Art Spiel Picks: Philly Exhibitions in August 2024

HIGHLIGHTS
The Woodmere Annual: 82nd Juried Exhibition, partial installation view at the Woodmere Art Museum, photograph courtesy of the gallery

This August in Philly, there are some unexpected gems in what is a typically quieter art season. If you want to experience artwork that recasts the familiar in fantastical ways, spend time at Paradigm Gallery + Studio in Old City with Megan Rea’s reimaginings of Italian frescos. North of the city, at the Woodmere Art Museum, the 82nd Annual Juried Exhibition showcases exceptional Philadelphia artists meditating on what it means to “belong.” Finally, the Institute of Contemporary Art in University City presents an emotionally intense video and photography installation by Polish artist Joanna Piotrowska.

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Josh Kline’s Greatest Emergency

Josh Kline, Unemployment, installation view, 2016

This is part of a series of articles for the upcoming exhibition, The Greatest Emergency at the Circulo de Bellas Artes of Madrid. The exhibition is based on Santiago Zabala’s book, Why Only Art Can Save Us: Aesthetics and the Absence of Emergency. In this exhibition, ten contemporary artists rescue us into our greatest emergencies, that is, those we do not confront as we should. Each article in the series will contextualize these artists’ practices and explore how they are linked to Zabala’s aesthetic theory and the exhibition’s themes. The second article in this series highlights the work of American artist Josh Kline.

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Art Spiel Picks: Philly Exhibitions in July 2024

HIGHLIGHTS
Wind Challenge III at Fleisher Art Memorial, partial installation view, Alexis Granwell (left) and Brynn Hurlstone (right)

There are many thought-provoking shows in Philadelphia this July. Beginning at Fleisher Art Memorial, three innovative Philadelphia sculptors combine materials in unexpected ways to reflect on intimacy, vulnerability, and natural phenomena. At the Fabric Workshop in center city, artist John Jarboe brings her cabaret aesthetic to create a stunning immersive experience titled Rose Garden following her life and gender journey. In Kensington, at Peep Projects Todd Stong’s delicate drawings and wall-sized multi-panel monotype reflect on the complexities of history, contemporary life, and what the artist terms queer cultural production.

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Women Heavy at Gardenship Gallery

In Dialogue
Laia Cabrera and Isabelle Duverger, QUALIA – YOU MATTER TO ME, immersive installation, UltraHD, color, sound, 10 minutes, 2024. Courtesy of the artists

Throughout the group exhibition Women Heavy at the Gardens Gallery in Kearny, NJ, curator Donna Kessinger references contemporary and second-wave feminist ideas. The curator aims to create a clinical and visceral experience by investigating broad concepts and featuring among many notable others work by Charlie Spademan, Gwen CharlesJeanne Brasile, Josh Knoblick, Judi Tavill, Kasia Skorynkiewicz, Charlee Swanson, Lauren VroegindeweyKristin J. DeAngelis, Michael Angelo, Richard GainesSuzan GlobusVikki MichaliosA.V. RyanDonna Conklin King, Anna Ehrsam, and Doris Cacoilo. In our interview curator D. Kessinger sheds some light on her curatorial vision.

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Jiwon Rhie: Suddenly, Images Explain Everything at La Mama Galleria

Installation view: Jiwon Rhie: Suddenly, Images Explain Everything at La Mama Galleria. Photo by flaneurshan. studio. @flaneurshan.studio

Jiwon Rhie often explores moments of deep personal depression, social misanthropy, and cultural alienation in her work. You would never know it, though, from first viewing. Walking into La Mama Galleria in the East Village, NY, visitors are greeted by the playful whirring sound of over a dozen mechanical toy dogs, each covered in exploding layers of colorful, fake flowers. The dogs walk across a blue moving pad, bumping into walls, each other, or the artificial boundaries Rhie erected. In the center of the moving pad, two quarter candy vending dispensers shake with the motion of encased and enflowered toys, which act, of course, unperturbed by their enclosures. Viewers are invited to borrow quarters from the gallery to dispense pods filled with custom keychains and temporary tattoos from the candy machines. Though only a corner of a room within a larger exhibition, Rhie’s Flower Dogs make it impossible to enter the gallery without stopping to smile, take a photo or video, and procure ones own custom keychain art.

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Simona Prives: towards the noise of dark waters at PRACTICE

Photo Story

Simona Prives, installation view

Simona Prives’s latest installation at Philadelphia’s PRACTICE Gallery, towards the noise of dark waters, combines projection and collage to explore themes of renewal and decay. This site-specific installation by the Brooklyn-based multi-disciplinary artist features life-sized projections of collages built upon densely packed drawings, ink paintings, and various printmaking techniques. These collages suggest maps, geological patterns, and industrial imagery, creating abstract yet recognizable worlds.

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Transgressing Lands at the Boiler

Hot AIR
Transgressing Lands: Eleven Contemporary Artists Reimagine a Horizon Installation View. Photo: Martin Seck

The current group exhibition at The Boiler | ELM Foundation, Transgressing Lands, curated by A.E. Chapman, features work by Jeannine Bardo, Nancy Cohen, Cristina de Gennaro, Deborah Jack, Natalie Moore, Itty S. Neuhaus, Nazanin Noroozi, Lina Puerta, Corinne Teed, Elizabeth Velazquez, and Letha Wilson, who interpret the horizon’s role as a foundational element for understanding our place in the world. The artists confront pressing issues—preserving landscapes under threat, the ramifications of climate change, the realities of displacement and conflict, the significance of mindfulness, challenging colonial legacies, and the ever-present cycles of destruction and rejuvenation. Chapman’s direction for the exhibition invites viewers to engage with how landscapes can anchor us in the present moment and our collective history.

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Hudson Valley Artists: Bibliography Sourcing Inspiration at Dorsky

A room with art on the wall

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Installation view of Hudson Valley Artists: Bibliography at The Dorsky Museum of Art

Words evoke a myriad of visuals; images encapsulate words, concepts, and ideals. This symbiotic relationship, the dance between the written word and visual art, is the crux of Bibliography. On view at the Dorsky Museum at SUNY New Paltz through April 7, this exhibition documents how books conjure different facets of the exhibiting artists’ thoughts. Books function as a thematic thread, connecting the artworks on view to broader references of knowledge and providing entry points for understanding their aesthetic, social, or political implications. Exhibiting artists include Osi Audu, Alta Buden, Shari Diamond, Kerry Downey, Stevenson Estime, eteam (Franzisa Lamprecht and Hajoe Moderegger), Aki Goto, Adam Henry, Matthew Kirk, Niki Kriese, Melora Kuhn, Catherine Lord, Sean Sullivan, and Audra Wolowiec.  

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