Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Alum Joseph Maida Featured Online at TIME Lightbox

Celebrate Japan’s White Day with Joseph Maida by Lily Rothman

Joseph Maida, an American photographer who has been working on a Japan-based project since 2007, was in a department store in Kyoto when he first saw the little plastic miniatures of Western consumer goods. The toys sparked nostalgia but were clearly not the product of his own culture. “On the surface they seem completely Western,” he says, “but at their core they’re actually based on something Japanese.”

That collision formed the basis for his ongoing project, selections from which are featured in the gallery above. The series, Dream Factory, is his take on how Western culture is filtered through Japanese culture. The simplest example of the phenomenon, he says, is in the country’s food, where a dish can look like hamburgers or spaghetti but cater to the taste buds of a Japanese palate. Other instances, such as the scene of a woman playing a keyboard in what looks like a glass bubble (shown above), are subtler, as they require the viewer to think about a Japanese instrument based on a European instrument, played during a Japanese winter festival that uses Western ideas of what a “winter wonderland” should look like.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Gabrielle Russomagno New Art Work at I House

709B by TangenT is on exhibition from March 12 - June 4 at the International House at Univ of Penn.

TangenT is a collaborative dedicated to mixed-media, project-based, immersive art environments exploring socially relevant and politically current themes. TangenT is comprised of artists William Cromar, Yvonne Love, and Gabrielle Russomagno.

709b is a diptych video that takes the viewer on a virtual video voyeur voyage. Originally presented as two simultaneous projections for a DesignPhiladelphia event in Rittenhouse Square during October 2009, the footage has been expanded and sound has been added. It is an artwork that explores identity and place as well as the private and public expressions of daily life. The mask we wear and the identities we project to others are not the ones we use when we think we’re not being seen… an idealization of a more messy reality, not unlike map-making generally. Map-making’s most modern iterations, Google Maps and Google Earth, become for us a metaphor for this human proclivity.

The soundtrack features guitar work by Mike Brenner and public domain found sound, including human body sounds from FindSounds, as well as recordings of so-called “number stations” purportedly used by spy organizations for one-way, coded communication. Tracks of the numbers stations have been compiled at The Conet Project. 709b also stars performance artists Joel Richard Gori (Google Man) and Sasha Tomato (Fire Juggler). Students at Penn State Abington Art Program are assisting with the creation of the Rittenhouse Carpet.

Gabrielle Russomagno received her MFA in photography from Yale University in 1989. She has exhibited nationally and internationally since 1985. Her work is included in many permanent collections including The Museum of Modern Art in New York. She chairs the Visual Arts Department at Germantown Academy in Fort Washington and is a visiting artist at Lafayette College in Easton, PA.

Yvonne Love received her MFA in sculpture from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994. A sculptor and installation artist, she exhibits her work nationally and is represented by Sidetracks Gallery in New Hope, PA. Dedicated to arts and arts education, Love founded an art school for visual and performing arts in New Hope, PA and a non- profit regional artist in residence program. She is a senior lecturer at Penn State Abington College.

William Cromar received his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994. He is an architect, animator and musician who has exhibited his work nationwide since 1983. The recipient of a Silver Medal at the 1983 International Biennial of Architecture in Sofia, Bulgaria, he was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, a Samuel Fleisher Art Memorial Challenge Exhibition and was a finalist for the Pew Fellowships in the Arts. He currently teaches at Penn State Abington College.

Gallery Hours at the International House are Monday through Friday, 10am to 6pm. Admission is
FREE to International House art exhibitions.

H. Hall in Artist showcase at the Big Screen Plaza in NYC

Dave Love and student Hadley Hall, had the honor of being showcased in NYC's Time Square during the National Arts Education Association annual conference. Young artists and their families traveled from all over the United States to view their art showcased on the big screen an event sponsored by Artsonia in an event designed to turn young artists into life long artists.

About the art work:

The artwork was created using relief printmaking and collage and was inspired by the artwork of the Pacific Northwest. Hadley - "I spent my childhood years in the Northwest and the artwork of the native people always made a great impression on me. The uniqueness of the imagery I saw there has stayed with me ever since. I juxtaposed the graphic qualities of the fish and water with a depiction of the female and male form in exploring the interconnectedness between man and nature."

Senior Spotlight: B. Hoeppner

The Ten

Tiger Woods, golf, Florida State Seminoles, North Carolina Basketball,

6ers, grilled chicken, The Phillies, family,

The Philadlephia Eagles, water

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Collaborative Drawing in HOME Show

David Love's drawing and painting students in collaboration with the community at large has designed a drawing project that is on display in the HOME show. Clearly written instructions along with a practice area and art piece hang together inviting students and visitors to the gallery to participate in the drawing.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Senior Honors Arts Exhibit thru May 30, 2012

In what is the final installation in the Honors Art Gallery, the class of 2012 have put together a collection of works that is impressive in its scope and depth. From painting to printmaking, color and silver photography to image installations, from furniture to small metals, this collection of artwork is a tour de force of craft, vision, and creativity. Please join us for an artist reception in honor of the seniors on April 19 from 5-6:30 in the Honors Art Gallery.