In March 2013, Libby Rosof and Roberta Fallon, co-founders of Philadelphia’s grassroots theartblog.org, presented a brief guide to blogging to a group of 20 artists, writers, and curators. They invited anyone in the audience—from hoodie-clad teens to bespectacled retirees—who had ever contributed to the online publication to sign their names in marker on a flipchart […]
Author: Becky
Life Drawing Studio, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia
“Would you like to draw?” It’s noon on a bright spring Saturday. Ingrid is wearing a black-and-white puppy Cerberus t-shirt with a short navy blue artist’s apron over her jeans. Zippy with excitement, she stands in ICA’s lobby welcoming every visitor. “This is drawing-all-over ICA day!” she explains. “We’ve got a still life set up […]
ALIEN SHE, Vox Populi, Philadelphia
“She is me, I am her” is the refrain of Riot Grrrl band Bikini Kill’s “Alien She,” performed raw and off-tempo by Kathleen Hanna on the 1993 album Pussy Whipped. Borrowing this song’s title, the first exhibition to work through Riot Grrrl’s legacy is curated by Astria Suparak and Ceci Moss, who came of age […]
Sarah Sze, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia
In Lines: A Brief History (2007), anthropologist Tim Ingold observes, “What is a thing, or indeed a person, if not a tying together of the lines—the paths of growth and movement—of all the many constituents gathered there?” Sarah Sze’s first solo exhibition in Philadelphia materializes just these sorts of ephemeral, linear traces throughout the Fabric […]
Grids: formalized violence
Just watched this short interview with Cornelia Parker. She’s sitting at her desk in front of a big window sewing grid lines into a piece of white paper, using thin wire drawn from bullet-metal as thread. She says, There’s approximately a bullet’s worth of lead in each drawing, so when you get this grid it’s […]
In progress: Romancing The Line
Some short fiction/art writing I’m working on: Before you begin to draw, you’ll need immaculately stretched, white paper. Stretch the paper by first baptizing it with water from a sponge, and then, quickly and gently, flattening it against a wall, maybe with the help of a friend who holds the top corners in place while […]
A Fine Line: Compelling Visuality notes
Some notes and quotes from “Art History After Aesthetics,” opening essay in Compelling Visuality, 2003, ed. Claire Farago and Robert Zwijnenberg p. vii “We invited our contributors to write about what they actually see, touch, and experience when confronted with a historical work of art.” —Tamarin didn’t touch Martin’s work, and you can’t touch Tamarin’s […]