The Most Important Meal

Stephanie Kirk’s Breakfast Serial-Pink seems an elaborate meal reminiscent of Amy Steven’s luscious pastry photographs while also referring to more deeply embedded traditions of artists like On Kawara who focus on repetition and daily routine. In actuality the meal is fairly simple and the stage well set. The image speaks to the universality of practices while highlighting a tendency to decorate, to glamorize. One could say of all art it is a documentation of human experience. One would be correct. And rather dull. But there is something about the personal chronicling that seems almost compulsive in a media driven culture where the Internet in all its marvels unifies us and makes it possible to know what strangers across the globe may have had for breakfast (if that is what one hopes to know). These images reflect a personal space and an intimate solitary routine documented without a lust show the world her personal life. Taking a picture of a daily practice entails more time than might be imagined. The routine separates the participant from the moment and the repetition of action and habit become a consideration all their own. The progress of the series documents Kirk’s reaction to the contamination of local water supply as she switches to paper plates and bottled water until the problem resolves itself.

Of the series Kirk says, “Breakfast is my favorite meal. I enjoy making it and eating it. I take time to read the detritus that builds up from mail delivery. These images are from Breakfast Serial, a series of images that I took over a year of making breakfasts. The breakfasts don’t vary much except to note the various seasons. I sit at the same place at the table and generally use the same placemat.”

To read the rest of her artist statement and see more of the series visit:

http://www.skirkphotos.com/

Crash, Hush...

Last week I had the opportunity to speak to Linda Celestian about her experience here as a studio artist and about Crash, Hush…, the show she most recently hung here at the DCCA with Kyle Ripp. Crash, Hush… features a dark diptych reminiscent of the ocean at night. One feels the intensity of movement and sound in the midst of abstraction. Linda’s previous work was rooted in nature; from her experiences spending childhood summers living on boat, to the collection of pods and other oddities she stores in her studio to this day. Linda is very articulate about her imagery and emphasizes new methodology she employs, that entails pouring and pushing paint in ways she hadn’t previously. Abstraction has taken over during her time in the studio here and while her work still stems from a natural source she pointedly moves away from mimicking nature to find a balance between its inspiration and her own. For the current show her work is moving even farther from her natural boundaries to include sound and sculpture. An unimposing CD player with headphones stands in the center of the room. Putting them on reinforces the imagery already at play in the space as an uncanny woman’s voice seems to be calling out of a depth for one. In contrast, the sculpture is light, embodying a different experience of the elements. Though her studies originally focused

on fibers and fashion they have not been present in her contemporary work. I feel, given Linda's passion for the new materials and the resulting work, The Ocean’s Whisper to Me, this will not become a solitary instance of sculpture in her greater oeuvre.

Visiting her studio space one is confronted with a series of dichotomies; old and new, realism and abstraction, and warm vs. cool palettes. All of the work she’s showing now presents cool blues, greens and grays. Unseen work in her studio (all on the right-hand side) exhibits intense reds and oranges. There’s a relatively small painting, possibly my favorite piece, hanging in the hall outside of her studio. The palette is very similar to Crash, Hush… but with the intrusion of a somehow romantic rust color that moves the work to great new places. The show will be up through the end of the month, so hurry in to see it.

To see more of her work online, or to arrange a studio visit yourself go to:

http://www.lindacelestian.com/

She has really beautiful bracelets for sale through the store link on her homepage!

Voices in the Gallery

On one of my first days here I wandered the galleries and found myself standing for quite some time in the midst of Gabriela Bulisova’s documentary photo series The Option of Last Resort: Iraqi Refugees in the United States. The poignant works speak for themselves while many of the individuals portrayed struggle to do so. But if it didn’t one can hear the voices of the refugees, young and old, men and women, trying to locate their displacement. I could talk about the beautiful technical manipulations and compositions that clearly articulate a disenfranchised, disillusioned populace but that seems to trivialize it. I stood alone in the E. Avery Draper Showcase on a mark, quite similar to a stage marking, beneath the clear plastic half-sphere that amplified the speaker at that location and muffled it to a degree once one went not too far in any direction. The voices came one after the next talking of threats, rapes, escapes. I tried to locate a beginning and an end, but that blurred it more. As I listened I turned and focused on Bulisova’s prints, unframed and pinned to the wall, each voice seemed to belong to each face or to provide a surrogate where features were blurred. The temporal nature of the hanging combined with the universal title, Iraqi Refugee, attributed to such divergent images made the moment more unsettling. If I stepped off my mark the voices became harder to hear, the accents more difficult to sort through and I started losing them before I left the room. One image in particular I returned to waiting and wanting the figure to find resolution but it refused. I read later that after helping the American effort the woman depicted relocated to Michigan where she’s employed at a grocery store hoping one day to be reunited with the man she loves and of whom her parents disapprove. Knowing this now does not make the work better. Reading synopses of personal histories, that without fault fail to tell the whole story, does not compare to Bulisova’s sensitive, unaffected rendering of her subjects and the experience of being in their midst.

Sadly these photos no longer occupy the space; the tragedy and thrill of contemporary art. To see more of The Option of Last Resort visit:

www.metrocollective.org/home


Joseph Barbaccia's Eight Currents can be seen there now through August 29. To preview his work visit:

http://www.thedcca.org/Galleries/draper.html

Art In the Open

Recent Artist in Residence here at the DCCA, Ben Volta is participating in ART IN THE OPEN PHILADELPHIA. The event is happening now through Saturday, June 12th on the Schuylkill River Banks along the path under the Market Street Bridge, with a special reception on Saturday from 3-5.

Ben Volta is a Philadelphia educated artist who is building a reputation for himself exhibiting education-based collaborative works throughout the region. He is the recipient of numerous Arts in Education Grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, is a member of Tim Rollins and K.O.S. in NYC, and is a fellow at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists in Philadelphia.

In 2009 Ben Volta and the young people from the Margaret S. Sterk School for the Deaf collaborated on a DCCA Art & Community Visual Arts Residency project that explored assigned and chosen identity. The result was an impressive installation featuring abstracted self-portraits made with a combination of hand drawn visual elements, mixed media objects, and computer generated digital images. We hope to see Ben back at the DCCA soon!

Polygon Blooms is a collaboration between Ben Volta, educator Jerry Jackson and students at Grover Washington Jr. Middle School. The project will be exhibited at Art in the Open Philadelphia in addition to the work of over 30 other artists.

Looks like Friday will be the best weather for the event so go sooner rather than later!

To read more about Polygon Blooms visit:

http://polygonblooms.blogspot.com/

And to learn more about Art in the Open visit:

http://artintheopenphila.org/

Welcome to the DCCA

Trevor Reese, hope to see you soon, 2008

Wood and fresh fruit

As a recent graduate from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts I am very pleased to be spending my summer interning at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts. Over the last few decades much, if not too much, has been said about the spaces art comes to occupy. Revelations that were critical years ago become a little tired despite their relevance. Somehow though, for me this space transcends many of those concerns. The unfinished ceilings are high enough not to interfere with viewing, but their status reflects the contemporary nature and motivation of the space. The galleries are not numerous or large, but their layout and variation gives one a sense of privacy while viewing and somehow the space seems to keep giving as one turns corner after corner expecting to come to the end but not. Somehow an intimacy is created for the work that contrasts with the flamboyant freshness. One can come here and see unknown works by unknown artists. But the relevance, the variety is so palpable and the space becomes a part of it. In the lobby there’s a large installation part sculpture part game. For a dollar one can make art, be art, support art, whatever fits your mood.

I’ve been asked to start this record of my time here. I want most of all to convey my appreciation and admiration for this space and the people who make it happen. I want to propose a discussion about art as a means to share this space with those who haven’t made it all the way here yet, and hopefully compel a few to stop in, share your thoughts, and take something home with you (did I mention Alternatives, the museum store…?). So for the next few months I’ll be sharing my impressions of the work, people and events here at the DCCA. Hope to hear from you.