Spring Into First Friday

press release prepared by:

Ryan Briggs
Frankford Avenue Corridor Coordinator
New Kensington CDC
215.427.0350 x124
www.frankfordavearts.org

Next week’s forecast is 70 and sunny straight through, so get ready for an extra special First Friday, with a whole new outdoorsy component to celebrate the changing seasons.

After many moons of gloom and doom (so many “O’s”!), this year’s exceptionally painful transition from winter to spring is almost at an end.  So, we’re deploying a special outdoor seating area at the green lot in front of The Cycle Garage.  Roughly located at 2205 Frankford Ave, this new space will hopefully host musical acts and performance artists of all shades throughout the coming months.  Email me right away if you’re interested in participating at rbriggs@nkcdc.org.

Now lets get down to the listings.  All receptions at 6pm unless otherwise noted:

Walking Fish Theatre
2509 Frankford Ave, The Fish will be featuring a variety of live, acoustic musicians as part of their ongoing “Acoustic First Friday” performances. Don’t miss out on the fresh Torreo coffee, wine and snacks neither.
215-427-9255

Mendez
2480 Frankford Ave, This month, Mendez Homes continues their foray into First Friday fun with Lynnette Shelley’s “Curious Creatures” show.  Lynette paints fantastical beasts, dragons, and other creatures of ancient lore.
215-291-2891

2424 Studios
2424 York Street, First Friday is very proud to welcome yet another new participant to the Avenue, with quite a show to boot.  2424 Studios will be hosting the University of the Arts 2009 MFA Thesis Exhibition for Book Arts/Printmaking majors. Featuring the most cutting edge work by U of A’s second year graduate book and printmaking students.  At the exhibition, students Amanda Benton, Alisa Fox, Andrew Huot, Ansley Joe, Robert Lewis, Terry Peterson, J. Gregory Pizzoli, Bobby Rosenstock, Erin Sweeney, and Susan Weinz will be presenting their work.  Not to be missed!
215-284-8804

Proximity Gallery
2434 East Dauphin Street, Presenting Benjamin Long’s exhibition of paintings and photography.  Long works with stacking and arranging painted scenes and photographs to create striking juxtapositions of place and context.
267-825-2949

Goldfish Gallery
2214 Frankford Ave, Featuring cartoons by “Nathan” and fairytale paintings by Kenneth Maag
267-639-3609

The Caterpillar
2205 Frankford Ave, Dubbed the “Caterpillar” for its unusual shape, this outdoor seating area and stage on a greened lot north of Frankford and Susquehanna will feature the soothing sounds of solo guitarist Jose Diaz.  Be sure to stop by and check out this funky new venue, which will be featuring live performances throughout the summer.  If you’re a musician interested in booking the space, email rbriggs@nkcdc.org.
215-427-0350

Highwire Gallery
2040 Frankford Ave, Barbara Spadaro explores the human imagination’s unending translation of reality into fantasy through sculpture and installation.  She examines how man transforms animals into symbols of very human thoughts and emotions through her striking images that incorporate toys and everyday objects.
215-426-2685

Perpetua
2039 Frankford Ave, Fishtown’s favorite little antique shop will, for one night only, delve into the black arts by hosting mindreader extraordinaire Steven Cambian!  Beware those of weak conscious, all your hidden secrets are laid bare before the dread mystic of the greater Philadelphia area. The Amazing Cambian has many powers including telekinesis, mindcontrol and psychic prediction.  My friends, we are all interested in the future – for that is where we spend the rest of our lives.  Let the Amazing Cambian show you your future!
215-634-4447

GERM Books and Gallery
2005 Frankford, This will be GERM’s the second month running the “Three Visionaries” show, featuring has the visual artwork of three visionary musicians. From the gothic revival illustrations of Justin Duerr, to the twisted cartoon figure collages of Ed Wilcox, and the brooding black-and-white photography of Lisa Spera, the Jennifer Bates gallery is packed this month. Come browse the visual creations of these aural poets.
215-423-5002

The Rocket Cat Cafe
2001 Frankford Ave, Featuring the artwork of Jesse Mills.
215-739-4526

The Garden Center
1825 Frankford Ave, Along with the usual spring plantings on sale at the GC, neighborhood artists and residents Barbara Morehead and Carol Davis will be have their jewelry and other wares on display.
215-739-6910

Memphis Flats
1714 Memphis St, High intensity swing music from “The Slicked Up Nines” will be pumping all night, along with samples of spirits from the Philadelphia Distillery, in a charitable benefit for the Philadelphia Orchestra.  While the event is free, guests can make an optional donation of $25 or more towards the orchestra’s funds.  The art of Fishtown resident Lars Leetaru will also be on display.  Lars is an illustrator whose work has been featured in many major magazines and other publications.
215-427-1100

Having grown up four blocks away from each other on Pine Street in Philadelphia, their paths finally crossed as young adults. What started out as a sharing of ideas and techniques grew into collaboration on actual artwork. They explain: “we would be working on our independent shows (Pete Checchia at Vox Populi Gallery and Anthony DeMelas at Pentimenti Gallery) and helping each other out, exchanging techniques and then eventually even sampling each others artwork into our pieces.”  What began as a back and forth eventually inspired them to make collaborative work together. Very early on in the process of creating their first body of work, they realized they were onto something; the photographic images and painting meshed well, ideas flowed, and the work seemed to be making itself Collaboration allows them an opportunity through a fluid exchange of ideas and practices to discover vital and unexpected styles and results..  A mutual commitment to exploration has driven their respective work to unexpected places, where the edges of each form collapse into the other.

Anthony DeMelas graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia. He is a recipient of several awards and honors two of which are  The Lewis S. Ware Memorial Travel Scholarship Award and The Pennsylvania Governor’s Award. He has also exhibited extensively throughout throughout the United States. DeMelas’s work is about the process of exploring overlooked glimpses of visual reflections that coexist all around us. His conceptual process and inspiration is always in flux; DeMelas reanimates fragments of his life through a broad palette of wood, oil, wax, paint and photographs, layering images to expose another realm of existence. Anthony’s pieces are a cumulative expression of the dimensions between the desire to see what we want to see and what is there. By pulling paint across surfaces, allowing oil, water and wax to do what they may, and take photos without the guise of perfected shutter speeds, he gives us just enough information.

Anthony DeMelas is represented by Pentimenti Gallery in Philadelphia. His work has been purchased for multiple public collections including  the Thomas Properties Group Inc. (Philadelphia, PA) Deloitte Inc.(Philadelphia, PA) Fork Restaurant (Philadelphia, PA) Blank & Rome, (New York, NY)  as well as numerous private collections. His commissions include James Ingram, Grammy Award-winning American singer, Los Angeles, CA.

As well as Anthony DeMelas’ collaboration work with other visual artists DeMelas has a long history of collaboration with dance artists, performance artists and video artists incorporating his imagery into many performance pieces. Two important collaborators are Pew  recipient Kate Watson-Wallace, dance choreographer and Ricardo Rivera, noted video artist of the clip collective.

Pete Checchia has a diverse career both as a highly esteemed freelance photographer as well as an acclaimed multi-disciplinary exhibiting visual artist. He has found his niche as one of the leading photographers of the classical music world. He serves as a primary house photographer for Carnegie Hall, and has been the principal photographer at the prestigious Marlboro Music Festival for the past 20 years. He includes among his regular clients the Philadelphia Orchestra, Curtis Institute of Music, the Marilyn Horne Foundation and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. He has done extensive work for the Chamber Music America, the Brevard Music Festival, and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project and many others. Musical artists, ensembles, dance organizations and others regularly hire him as their publicity photographer. He has built a wide and profound archive of imagery spanning the classical music world that reads as a “Who’s Who” of the leading artists. Much of this work he incorporates into his expressive fine art work.

His work has been published in numerous Music Cds, magazines and over 10 books. Books include commemorations of Midori’s 20th anniversary, the Curtis Institutes 75th anniversary, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s “Century in Music”, Rudolf Serkin’s life (biography) and the Marlboro Music Festival’ 40th anniversary “Espressivo”.

As a visual artist, Pete Checchia’s work has been recognized many times for juried exhibitions, including a three-year residency at Creative Artists Network in Philadelphia an organization dedicated to promoting and exhibiting emerging talent. He was a member of the vaunted Philadelphia artist collective Vox Populi for 10 years the last two of which were spent as an artist member of the board. Among the jurors who have singled out his work for exhibition at various shows are Mark Rosenthal (curator for the Guggenheim and Philadelphia Art Museums), Ilana Schmidt and Chris Dean (of Schmidt/Dean Gallery), Lisa Panzera (of Levy Gallery at Moore College), and Thora Jacobsen (Fleischer Art Memorial exec. Director).  In 2008 two of his large photographic construction pieces from the 1990’s were included in a retrospective called STRETCHING THE TRUTH that focused on alternative processes in photography and was held at the Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan Wisconsin.. Checchia says “I embrace the philosophy of putting art out into alternative spaces and public places.” It is equally possible to see his photographic art and installations gracing the walls of a Philadelphia bar or restaurant as it is to view it in more venerable art spaces such as the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Sande Webster Gallery or the Philadelphia Art Alliance.

Proximity Gallery
2434 East Dauphin St.
Philadelphia PA 19125
www.proximityart.com
www.myspace.com/proximityart
267.825.2949
Hours: Friday & Saturday 1-4pm

Philadelphia is the Only Venue for a Major Exhibition Exploring Cézanne’s Impact on Artists of Succeeding Generations

In 1907, the French painter Paul Cézanne’s posthumous retrospective astonished younger artists, accelerating the experimentation of European modernism. Cézanne (1839-1906) became for Henri Matisse “a benevolent god of painting,” and for Pablo Picasso “my one and only master.” Cézanne’s inclusion in the Armory Show in New York in 1913 also offered American artists a new direction. Cézanne & Beyond (February 26 through May 17, 2009) will examine the seismic shift provoked by this pivotal figure, examining him as form-giver, catalyst, and touchstone for artists who followed. It will survey the development of an artistic vision that anticipated Cubism and fueled a succession of artistic movements, and will juxtapose Cézanne’s achievement with works by many who were inspired directly by him, showing a fluid interchange of form and ideas. It will place his work in context with more recent artists like Ellsworth Kelly, Jasper Johns, and Brice Marden, who in quite different ways came to terms with the master of Aix-en-Provence. His profound impact on successive generations endures to the present day. The exhibition will present more than 150 works, including a large group of paintings, watercolors and drawings by Cézanne, along with those of 18 later artists.

The works will be drawn from public and private collections around the world, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It will be seen only in Philadelphia.

Cézanne and Beyond is made possible by ADVANTA.

Additional funding is provided by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Annenberg Foundation Fund for Major Exhibitions, The Florence Gould Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Fund for Scholarly Publications, the National Endowment for the Arts, and an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Promotional support is provided by NBC 10 WCAU, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News, Philly.com, Amtrak, the Philadelphia Visitors and Convention Bureau and the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation.

The artists included, in chronological order, are Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Marsden Hartley, Fernand Léger, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Charles Demuth, Max Beckmann, Liubov Popova, Giorgio Morandi, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Ellsworth Kelly, Jasper Johns, Brice Marden, and Jeff Wall, Sherrie Levine, and Francis Alÿs.

The exhibition is organized by Joseph J. Rishel, The Gisela and Dennis Alter Curator of European Painting before 1900, in collaboration with Philadelphia Museum of Art colleagues, including the late Director Anne d’Harnoncourt, and Kathy Sachs, Adjunct Curator, Michael Taylor, The Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art, and Carlos Basualdo, The Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Curator of Contemporary Art. They are joined by a group of international scholars who have both advised on the selection and contributed to the catalogue. “The exhibition is about the pleasures of experiencing the interaction of artistic ideas in a creative dialogue across a continuum,” Rishel said. “The installation will juxtapose works from the past and present, with Cézanne as the generative pivot. Rather than charting a chronology of influence, we are especially interested in examining artistic ideas in motion, extended, reformulated, and transmuted by the hands of different artists. I’d like to think that the viewer will be able to experience it in a completely non-linear way, always circling around to Cézanne.”

All of the artists in the exhibition have acknowledged Cézanne’s profound impact on their work. When Henri Matisse (1869-1954) donated his Cézanne painting of Three Bathers to the Petit Palais in 1936, he wrote: “in the 37 years I have owned this canvas, I have come to know it quite well, though not entirely, I hope; it has sustained me morally in the critical moments of my venture as an artist; I have drawn from it my faith and my perseverance…” Picasso (1881-1973) in his long and varied artistic career often used Cézanne as a lever in his critical shifts, from his Self-Portrait with Palette, through to the lyricism of La Rêve, and onto his later examination of bathing subjects both as painting and sculpture. Braque, who with Picasso used Cézanne as his principle touchstone early on, spent time at several of Cézanne’s painting locations. For him “it was more than an influence, it was an initiation.”

Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), who was drawn especially to the formal structure achieved by Cézanne, brings an analysis of Cézanne to an abstract conclusion, as reflected in his own words “… that beauty in art is created not by the objects of representation, but by the relationships of line and color.” “Cézanne taught me the love of form and volumes,” Fernand Léger (1881-1955) once remarked, and “the power of Cézanne was such that, to find myself, I had to go to the limits of abstraction.” In Russia, Liubov Popova (1889-1924) discovered Cézanne in the Moscow collections of Morosov and Shchukin and drew from him the pleasures of geometric fragmentation, which swiftly moved to pure abstraction.

In the United States, as modernism gathered force, members of the Stieglitz circle, especially Charles Demuth (1883-1935) and Marsden Hartley (1877-1943), became fascinated with Cézanne. Demuth’s still life compositions in particular show a deep connection to Cézanne’s bold late watercolors. In his autobiography, Hartley noted that Cézanne offered “ideas that were to make the world of painting over again and give modernism its next powerful start,” adding that “there is no modern picture that has not somehow or other been built upon these new principles.” Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) studied Cézanne closely, and the exhibition reflects his keen engagement with Cézanne’s style, especially in the mid to late-1920s. Gorky affectionately referred to the French artist as “Papa Cézanne” and even in his later abstractions there is a profound sense of the lesson of Cézanne.

Later, looking back on his career, Max Beckmann said: “my greatest love already in 1903 was Cézanne.” He “revere[d] Cézanne as a genius” throughout his life, looking particularly at the dark, emotional early works and the heavy black outlining of some of Cézanne’s figures. In Italy, Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) first saw Cézanne images in books in 1909 and then in person in exhibitions in Venice and Rome. His path as an artist of both still lifes and landscapes was set. Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) was introduced to Cézanne by his painter father, but had to wait until the Venice Biennale of 1920 to see his work face-to-face. For him the attraction was the sense of process rather than arrival. Cézanne is firmly linked to an existential sense of doubt and anxiety that permeates Giacometti’s explorations of objects and people in space through two or three dimensions.

In this sense Giacometti is akin to Jasper Johns (b. 1930), for whom Cézanne has been a continuous point of reference and has served over the years as a sort of eminence. The exhibition presents numerous works by Johns that make overt and oblique references to Cézanne, including drawings inspired by Cézanne’s bathers and paintings of figures that are referenced in Johns through such works as the Seasons and In the Studio. Ellsworth Kelly (b. 1923) first discovered Cézanne as a student in Boston and is quick to explain that Cézanne is often at play in his art making. Kelly’s exploration of the relationships between form and color, figure and ground, take on an immediacy and constancy for our understanding of both artists. Brice Marden (b. 1938) commented “that Cézanne almost made the perfect painting.” In Marden’s own works, Cézanne’s pursuit of an essentially unobtainable goal of distillation, often through repetitions on the same motif, is a shared journey.

The exhibition places substantial emphasis on artists of the present day, including long established masters such as Kelly, Johns, Marden, and Jeff Wall (b.1946), and younger artists responding to the idea of the show such as Francis Alÿs and Sherrie Levine. Wall’s magnificent light box photographs show that Cézanne’s influence transcends the medium of painting. While working in an entirely different medium, the photographer Wall is a life long admirer of Cézanne either through direct quotations or more often through implied transgressive references.

“Our purpose is first to display the continuing vitality of Cézanne as an artistic resource five generations on,” added Rishel. “Of equal importance in our endeavor is to illustrate the unfolding reality that a different Cézanne has evolved for each generation, defined by what artists have made of him and passed along to those who came after. It is a continuing story.”

During the preparation for the exhibition, Anne d’Harnoncourt, the Museum’s late Director, said: “Cézanne is a rare artist whose work touched so many artists and contributed to shape a broad spectrum of talents and who, remarkably, continues to find fresh resonance today. Philadelphia, like Aix, has long been a major destination for Cézanne lovers because the Museum and the Barnes Foundation hold such comprehensive collections of his work. This exhibition presents an opportunity to fully appreciate both Cézanne’s art and its impact over time, offering visitors the experience of participating in the extraordinary conversation among artists that has engaged many of the major talents of the last century.”

Catalogue

The exhibition will be accompanied by a major scholarly publication that is dedicated to Anne d’Harnoncourt. It is co-published by the Museum and Yale University Press, and generously supported by the Davenport Family Foundation and the Lenfest Foundation. It will encompass critical scholarship on Cézanne and modernism, as well as essays on individual artists’ responses to Cézanne, which will also incorporate interviews with living artists. Contributors include: Joseph Rishel (writing an introductory essay, with Katherine Sachs, and an essay on Hartley); Katherine Sachs (on Kelly and Marden), Michael Taylor (on Gorky), Mark Mitchell (on Demuth), Robert Storr (with an introductory essay on Cézanne’s impact on 20th and 21st century art); Richard Shiff (with an introductory essay also on Cézanne’s impact on 20th and 21st century art), Yve-Alain Bois (on Matisse), John Elderfield (on Picasso), Joop Joosten (on Mondrian), Chris Green (on Léger), John Golding (on Braque), Anabelle Kienle (on Beckmann), Albert Kostenevich (on Popova), Carolyn Lanchner (on Giacometti), Roberta Bernstein (on Johns), and Jean-François Chevrier (on Wall).

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States, showcasing more than 2,000 years of exceptional human creativity in masterpieces of painting, sculpture, works on paper, decorative arts and architectural settings from Europe, Asia and the Americas. The striking neoclassical building stands on a nine-acre site above the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and houses more than 200 galleries. The Museum offers a wide variety of enriching activities, including programs for children and families, lectures, concerts and films.

First Friday in Philadelphia

Come out the First Friday, rain or shine from 5-9 pm to wander around between Front and Third and Market and Vine.  Over 40 galleries exhibits with a little hooch here and there.
Started in 1991 by a group of galleries as a collaborative open house evening, First Fridays grew quickly into one of Philly’s most vital, signature cultural events. Old City’s historic commercial buildings have fostered a SoHo-like cultural ambience with the densest network of galleries in the city.

230 Vine Street
Old City Arts Association
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 625-9200 / (800) 555-5191
www.oldcityarts.org