Visual Art

In many ways it’s shaping up to be a memorable fall, with exhibitions about music, mixed genres and fashion. Also, perhaps, an egotistical season with many self-referential works. "But," we hear someone muttering, ?

by Robin Rice

Checking in with Jeff Waring

A member of artist co-op Highwire Gallery in Old City and an art teacher at the Westtown School, Waring is currently exhibiting "Ebb and Flow," a show of paintings, drawings and video at Highwire. Asked for his picks for this upcoming season, Waring was too excited about Highwire to talk about anything else:

"This coming season I’m looking forward to a revitalized music, performance and multimedia presence at Highwire Gallery and the cross-fertilization which results from combinations and permutations across forms. … My own approach to creating visual art has been impacted just as much from the saxophones of Jack Wright and Elliot Levin, the synthesizer of Woz or the percussion of Toshi Makihara as it has from fellow artists and exhibits."

"Inside Out"

Through Sept. 28, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th St. and the Parkway, 215-763-8100. The PMA's annual exhibition of art by prisoners. Watercolors, assemblage, found objects and work in other media by selected inmates of Graterford and Frackville state prisons is sophisticated and varied in subject matter and style.

Jeff Waring: "Ebb and Flow"

Through Sept. 28, Highwire Gallery, 137 N. Second St., 215-829-1255. Waring's solo exhibition of paintings, drawings and videos will be his last show in Highwire's current location in the Second Street Art Building. The artist-run gallery is still seeking a new space. Appropriately, "Ebb and Flow" explores themes of change.

Charles Fahlen

Through Oct. 11, Locks Gallery, 600 Washington Square S., 215-629-1000. Former Philadelphian Fahlen is showing playful yet formally elegant "constellations" made from metal chains or mesh and oversized beads of bright-colored epoxy.

Barbara Ess: "I Am Not This Body"

Through Oct. 26, Goldie Paley Gallery, Moore College of Art and Design, 20th St. and the Parkway, 215-965-4027. The mysterious reality recorded by pinhole photography is appealingly low-tech, especially when the artist uses a camera made of cardboard. Ess' work opens Moore's season with an intimate yet expansive presentation of the mundane.

Dave Allen: "The Mirrored Catalogue d'Oiseaux"

Through Oct. 26, Arcadia University Art Gallery, 450 S. Easton Road, Glenside, 215-572-2131. The liquid song of mockingbirds is the centerpiece of this installation by Scottish artist Allen. The idea is that the singing of a pair of real mockingbirds will be influenced by French composer Olivier Messiaen's experimental piano composition Catalogue d'Oiseaux, which, in turn, is based upon the songs of birds.

Patti Smith: "Stranger Messenger"

Through Dec. 7

Gillian Wearing: "Mass Observation"

Through Dec. 14, The Institute of Contemporary Art, 118 S. 36th St., 215-898-5911. The ICA is 40, an age at which one may be up-to-date but not juvenile. Appropriately, this fall it's featuring a Young British Artist, Wearing, in her first American survey. In Wearing's photographs and videos, she is both documentarian and cryptically present. Simultaneously, singer/songwriter Smith has her first museum survey of works on paper from the 1960s to the present. Smith will perform her music and poetry on Thu., Oct. 16, 8 p.m., at Zellerbach Theatre in the Annenberg Center.

"Sculptural Prints"

Sept. 12-Nov. 1, The Print Center, 1614 Latimer St., 215-735-6090. This show brings together 25 artists working in forms of relief and a full three dimensions. Participants include Nancy Spero, with a print on a silk banner; Nick Cassway, exploiting shadows cast by print on glass; Jennifer Bolande, whose multifaceted house projects from a wall; and Joy Episalla, who props photographs of large cushions against the wall. Many works in the show fall under the broad umbrella of book arts.

"Unearthed"

Sept. 21-Nov. 30, The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, 8480 Hagy's Mill Rd., 215-482-7300. This exhibition, organized by Warren Angle, features meditations on natural forms by four three-dimensional artists. Unusual materials and perspectives dominate the show. Karen Stone defines space with kitsch materials; Lisa Murch alludes to submarine worlds on walls; Laura Moriarty's encaustic works relate to geology; and Andrew Yff proposes a future symbiosis of technology and botany.

"’Shocking!' The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli"

Sept. 28-Jan. 4, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Probably it won't be utterly "shocking" -- the name Schiaparelli (1890-1973) gave to the color we today often call "hot pink" -- but the PMA's survey of Schiaparelli's fashion career is sure to be inspiring, invigorating, a season standout and a challenge to your Birkenstocks. The daring couturier rivaled Coco Chanel and collaborated with surrealist pals, including Salvador Dalí and Meret Oppenheim. Costumes worn by Mae West and Zsa Zsa Gabor will be in the show.

Jon Clark

Oct. 3-Oct. 31, Snyderman Gallery, 303 Cherry St., 215-238-9576. Internationally recognized glass artist Clark has been intensively studying scientific specimens -- botanical and others -- in many places, including Philadelphia's peerless Mütter Museum. For Snyderman, he's planning an ambitious installation of clear blown glass forms relating both to nature and to the artfulness in scientific display.

Rookwood Pottery

Nov. 15-Feb. 8, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gerald and Virginia Gordon have given a collection of over 130 examples of Rookwood pottery to the PMA, 85 of which will be on display in this exhibition. Rookwood was a high point of the American pottery movement, producing handcrafted work in a great variety of forms and colors. Its designs were influenced by Art Nouveau and Art Deco, as well as by the ceramics of Persia, Japan and early America.

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