto:katie.mellon@smithgroupjjr.com
mailto:amy.russeau@smithgroupjjr.com
Copyright 2012 Marketwire, Inc., All rights reserved.
Financial Glossary
Words used in this article:
After 3 years, Phoenix net art has outlasted critics
After 3 years, Phoenix net art has outlasted critics
by Connie Cone Sexton on Apr. 17, 2012, under Arizona Republic News
North Korea’s Art of the March
North Koreas Art of the March
Stokely Baksh
0 Comment
World
Bobby Yip, Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-Un, military marching, North Korea, parade
21 photos
Over the weekend, North Korea celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of North Korea founder Kim Il-sung.The event marked the first public speech of current leader Kim Jong-Un, Il-sungs grandson and son of late leader Kim Jong-il. Jong-Un in his speech vowed to push for final victory for his impoverished state, despite a failed missile launch. The launch has been condemned by the UN Security Council, which has concerns about North Koreas capabilities in missile technology and nuclear weapons.
Heres a look at the art of the march at a military parade as part of celebrations in Pyongyang on April 15.
The Surreal Art of an Urban Prankster
Mark Jenkins, Rome 2012
In our recent quest to highlight the lighter side of art, we stumbled across artist Mark Jenkins, whose latest sculptural installations are causing confusion on the streets of Rome. Toast slices popping up from the slits in a sewer grate and a man fishing off the edge of a building are just a few examples of the artists latest renderings. His work in other cities across the world has earned him the label of urban prankster, and the authorities have even been contacted on occasion in regards to his creations. (Left: from Dublin 2011 on left, Malmo 2008 on right)
Jenkins pieces are part of the series Living Layers, a long-term project begun in 2010 and curated by Wunderkammern, in collaboration with MACRO. The project stimulates interpretations of territory and its cultural heritage, to create a mature consciousness towards contemporary art and the capacity to interpret reality and the current world. Young artists are invited to conduct research, proposing previously unexhibited interactions in urban public space.
Jenkins work definitely triggers a reaction, having even been called bewildering. He challenges passersby as these surreal scenarios interrupt their everyday routines, altering their world into an enigmatic landscape. So the next time you think youve stepped into the Twilight Zone, it may just be the work of this prankster. In our interview below, find out more about Jenkins work and check out examples of his truly unique take on contemporary art. (Right: from London 2010)
Have you always created urban installations? Where did the idea of working in this medium come from?
I first made tape casts as a child, wrapping the tape over pencils in reverse and then back over to seal it. I made them for fun, but I was scolded by my teacher not to waste tape. In 2003, I got interested in art and started experimenting with mediums and re-discovered this casting process, applying it to larger objects and on myself. But my interest in art wasnt so much sculpture itself but, rather, installation sculpture, using the object to affect the space around it. I was inspired by the work of Juan Munoz whose exhibit Id seen in 2002 at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. For the installation environment, I chose the most immediate location available, the street in front of my apartment.
What are some of the challenges you face, in terms of the pieces survival on the streets? Do you have to get clearance to do these kinds of things?
The outdoor works arent really designed for permanence. I see them as short term events which disrupt the urban fabric to create a stage. Kids, police, firemen, bomb squads, and drunk people that destroy them are all actors and part of the theater. In my practice, Im not sure what is illegal or not. There are a lot of fine lines that even a judge would have to think through carefully. But in the post 9/11 era, even a sculpture of a man in a polar bear suit can be deemed a suspicious package and attacked by a man in a blast suit. Its this new re-programming of the masses to See something, say something rather than See something, enjoy something. Its all very Vonnegutesque but I dont mind it.
Where do you get your ideas from? (For example, you see a trashcan and think: That would be a great place for a person!)
Pretty much. Its finding a place for the work where it fits together with the surroundings. If its done just right, everything seems to make more sense even if its nonsense.
Rome 2012; Barcelona 2008; NYC 2006
Do you have any favorite pieces?
I like the girl on the roof, maybe because I feel this way a lot; not like a girl, but pondering stuff from a different perspective. Being outside on a high ledge is a good place to do this.
Dublin 2011; Washington, DC 2007
Your work has been called shocking and even bewildering. How do you expect the viewer to interact with your work?
Shock, bewilderment, mild amusement, disinterest. It depends on the individual. There are the deep thinkers, the curious kids, over-protective mothers, the camera phone paparazzi types. There are the dogs who sniff at them while others bark or even lunge on their leashes. But the most common reaction is not to see it at all unless sirens are blazing around it. Theres so much visual stimuli out there in the city that most people choose to navigate public space like a horse wearing blinders. (Right: Rome 2012)
What is the main difference between street installations and a gallery show? Which do you prefer?
The ceiling, walls, doors to get in and out, and the receptionist. I dont mind being in the white cube. Its a different way to understand the the work. Its like looking at a pinned butterfly, but I feel bad for them sometimes. (Left: 2011 Kicked Painting #6)
Check out more his indoor and outdoor works here. You can still catch Mark Jenkins solo show at Wunderkammern until April 26, 2012.
Written by MutualArt writer Joanna Bledsoe
Eiko Ishioka dies at 73; graphic designer and art director
Eiko Ishioka, holding her Oscar for best costume design for Bram Stokers Dracula, joins Catherine Deneuve backstage at the 65th annual Academy Awards in 1993.
(Douglas C. Pizac / Associated Press / March 30, 1993)