Arts and Culture : In The News

Philadelphia-based folk musician Denison Witmer has taken to performing short, one-of-a-kind shows on Skype, a daring effort that has proven popular among his most diehard fans, reports Mashable.

For $25, Witmer will play a song of your choice (two if you’re lucky) and the chance to chat with him after the performance. After one purchases a Skype show, Witmer and his manager help arrange a time and date via email.

Given the unique nature of these shows, there’s been a bit of a learning curve on his end. "I'm trying to figure out what the exact limit is that I can handle,” Witmer says. “In a lot of ways it’s similar to a concert, but it's also a totally different experience. The scheduling part is more work that the actual playing or talking to people."

Original source: Mashable
Read the full story here.

The New York Times teases the Philadelphia Art Commission's expected Wednesday vote to approve plans for a 40-foot high stainless steel sculpture at the new Barnes Foundation site on the Ben Franklin Parkway.

The sculpture, called “The Barnes Totem,’’ was designed to echo the vertical forms of the red maple trees lining a path to the museum’s entrance. Mr. Kelly selected the site in collaboration with the landscape architect Laurie Olin and architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien.

Original source: The New York Times
Read the full story here.

The BBC dives into Philadelphia's pioneering musical artists and a host of new sounds, including the city's most well-known venues.

There is a small, hidden gem inside Philly’s musical soul where you can take in emerging local artists like The Lawsuits, The Spinning Leaves and spoken word artist MsWise in the most intimate of spaces -- someone’s living room. Brought to you by Sofar Sounds (which started in London), this international small space, concert movement unites music lovers in secret living room locations. Always on the cutting edge of something new, Philadelphia is one of just 15 cities participating, and you can sign up through the Sofar Sounds website.

Original source: BBC
Read the full story here.

Van Gogh Up Close has opened at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and art lovers can get a better sense for the mind behind the artist's great works.

Cornelia Homburg, one of the curators of Van Gogh Up Close, a new show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, says she finds it "very difficult when an artist’s acts as an artist are exclusively viewed through the fact that he was a disturbed person." So the show ignores that person and instead takes a close look at how van Gogh, the systematic artist, liked to look closely at things, and how that made a crucial contribution to the history of modern art. One wall shows him paring his still lifes down to essentials.

Others have him zooming ever further -- onto a lone moth, a flowering branch -- or trying his hand at the classic undergrowth scenes called sous bois. His innovations are set into the context of the era’s photography and Japanese prints. Revisionist art history has revised the madman from sight. The works of art "are sufficient in themselves," says Joseph Rishel, Homburg’s co-curator.

Original source: The Daily Beast
Read the full story here.

The New York Times' Ben Ratliff puts Philadelphia R&B singer Jade Alston's first mixtape on his playlist.

Her musical identity isn’t fully formed yet, but she’s got a voice that sounds timely right now, especially on the title track and “Searching”: smoothed out and breathy, in Toni Braxton’s general area, never strobing in your ear, sometimes even self-effacing.

Original source: The New York Times
Read the full story here.

Philadelphia-inspired photographer Zoe Strauss and her series "I-95" is part of her new exhibition at the Museum of Art, reports The New York Times.

The exhibition, opening on Saturday, is billed as a mid-career retrospective, though Ms. Strauss’s career path is anything but conventional. For one thing, she conceived of "I-95" before she had gained any kind of experience as a photographer, before she had even bought a camera. Just five years into the project she received a Pew fellowship and was selected for the Whitney Biennial. Two years later came a monograph, "America," that nodded to none other than Robert Frank.

Original source: The New York Times
Read the full story here.

The Lenfest Plaza designed by David A. Rubin of local firm OLIN created a true campus for the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, reports Metropolis Magazine and Dexigner:

(from Dexigner)
In creating an institutional plaza for public enjoyment, performance and exhibition within the dense historic and cultural district of Center City Philadelphia, Rubin has designed an environment that many people can now experience: the administration, faculty and students of the Academy; guests of the new restaurant to be situated within the plaza; museum goers and art lovers; Philadelphians, and visitors to the City. In order to accommodate all of these potential visitors within a former narrow streetscape a design that allowed for social gathering but is also reflective of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts' prominence within our nation's art history and the cultural corridor of Museum Mile was required.

Original source; Dexigner
Read the full story in Metropolis Magazine and in Dexigner.

Fishtown scultpure artist Jennie Shanker's work to create ceramics using clay from the Marcellus Shale region gets some love from New York Times blogger Andrew Revkin.

On her shale blog, Shanker builds links to useful background on the gas issue around the edges of her posts without ramming a particular view down one’s throat. Here’s a video snippet she shot while exploring shale outcroppings by the roadside.

Original source: New York Times
Read the full story here.

Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter got busted for graffiti as a Philadelphia teen. Now he'll be the subject of public art with The Roots mural planned for South Street, reports the Associated Press.

"They remind us why we love art, why art is so important, why art is a lifeline, why art can be transformative and why we need it," said Jane Golden, director of the city's Mural Arts Program.

The energetic Golden literally jumped up and down with excitement in announcing the eight-month project, which will include soliciting mural design ideas, creating a storefront art studio for community workshops and developing a "Roots 101" arts education curriculum for students.

Original source: Associated Press
Read the full story here.

Metropolis Magazine tells the story of industrial designer Andrew Dahlgren, his Philadelphia company ADMK and how he is helping revolutionize textile manufacturing and labor.

"Ultimately, what we are talking about is a new way of living," says Dahlgren. Pattern files can be digitally conveyed to satellite knitters in their homes who may, in turn, use the knitting machines to provide for themselves beyond their contracted production.

Dahlgren takes the long view, pointing out that "Stradivarius was still innovating violin making in his 80s, can we as a culture accept, as a way of living, making things?" Dignity, pride, and identity in workmanship seem like quaint yet timeless building blocks for reviving an industry that once boasted some 60,000 employees in Philadelphia and competed globally long before “globalization” was ever coined.

Original source: Metropolis
Read the full story here.