PAFA and the PMA Here and Now Show

We could not miss Silicon'er Steven Dufala at PAFA as the Dufala Brothers in "Urbanism: Reimagining the Lived Environment".

The drawing pictured here was drawn on the wall and is no more, it was just for the show which is both sad and glorious.

The dumpster coffin will no doubt be harder to dispose of and I am sure that the actual size dumpster will re-emerge somewhere in all it's strange glory.

We also loved the installation by Amy Walsh which I dismissed on first glance and then I could not be drawn away from them. Again many things that you have to see in person, looking at images on a computer screnn just don't do it, but if you want to here's the link http://www.pafa.org/Museum/Exhibitions/Past-Exhibitions/Urbanism-Reimagining-the-Lived-Environment/989/

Again Steven was our primary motivation (he also got us the tickets) for going to the Philadelphia Museum of Art's reception for Here and Now a show of ten Philadelphia artists - prints, drawings and photographs. What a surprise to see a couple of our prints on the wall from Virgil Marty, including "Bunny Multiplication" a print we made for Philagrafika's Invitational Portfolio way back in 2001 which Virgil "flocked" after printing and one of my perosnal all time favorite prints we made with Cindi Ettinger of CR Ettinger Studio which is a combination digital print and embossment. We made a little film of some of our combination prints for a show that never happened which you can find on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmStWN5xC3U if you are interested.

A really nice touch from the PMA is that they actually credited us and Cindi as the printmakers, which is the second time we have been shocked by a major museum (the first was MOMA) to actually credit us as a printmaker (so maybe digital is not all bad!).

Anyway Here and Now is not to be missed, along with The Dufala Brothers are works by Astrid Bowlby, Vincent Feldman, Daniel Heyman, Isaac Tin Wei Lin, Virgil Marti, Joshua Mosley, Serena Perrone, Hannah Price, and Mia Rosenthal.

Interestingly of the ten artists chosen by the PMA for this show seven of them are Philagrafika Invitational Portfolio artists. If you are interested in collecting art you should really take a close look at past portfolios and I have seen this years work and it's one of the stongest we have done!

Posted by Rick

September First Friday

We closed Silicon early on First Friday so that we would have the opportunity to see some of the work we had printed and some of our friends work but we left Silicon literally buzzing; as a parting gift of art by our own Colleen Rudolf is an installation of rather nasty black rubber flies on our other double doors buzzing around Dominic Episcopo's meat images.  Colleen was off to a residency in Oregon and she left us to care for her flies and concrete pigeons.

Installation of Rubber Flies by Colleen Rudolf appropriately
buzzing around Dominic Episcopo's Meat America 

Close up - Rubber Flies; Colleen Rudolf, Meat America by Dominic Episcopo

Our first stop was at Trust, formerly FUEL where artist Lee Catoro's show The RAW Collection was on display. Trust is a fabulous but difficult space for a single artist because of it's size and grandeur but Lee's work transformed the space amazingly well. A large and thought provoking collection of black and white images seemed to be really well received from what I heard.

Lee Castoro's RAW Collection at Trust in Old City



On from Trust to ex Silicon'er Donna LoGrasso's show of paintings at the Rocket Cafe Hustle Gallery in Fishtown. I haven't seen Donna's work in person for many years and while her work is reminiscent of her ealier style the subject matter is not. Now her son Beau's influence is apparent and clowns and toys have replaced the steaminess of the past with bold energetic images which can't help make you smile and reminisce your own youth. 

Donna LoGrasso at the Rocket Cafe Hustle Gallery in Fishtown

On from Donna's show to Silicon'er Katie Tackman's gallery GRAVY which continues to support local emerging photographers. Outside GRAVY an excellent blues band played which added to the charm of the evening.

Lastly we tried to get to Butch Cordoba's show at Ven and Vada on 2nd Street in Old City but we were too late but his Warhol inspired prints and really worth checking out.

Butch Cordoba at Ven and Vaida

Posted by Rick

Diane Burko at Locks August 20th, 2011

Having a new baby seems to be a relatively easy thing except that everything you do takes several times longer than normal, even the simple act of getting up in the morning; instead of taking 15 - 20 minutes now takes more like an hour and a half.

That's my excuse anyway for not getting to Diane Burko's excellent show at Locks Gallery in Philadelphia sooner than the last day, August 20th.

These photographs echo Diane's better known paintings and are in my opinion her best so far and that's not to diminish her older photographs which are great. It's a shame that they were up at Locks in the summer and not at the more popular spring and fall seasons.

No matter I am sure that Locks would be pleased to show you some of the prints if you were interested and you can check them out on-line at http://www.locksgallery.com/exhibits_works.php?eid=128.

Of course looking at them on-line does not do them justice, the Internet may be great but looking at tiny images on a computer screen is nothing like the real thing.

Posted by Rick