Alexandra Kingsley Edwards

Philly’s cold winter has turned long and sour, and despite the fact that the calendar tells me it’s spring, the weather tells me I’ve ended up in an ice-cold hell dimension.  In protest I recently decided that the South I miss so much can be regained, if only in my head.  It involves a lot of americana music on the stereo and a refusal to consciously feel the windchill.

Lucky for me, I just discovered the brilliant Justin Taylor, whose writing about Florida encapsulates everything I love about my home state.  His Florida is the South, the beach, and the weirdness of a former roadside attraction state rolled into one.

Take, for example, this passage from his short story, “Amber at the Window in Hurricane Season”:

Cars were rare and there were stars at night.  We stood on the porch.  On the sidewalk some genius had spraypainted EVERYTHING HERE IS THE BEST THING EVER and nobody from the city ever came to clean it up.  I began to believe we were the secret owners of the world and everything in it: our shitty rental home; that one bar on Tenth that we liked; the whole state from the Alabama border over to St. Augustine, down past the Rat Kingdom all the way to Hemingway House and the beaches from which you can practically spit on Cuba.  Amber would sleep in your bed, the window open, smelling the early summer and the last of you in the sheets.  Hurricane season hadn’t started.  Every night was balmy.

The only other thing to do when I miss Florida like this (besides prepare my UF Ph.D. application) is browse the daily pictures at staugustinepics.com.

Traffic Cone Prank Above Flagler. Photo by Jak Krumholtz.

My recent trip to Atlanta was awesome for many, many reasons, but the most unexpected was the superheroes exhibit I managed to take in at the The William Breman Jewish Heritage & Holocaust Museum.

ZAP! POW! BAM! The Superhero: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938-1950 is an exhibit that originated at the Breman in 2004.  It has been touring the country for the past few years, but recently came back to Atlanta.  It was curated by Jerry Robinson, the artist who created the Joker and named Robin, the Boy Wonder, after his own favorite hero, Robin Hood.  It is truly a treasure trove of golden age comic book goodness, including original covers, issues, merchandise, films, and more.

Unlike nearly all museum exhibitions, the Breman allows flash photography (I made sure to check first!).  This means that, in addition to enjoying the incredible original art and awesome gallery features, I was able to photograph them as well.

I’ve put all the pictures up on my Flickr.  They include some of the exhibit placards and explanatory text.  Enjoy!

Michelangelo Pistoletto. Biennale 66, 1966.

Last time I visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I loved it.  Life being what it is, I’d forgotten to make the trek back for another first Sunday until reminded this week.  But what a week, I thought: a chance to see the Michelangelo Pistoletto exhibits before they leave, along with a better look at the large permanent collection.

Maybe I shouldn’t have watched The Art of the Steal before I went; the documentary certainly soured me on Philly cultural institutions and the politics behind them.  Sour or not, though, I ended my second trip to the PMA disappointed.

We started the day pretty well: the downstairs exhibit of moralizing prints from the Low Countries was interesting and well-organized.  Prints aren’t high on my list of favorites, especially among Netherlandish art — I’d much rather see the paintings — but the exhibit held my interest.

The main floor’s European art didn’t hold up as well on second viewing, and especially not after seeing so many gems at MoMA just a few weeks ago.  Again, the museum floor plan leaves much to be desired.  And where were the signs for Pistoletto’s Cittadellarte?  We wandered around quite a bit without finding it, finally gave up, and went to see the other side of the floor.

That’s when it happened: a gallery attendent jumped out in front of me, insisting that I put my coat on before entering the main Pistoletto exhibit, From One to Many, 1956–1974.  Of course he was just doing his job, but his manner was inexcusable brusque.  He didn’t explain why.  He didn’t smile or thank me for complying.  I was shocked and frustrated.  And then I was too hot to continue looking at the exhibit.

I ended up having to wait outside the exhibit for my date to finish viewing it, so he could hold my coat while I made my way through.  It was far too hot to ask patrons to wear their coats inside (so hot, in fact, that I’d already had to stop in the restroom and divest myself of my wintery leggings).

Michelangelo Pistoletto. Double Ladder Leaning Against the Wall, 1964. Photograph on transparent plexiglass.

It’s a shame, too, that something unpleasant had to mar my enjoyment of the art.  I think I would quite like Pistoletto’s work, had I been able to focus.  The exhibit was laid out to illustrate, in part, the development of his technique of painting on reflective surfaces.  The balcony paintings from the 1960s were evocative and fashionable; furthermore, it was a thrill to see oneself in the reflections, taking a place next to the painted tissue paper figures, joining in the scenes and the art.  The pieces that depicted objects instead of people were also strangely touching — the lonely ladder above was among my favorites.

We eventually did make it back to find Cittadellarte, but after the main show, it was too small and simple to feel like much of anything.

Further viewing:

Visit Philly has excellent photos of the main Pistoletto exhibit.

Among my various Christmas traditions is the annual trip to New York to see the Macy’s window displays, the tree at Rockefeller Plaza, and a museum.  I’d never been to the MoMA before — it was closed for renovations when I briefly lived in Brooklyn — but we couldn’t have picked a better time to visit.  Every show at the museum right now is top-notch.

Walking through the main gallery space on the second floor, I thought about my aversion to contemporary art.  I am an Old Masters devotee, a Renaissance lover, a Pre-Raphaelite groupie.  I enjoy a lot modern art as well.  But contemporary art has mostly left me a little cold.  It’s intensely personality-based, I think, and depends not necessarily on craft, but rather on uniqueness of ideas.

But it struck me, in the MoMA, that one really has to be in New York City to understand contemporary art.  The combined context of place, history, and personality just make more sense in the middle of Manhattan.  Getting to see favorites like David Wojnarowicz, Louise Bourgeois and the Guerrilla Girls alongside things I’ve previously not enjoyed helped me understand contemporary art much better.

New Photography 2010

Despair, Film Still #1. 2010. Chromogenic color print, 16 x 20″. © 2010 Alex Prager

Photography is a totally different story.  Taking good pictures requires demonstrable skills, which is why it has always been among my favorite art forms.

I hadn’t heard of Alex Prager before seeing this exhibit, but she’s now on my list of favorites.  The short film from which the above still comes is a perfect live action version of the feeling her work gives.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be available online.

Prager’s work utilizes the visual language of cinema, significantly Hitchcock, and fashion photography.  Her work is drenched in color, and uses her friends and family wearing period-style clothing and wigs.  She creates different named characters throughout her photos and occasionally plays on celebrity resemblances.

Her work reminds me of an updated-yet-retro take on Cindy Sherman, especially the Untitled Film Stills series.  She specifically counts Fellini and Godard among her influences.

MoMA has up a great interview with Prager.

Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography

It’s always a treat to see so many talented women exhibited together so prominently.  Cindy Sherman, Helen Levitt, Diane Arbus, and Dorothea Lange were among my favorites.   The exhibition is so big and so rich that I could probably have spent several more hours just pouring over all the work I was unfamiliar with.  It runs until April 4th, so maybe I’ll get a chance to revisit.

The museum website has some great multimedia related to the exhibition.

Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen

File this exhibition under “just darn neat.”  Kitchen-related works from the archives, video, utensils and cookware throughout modern history, awesome posters, books, magazines, and more.  This large photo series was my favorite — it’s so rare to belly laugh in the middle of a museum.

I also recommend checking out the exhibition website, which has a significant amount of material worth seeing.

It’s pretty rare something comes across my desk that I just love to pieces.  Usually if I love something to pieces, I will specifically ask to write about it.  But hey, I don’t know about everything in the world, and when something shows up that I’ve never heard of but come to adore, it’s a pretty great feeling.

Such was the case with Billygoat.  I consider myself lucky to have found out about this group and gotten a chance to interview them.  The work they’re doing is astounding, and, to my mind, unlike anything else out there.

The duo makes stop motion animated art films and then scores them.  But that description doesn’t do it justice.  You have to see for yourself.

Your films are incredible detailed. How long does it take to make one?

Only 1-2 minutes of footage is created each month because stop-motion photography is so extremely tedious. It’s the prepping that really takes quite a bit of time and what we are doing behind the scenes that consumes equal if not more time than actually shooting photos. If you’re hasty with this process the results can weaken. It does take about 12-16 months to complete an animation.

Can you describe the process you go through to make each film?

Our process involves shooting in a room and recording images that inspire us. The set dictates where subjects are going to be placed as it morphs over time. It’s a lot like the game MouseTrap, in that everything is cause and effect. We rarely script and our ideas can completely change overnight sending the animation down a completely unpredictable avenue.

Continue reading at Cinedork.

My previous post (the title of which is totally what I’m naming my Atlanta memoirs, btw) got me thinking about urban art projects and city ephemera.  Luckily, I live in a neighborhood in Philly with scores of both.

When I first moved here, in the midst of the hottest August ever, my favorite thing in Fishtown was the summertime mural under the 95 overpass.  The celebration of “Vacation” and “Chillin’” seems a little silly now that the air has gotten crisp, but when the temperatures were pushing 100 degrees everyday, the shade and the bright colors under that overpass really made the difference.

I was really hoping the mural would be a seasonal exhibit kind of thing, but who knows?  We may still be looking at “Summertime” all winter long.

And for photos of my other favorite Philly mural project, check out A Love Letter For You.  I used to see these everyday as I rode the MFL out to 69th Street, and I miss them now that I’ve given up on the environment and started driving.

I have a tight 2-year schedule in which to fit in all my Philly culture before moving on to the next grueling step of my education.  It’s my goal to hit all the major things I possibly can.  Being that I’m probably the biggest museum nerd around, the Philadelphia Museum of Art had to be one of the first things on my list.

It would’ve been so easy to be let down.  Just the weekend before, I had hiked about 10 miles around the Met with bff Justin.  It’s hard to compare anything to that, but the PMA held its own quite nicely.  The outside is, of course, epically gorgeous (and host to like 10 couples taking wedding photos at a time).  The inside is impressively large, and, though not tremendously well-laid out, still a lot of fun to wander through.

From Jasper Johns' American flag series

My museum style is casually haphazard at best — I didn’t know till I stumbled upon it that the PMA has one of Van Gogh’s sunflowers.  I wouldn’t say they hold many other truly iconic works, but many of my favorite artists do grace the walls, from di Chirico to Jasper Johns.  The only real let down were the strangely dark and boring Manets (nothing like my all-time favorites, Le Bar aux Folies-Bergère and Olympia), especially since they had no explanatory text to help me situate them within his career.

For being a pay-what-you-can first Sunday, the museum was wonderfully uncrowded, and there was much more to see than could fit into 1 day.  I’m not sure it’s worth a membership, but a monthly-or-so first Sunday visit could definitely figure into my future.

Bonus Philly experience: afterward, we headed down to Reading Terminal Market, where I was introduced to the joys of DiNic’s.  I wish I had reason to stop by more often, because there are several more restaurants and vendors I want to check out.  (No way am I missing the upcoming Harvest Festival, though.)  Extra bonus points for a truly hideous piece of “art” found on the street during our walk.  It’s like the 80s threw up Pepto and pearls all over some kid’s woodshop experiment.  I wish more things like this awaited me every time I left the house.

I recently got a chance to pop over to Oglethorpe University Museum of Art’s new Dalí exhibit, and it was wonderful.  The museum was gifted with 14 of the artist’s lithographs which had never before been exhibited to the public.  The images, which are now part of the museum’s permanent collection, range from precise and scientifically strange to loose and bright.

Particularly wonderful were the three lithographs from a proposed Tarot card series.  All three shared the same vibrant blues, and, since they were exhibited on the same wall, could be studied individually or as a set.

Love’s Promise by Salvador Dalí

Dalí is having quite the showing in Atlanta this summer.  The High Museum is poised to open their exhibition on the artist’s late work in August.  In the lead up to the opening, the museum has been using their Twitter feed to stir up excitement by posting links to behind the scenes photos and other fun tidbits.  Seeing museum workers uncrate works like “Santiago El Grande” or “Christ of St. John of the Cross” is pretty epic, and definitely has me excited to see the paintings in person.   The museum also teamed with Delta to put a Dalí mustache on a plane, which is awesome and hilarious.

And just today, they revealed their new Dalí microsite, which uses flash to “reveal” many of the works as well as provide basic information about the exhibit.  The site shows selected highlights — though it’s hard to truly get a sense of the scale of these works, many of which are massive.  Visitors can also “dissect a Dalí,” by mousing over particular elements of “Portrait of My Dead Brother” and reading explanations of the imagery.  The site is gorgeous and fun to play around with, with lots of tiny pieces of information.  It includes guidelines for teachers, as well as several videos relevant to the exhibition.

It’s nice to see the High use social media like Twitter and Youtube, paired with a well-designed site, to increase exposure and get potential patrons interacting with the art online.  Oglethorpe’s museum, which is admittedly much smaller, could have potentially gotten an increase in traffic by using some of the same techniques.  It would be as simple as updating their Twitter feed more often, possibly @mentioning the High and getting some dialogue going about the exhibits, and posting some behind the scenes photos.  The art is beautiful, but tucked away on the top floor of the campus library, how many art lovers in Atlanta are getting the chance to see it?

Dalí: The Late Work opens at the High on August 7th.  They will also run a Dalí film festival in late August and early September.  (Sadly, I’ll have moved out of town by late August, but hopefully I’ll get a chance to see and blog about the exhibit before I go.)  The Dalí exhibit at Oglethorpe is open until September 5th.

I won’t play cool and act like I’d heard of Louise Bourgeois before she passed (unless I was just asleep that day in art history), but I’m quite taken with her now that I’ve seen so many tributes (such as this obit).  She was a formidable artist, famous salon-organizer, and, in her younger years, the glamorous Parisian friend you’ve always wanted.

If you only look at one thing, it should be the first video at NYT, in which she’s charming and charmingly French, even while ripping apart sexism in the everyday world.

Additionally, I may pick up this book, with cover illustration by Bourgeois, just because.