An Interview with F.U.E.L.

Contributed by Dustin Metz

I went to F.U.E.L. this past week to interview Co-Founder Jen Yaron, and Curator Katerina Lydon-Warner. My interest has been piqued ever since this space opened up over a year ago. Not only is it in a prime location at 3rd and Arch in Old City, but it is in one of the most stunning buildings in that area AND devotes its walls to undergraduate/emerging artist. All of these aspects makes for a provocative combination and a lot of inquiries- Who are these people? How did they get the space? Why such young artists?. This is my first interview, look for more to come!



Run Time Approx. 20 min.

[Dustin Metz, originator of the Funnel Cast, is an artist and curator who lives and works in Philadelphia. If you are interested in participating in the Funnel Cast project by conducting your own interview, or have an idea for an interview, contact pages@funnelstudio.com]


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My First Second Thursday

by Andrea McGinty

New to Philadelphia, and unfortunately having missed every First Friday since I've moved here, I was happy to discover the Second Thursday openings in the Kensington/Northern Liberties district. The Crane Arts Building, the home to an art community with room after room just begging to be explored, proved to be a promising starting point. On Thursday May 8th The Crane featured the openings of five different exhibits, the Tyler School of Art's MFA exhibit "Semi", the University of Delaware's MFA exhibition, Nexus showing the work of Rebecca Gilbert and Virginia Batson, Jessica Demcsak's "The Crane Adjacent" presented by InLiquid, and Kelly & Weber Fine Arts exhibition of Sean O'Neil. Each opening made use of the varying spaces they occupied in dramatically different ways.

The Tyler MFA opening was housed in the Gray Space and Ice Box galleries of the Crane. Both spaces are large, but the Ice Box gallery is expansive, and taking full advantage of a space like that is a difficult task (one made even more so when the exhibition shown in it is curated based on nothing more than the school the artists attend). The Gray Space provided a more appropriate locale to perform the difficult task of making a student show look like more than just a student show. The architecture of the room, unlike the Ice Box, separates itself into several spaces under one roof, allowing individual artists' works to relate separately to each other, as well as the rest of the show. In the Ice Box, with no walls or support beams to soften the blow, each work was in constant competition with one another, so much so that it noticeably took away from the individual works. A perfect example was the installation by Daniel Ostrov (pictured left), one that I had previously viewed when it was shown as part of his MFA Thesis exhibition at the Tyler Gallery in Olde City. "Amnesiac", when placed in the Temple Gallery, appeared monumental, overtaking the viewer's senses. In height and depth it filled the space, leaving little room for standing outside of the installation, forcing the viewer to enter and explore the work's many nuances. The scent of the materials filled the air, and the texture of the salt was felt while shoes crunched over it on the floor. Forced into the gallery, the construction created impenetrable spaces, and upon inspection, one discovered text on the inside of the wooden planks, just barely out of site. Lost in the enormous Ice Box gallery at the Crane, the piece was dwarfed, and the hidden chambers were left open, stripping them of their mystery. On the other hand, the University of Delaware's MFA exhibit had exactly the opposite feeling. The small space it occupied was stuffed full of art, which caused me to quickly flee the room, though, it was hard to tell if it was the compact spacing of the show or the quality of the work that left me uninterested.

Both the Nexus (pictured below) and Kelly and Weber Fine Arts exhibitions had the air of traditional art openings, the Kelly and Weber show was even complete with soft music and well dressed providers of refreshment right outside their door. Luckily, the artwork featured inside the rectangular, white walls of the K&W did not entirely disappoint. Literature provided by the gallery explains that Sean O'Neil "appropriates images, often times using amateur photos or images from instruction manuals as sources (for his paintings). The reproduced image is then washed with new color to create monochrome layers juxtaposed with other images". While the juxtaposition of images is nothing groundbreaking, O'Neil was able to combine elements convincingly. I couldn't help being reminded of John Baldessari's photographic works in which he blocks out information from portions of images with bold shapes of saturated color. In situations like Thursday's openings, the viewer is presented with an onslaught of art and reception, and is provided the opportunity to see a lot of repetition and derivation. The Nexus show presented a number of delicate, small scale, line drawings that I noticed as an overtaking trend at December's Art Basel Fairs in Miami. However interesting an individual drawing may be, it is easy to get lost in the sea of similarity. Directly in front of Nexus, InLiquid is situated in the Big Hall, which allows artists the opportunity to utilize a unique floor-plan. Artist Jessica Demcsak's "The Crane Adjacent" wasn't particularly exciting or new either (a pared down, two dimensional cityscape presented on a three dimensional base), but featured my favorite aspect of the local Philadelphia art scene, an overwhelming sense of community. The skyline shown on her sculptures is the Crane Building itself and its surrounding architecture.

The few art events I've been to so far since moving to Philadelphia have been focused on so much more than just providing a stage for contemporary art. The art community of Philadelphia can truly be described as such: the atmosphere is not one of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours," but dedicated people who seek to involve everyone around them in their passion. I get the impression from both artists and organizers that everyone has a vision of potential for the city, and they're excited to participate in its growth. I realize this view may seem overly rosy, as I'm still brand new to the Philly art scene, though I can happily say I'm welcoming the change from the market driven Miami experience.

[Andrea McGinty is a South Florida expatriate and artist living and working in Philadelphia]



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So, A Chair or Shoes?

by Matthew Parrish

Art critic James Panero said the following (in an article titled, "Criticism After Art" from the New Criterion, Dec. 2005):

A world of difference separates those who criticize art from those who seek to know about how art criticism is done, because art criticism is done by doing it. To ask after the details beyond the most practical ones is already a step in the wrong direction. Art critics who make the "criticism of art criticism" their business do not stay in the business of art criticism for long.

As most thinking creatures do, I turned inward after the dawn of my age of reasoning (12). From the outside, I might as well have been an invalid and my ventures into art-making and art theory didn't do anything to alter that state. As an amateur artist and theorist, I just fed into the cycle of make-think, think-make and stockpiled jargon which I thought was necessary to my understanding of art like "simulcra" and "rhizome." Very impressive, huh?

Occasionally, if it was convenient, I would observe actual art in other places. If the art was bad, I was happy because I was superior. If the art was good, I was jealous.

It wasn't until I actually started writing about other artists' work on a regular basis from a relatively disinterested perspective that my mind was opened to the world of art criticism. "Oh! So art does exist outside of books and computers!" I thought. Then I found James Panero's articles in the New Criterion. As a critic, he's too conservative for my taste but his style was a revelation because he relocated the discussion of art from academia to gallery-hopping:

In New York, the good gallery critic is set apart from the bad by how efficiently he steers a course from Chelsea to Fifty-seventh Street to the Upper East Side with a stopover in Williamsburg. How he finds shows to write about. How he calculates (as in my case) a way to feature exhibitions, with a three- or four- or five-week run time, that will still be open once the magazine comes out.

In Panero's reviews, there's none of the intellectual jargon found in most published writings about art. Not that "artspeak" or theoretical terminology are inherently bad or useless--the truth is far from that-- they just aren't everything. There's a way out of discussions about "the postmodern sublime" and that is to live by the anonymous art critic's statement, "I see art...and I write about it!" (Panero's quote)

Since I've put down the books and laced my shoes, a whole world of art has opened up to me. I can't wait for First Fridays and opportunities to experience art directly, talk specifically about that art and issues relevant to it, converse with gallery owners and artists about their ideologies, and bump into hundreds of lively, talkative people.

The art world exists outside the studio, beyond books, away from the keyboard, and in local galleries.

"He who experiences [artistic] impressions strongly and drives directly at the discrimination and analysis of them, has no need to trouble himself with the abstract question what beauty is in itself, or what its exact relation to truth or experience--metaphysical questions, as unprofitable as metaphysical questions elsewhere." -Walter Pater from Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873).

[Matthew Parrish is a grad student attending the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.]

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Between Dance and Theatre

by Henry Hughes
Review of "Self Portrait" as performed by Miro | Dance. Theatre. on May 5th, 2008 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Images courtesy of Miro | Dance. Theatre.

Amanda Miller of Miro Dance Theatre stepped onto a platform in front of the Art After 5 crowd at the PMA last Friday. Immediately, she posed and was hit with the bright light of two overhead projectors. Her feet, nestled in piles of flowers and a few scattered personal effects. Her smiling face glanced over everyone sitting on the steps. She stood, poised and ladylike, hands on her hip, ready to be a star.

What followed was a combination of dance, performance, and video, with a strong element of narrative throughout. Miller’s body contorted between pain and discovery, confusion and enlightenment. Overhead projectors became d.i.y. live video tools; member of Miro used markers on sheets of mylar, painting on Millers body as her hands directed the path of the phantom color.

The narrative followed the life of Frida Kahlo, however, the performance told a story of it’s own. Whether it was based on fact or derived from fiction did not necessarily matter. The performance had on point timing, as well as an ongoing spectacle. Initially, the live animation of the overhead projector had the capacity to be a bit gimmicky and loose its luster by the end. But the Miro troop denied that possibility. As Miller seemingly began to fall apart, a wet brush wiped away the paintings and marks. Paper with small slits projected a bizarre piercing background. At the sound of glass breaking, Miller started flinching as if she was that glass and quick marks of a pen visualized that cracking across her body. Moments like these blended three separate entities into one seamlessly.

Miller turned from naïve to self aware to self destructive, where at times her character seemed to forget she was in front of an audience, then painfully realize it again. It was internal and external, forced and fluid.

Self Portrait, while related to the current Kahlo exhibition, was an interesting choice by the PMA, who commissioned the piece. While jazz, beer, and handsome foods tend to put a glossy finish on the museum and the Art After 5 program, the performance added a necessary a bit of grittiness. Hopefully, there will be more to come.

[Henry Hughes is an artist who haunts around Philadelphia. Miro Dance Theatre's upcoming "Conco De Miro" benefit takes place on May 9th, 2008. Click here for more information.]


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Gaudy Details

First Friday reviews by Matthew Parrish
Bridgette Mayer Gallery: Build Up, through May 24th
The Clay Studio: Small Favors III, through May 18th
Artists' House: Group Show, through June 1


The auras of Ivan Stojakovic's pieces (this concept in the artistic context is taken from Walter Benjamin) in his show "Build Up" at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery radiate virulence of the most pleasing kind (depending on your perspective). Stojakovic squeezes "toxic paint" (his words) from its tube, leaving its consumerish purity intact, directly onto the canvas populating cityscapes with fat rows and squished spots. The following pictures can only intrigue and tease you because they don't come close to reproducing (in another word, dissipating) the authority of the original work.

Before the Storm, 2008 Oil, Alkyd and Spray Paint on raw Canvas, 60 x 43"

Before the Storm -Detail

Whenever I usually catch bright colors through a gallery window I prefer to send a stunt double in to withstand the attack but in this case, Stojakovic uses a nifty technique in which he interjects a warm neutral in between neon to mildly and effectively offset the impact and balance the compositions. Another surprising facet is that, despite the artwork's initial punch, there's actually more to see and understand in the particulars: Maze-like textures rest on harsh silvers made from means that are hard to pin down ("alkyd?" It's apparently a polyester coating), company icons are mixed with buildings that seem familiar but remain deceptive (Is that San Francisco or Chicago?), and the ominous clouds hang so clear and yet so hidden.

The press release says, "His current process of creating work stems from an internalization of dramatic events and turning points from around the world, such as: climate change, terrorism and breakthroughs in genetic science." These issues may be important to the artist and political elements are seemingly essential (if one goes by most gallery statements) to making artwork seem relevant today but Stojakovic's work is damn pretty and that's all I (want to?) see. Those three aspects (climate change, terrorism, and genetic science), as far as I'm concerned, are lost in transmission. The deliberate garishness of the paintings gives one an opportunity to argue that this intention conveys a societal critique (Stojakovic hinted towards this reading) but that's as far as I'll budge. A general societal critique is far from a problem-specific argument (and I recognize that descriptive words like "balanced composition" and "garishness" are contradictory but I would argue that this contrariness is fitting).

In Stojakovic's oeuvre, these new works represent a shift that is more positive than negative towards a streamlined vocabulary. Previously, our Serbian artist dabbled in Kandinskian space and Kiefer-thick abstraction with light references to recognizable forms. Now, cityscapes dominate, forcing Stojakovic to handle pre-established complex details which add depth to his platform and outcome, with a flavor that is still Expressionist through and through. Read: SEE THIS SHOW (and I dare you to tell me I'm wrong about the political aspect).

Other galleries to check out in Philly this month: The Clay Studio has a deep but overwhelming exhibit titled "Small Favors III" that includes tiny works of over 120 artists.

Zack Hamilton Wounded Ceramic, Platinum

The encasing of these works seduces the viewer into a retinal dissection of the eye-level "specimens." The only way to make sense of a show like this, especially when there's that good ol' First Friday crowd wrestling (stop stepping on my eye!), is to play favorites based on instant impressions. I looked at the above work more than any other, at first, simply because it was so odd. There's more than enough here to interest any aesthetic, so, you are sure to be satisfied by something (if you intuitively establish a hierarchy and then put blinders on).

Continuing the Honey I Shrunk the Artwork theme from the Clay Studio: Gregory Halili's watercolors, at the Artists' House Gallery, are delightfully miniscule (delicate and focused) with wide mattes that fit like clown shoes (strictly in terms of proportion...otherwise they're normal). I openly admit that my enjoyment of this work comes from the novelty of the miniature and the unbalanced presentation and not from the content. If you don't mind seeing bananas in a basket then maybe you'll appreciate the work too.

Gregory Halili Banana Basket 1.5" x 2" watercolor

Thanks for reading!
Matthew Parrish

[Matthew Parrish is an MFA candidate at UArts]



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