"Buckskin Gulch, Escalante, National Monument, Utah," by Glenn Bizewski

Post by Erica Minutella, December 21, 2011

By now, hearing endless repetitions of holiday music and seeing the city mummified in strings of lights might leave you feeling more akin to Mr. Potter than George Bailey. But thanks to the stalwart efforts of a few arts spaces, like Cabaret Red Light’s recent mischievous rendition of The Nutcracker at the Painted Bride Art Center, the holidays face some much-needed reworking.

One such chance to recapture the holiday spirit before the weekend can be found at the Light Room Gallery. The photography on display for Holiday Show 2011 offers the rare opportunity to find holiday gifts without the atmospheric torture that comes standard with every department store visit.

Tucked away on Wallace Street, just a block from the imposing walls of Eastern State Penitentiary, the homey space of the Light Room Gallery beckons visitors into a room frosted over with white like a snowdrift brought in through the outer doors. If the sight of a fireplace isn’t enough to thaw the chill of commercialism from the wary newcomer, a glance at Tony Rocco‘s “Struggle in the ‘Italian’ Market,” just above the stairway, will finish the job. One of the few color photos on display, a forceful splash of vibrant flames in the foreground will continually recapture your eyes as you wander through the space.

Travel across vignettes of the city as you walk along a wall of works by Erin Yard. Refresh yourself with a brisk draft from Ranjoo Prasad’s “Chestnut Hill Winter Stream,” just before cutting into “Fruit Series,” by Joshua Marowitz.

Lose yourself in Mary Anne Broderick-Pakenham’s misty seascapes. Almost post-apocalyptic in their ghostlike desolation, Broderick’s Landscapes series could double as establishing shots from the mind of Rod Serling. On the wall opposite, three photos by Glenn Bizewski will strand you in the midst of towering rock formations, as you stare into dizzying pockets of devastating height.

Catch these photos and more at the 2024 Wallace Street space through January 7, and let your heart expand a few sizes as you return home, maybe even bearing gifts in support of local artists.

Stop by the gallery tonight at 8 pm for a demo by Tara Hornung on how to archivally mount / matte / and frame your photographs.

Tags: erin yard, glenn bizewski, holiday show, joshua marowitz, light room gallery, mary anne broderick-pakenham, philadelphia, ranjoo prasad, tony rocco
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"Acceptance" (left) and "Resistance" (right). Artist: Lawren Alice. Photographer: Noah Musher.

Post by Erica Minutella, December 14, 2011

If you’ve been watching American Horror Story on FX, it probably wasn’t long before you noticed the ability of a simple disguise to transform a character from a regular to regularly horrifying. But with Lawren Alicé‘s Body Painting at Gallery ML, a collective body art gallery located at 126 Market Street, disguises are multi-layered: at times beautiful, disturbing, morose, and empowering, disguises lose their classically secretive nature and themselves become forms of identity.

Photos of Lawren Alicé’s transitory works are taken by Noah Musher, Gallery ML owner. From extreme close-ups to elaborate stagings, the subjects of Alicé’s pieces populate their canvases like nouveau nymphs, embodying a spirit of progressive urbanity with the same lithe grace with which they once populated the forests of Greek myth.

These momentary monuments to human metamorphosis wind in labyrinthine lines and colors across their living canvases, challenging the line between stillness and motion, body and object. Finally vested with the colors and forms usually reserved for predators and plantlife, these individuals evolve into something beyond nature.

Alicé’s unique explorations of the human canvas are the last show of the season at Gallery ML’s current space, as they hope to move to a larger venue in early 2012.

Currently, Alicé is on her way to the RAWards show on January 12 at The Chinese Gauman Theater in Hollywood, to celebrate her recent win for the title of 2011 National Visual Artist of the Year.

Tags: body painting, chinese gauman theater, gallery ml, lawren alice, noah musher, old city, philadelphia, raw natural born artists, rawards
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Photo of work by Hugh Hales-Tooke at the "Micrographia" show, from the Meg Cohen Design Shop Facebook page.

Post by James Rosenthal, December 12, 2011

Observed in a cozy SoHo boutique, the paintings of Hugh Hales-Tooke may be mistaken for decorative works with a certain historical bent. Look more closely. Taken out of this comfortable context, or on the wall of his studio, the paintings immediately resonate with meaning, both personal to the artist and specifically relating to the Enlightenment. Primarily a photographer, Hales-Tooke has drawn college buildings of Robert Hooke and Christopher Wren as a relevant inquiry into science versus art and the possibly grey areas in between. The show is titled Micrographia, Three Buildings of The Age of Reason. This refers to Hooke’s amazing 1664 book about microscopic animals and magnification using lenses. Hooke apparently coined the topical term, “cell.” This fascinating project started in 1989 when the artist inadvertently made his first image of the Wren Library at Trinity College. It took a while before Hales-Tooke realized fully his personal connection to the buildings in Cambridge, England, where he was brought up.

How do these the studies of Enlightenment architects relate to an individual? Partly because the paintings are a link in a conceptual chain. At first, the interest is intuitive. Then, it become more technical. The paintings (aka buildings) plot points in an investigation tying together Hales-Tooke’s family history with the edifices he duplicates. He traces his lineage back through the Petyr family line to Elizabethan times. Lord Petyr was a Catholic after the unfortunate dissolution of the monasteries, a precarious position for a man of state. But how is this investigation of family trees relevant to architecture from the Age of Reason? There’s the rub. We have to work it out. It could be that family DNA is related to the proliferation of ideas through history. At the end of the process, Hales-Tooke has presented the buildings denuded of any fanciful perspective and context – no light, shade, or place – so the façade faces the viewer without blanching, much like architectural elevations. Full frontal nudity, you might say. The series conveys myriad questions and serves as proof of the initial process. By illustrating the famous buildings in such a way, Hales-Tooke implies a cultural lineage which is wound tightly, like cloth around a wire: the buildings are neo-classical, but with added elements of the period that embody the thought of the time.

The subject could become a doctoral thesis. The Age of Reason was not just about science, but an attempt to remove art from science. There was also some Medievil psuedo-science bordering on Black Magic. (I must be thinking of William Blake and the architect Hawksmoor, Wren’s eccentric student! He imagined that the Ancients filled the skies with human-shaped constellations for a good reason.) These stories are writ large in mythic form so we can apply the facts later, if we fancy. Perhaps the whole of the Enlightenment is about “cosmic” wisdom being strained through the eyes of burgeoning science? It’s amazing what you can discover in a tasteful, unassuming shop in SoHo.

Full disclosure: The author admits he knows the methods and preoccupations of Mr. Hales-Tooke. They both studied at Syracuse University during the fermented Eighties and played loudly in a local band.

The Micrographia exhibition closed November 5. Visit the Meg Cohen Design Shop’s Facebook page for up to date information on current and upcoming shows.

Tags: hugh hales-tooke, james rosenthal, meg cohen, meg cohen design shop, micrographia
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