Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
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May 24–31, 2001
arts picks|art
School’s Out, Art’s Up
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With the end of the academic year in a college town comes a bonus for non-academics: the annual shows of student artwork. This weekend’s a good one to catch up on three exhibitions in their final days.
At Moore College of Art and Design, 15 graduating students from five area institutions (Moore, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Tyler School of Art, University of the Arts and University of Pennsylvania) have been selected to show their sculpture in an exhibition sponsored by Philadelphia Sculptors and juried by Moore’s 3-D Fine Art chair Paul Hubbard and glass artist Lucartha Kohler. PAFA’s always-impressive student show (the oldest and largest in the country) is open for business through June 3. And in Old City, a unique project of 19 graduating MFA students from Penn, curated by NY critic (and long-ago City Paper cartoonist) Matt Freedman, has yielded a new gallery and a fascinating variety of work.
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The students have used every inch of the Market Street space. It’s worth a viewer’s time to explore it all — from the elevator shaft (Sarah Zwerling’s pink-sand-and-video-installation, above) to the staircases (Jenny Schultz’s aptly named Sprawl ) to the basement (where Christianne Kapps’ imperious video commands you to "Take Off Your Clothes," Aditi Singh Reddy’s Evanescence beautifully embodies an elusive concept and Mark Norman Brousseau’s Excavation punctuates the basement’s rough textures with bright dashes of paint). In other nooks and crannies, Christopher Burnside’s mosaic parabolas conquer a corner, while Kate Egan pulls you into a mysteriously obsessive little installation through a video porthole.
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Not everything’s site-specific. There’s excellent painting from Steven Labadessa (left) and Jeff Burgert, among others, and a more-disturbing-the-longer-you-look-at-it video of a woman in a melting ice mask, paired with inkjet prints subtly investigating skin tonalities, by Rebecca Davidson.
It all comes down May 25, but we’ll see many of these new faces again, I think — including that of the space itself. Now christened the Horton Gallery, it opens with a solo show this summer by Diana Nocosia.
Philadelphia Sculptors’ Student Exhibition, through May 31, Moore College of Art and Design, 20th & the Parkway, 215-242-4296.
PAFA Annual Student Exhibition, through June 3, 118 N. Broad St., 215-972-7600.
THESIS 2001 Univ. of PA MFA Exhibition, through May 25, Horton Gallery, 237 Market St., 215-898-8374.
