February 5-11, 2004
first friday focus
Old City Arts Association
You know what First Fridays are missing? A little guided edification with your cheese cube and cheap wine. Old City Arts Association is doing something about that … except on First Saturdays. The gallery tours that are planned sound like great ways to learn more about specific shows -- from the artists' processes to the curators' eyes. First up on Feb. 7 are four opportunities for this: At 11 a.m., Nancy Herman talks about her digital-textile work at Silicon Gallery. At noon, Wexler's current exhibitors, Thomas Hucker and Kalle Fauset, discuss their Academy of Music-timber furniture. Artist Jack Larimore, CP contributor Robin Rice and Wood Turning Center director Albert LeCoff will take us through the Center's latest show at 2 p.m. and finally, at 3 p.m., Rick Snyderman will discuss his gallery's works-on-paper show, while artist Karen Shapiro will let us in on the process of making her astoundingly realistic food-product sculptures. Sat., Feb. 7, $25 for two sites and lunch, $35 for four sites and lunch. Call Wexler Gallery for more information: 215-923-7030.
Nexus
Nexus welcomes six new members with their own show this month. Under the name "Hit Me!," the artists explore everything from voyeurism to consumer culture to advertising art in several media. Jody Sweitzer set up a Fringe-cam of sorts, a tiny surveillance camera placed on the floor of both the men's and women's bathrooms at "a local venue" during this year's Fringe Festival. She'll show footage from these bathroom tapes in a video installation. Tom McCloskey, Gwen Fryer, Catherine Passante, Elizabeth New and Matthew Brownell will also show new work. Opening reception Fri., Feb. 6, 6-9 p.m. Exhibition runs through Feb. 27, 137 N. Second St., 215-629-1103.
Union 237
Adrian Wecer seems to follow war like a groupie follows his favorite band. It's not a morbid fixation with the death and destruction that war brings to its victims. It's more like a possession, a need to tell these stories. Wecer was a U.S. combat correspondent in Vietnam, and ever since, he's taken his eye for detail and emotion around the world, capturing the violence and tragedy of war for newspaper and magazine readers, and for himself as well. He's documented conflicts in Spain, Nicaragua, Chile, Iraq and Northern Ireland, to name a few. His images are confrontational and almost unsympathetic, making them that much more compelling. Union 237 will also show a short documentary about the first soldier killed in the Vietnam War. Opening reception Fri., Feb. 6, 6-10 p.m. Exhibition runs through March 1, 237 Market St., 215-627-2377.
University City Arts League
When Sean Gannon got a fellowship from PAFA to go to Ireland, surely he expected inspiration -- from the landscape, the people, the rich Celtic history; after all, he's of Irish heritage and grew up around the culture. But what he got was much more: an entirely new approach to his work, resulting in part in "Script," a new show at the Arts League Gallery. Gannon spent hours with two of the most fantastic illuminated manuscripts in the world: at Trinity College in Dublin with the Book of Kells, and at The British Library with the Lindisfarne Gospels. Their knots and curlicues and medieval decoration swirled around in Gannon's head, just waiting to be reincarnated in his own paintings and prints -- all drawn with one organically inspired line. Gannon, also a stone carver, "fell in love" with the neolithic tombs at Newgrange, a town about 80 miles north of London; he'll show four marble carvings influenced by his travels, weighing in at over 100 pounds -- each. Opening reception Fri., Feb. 13, 5:30 p.m. Exhibition runs through March 7, 4226 Spruce St., 215-382-7211.
And Then There's …
At UArts, catch the fantastical woodland glass works of Elisabeth Nickles in the G2 gallery, in a show called "Down in the Hollow." Through Feb. 20, Hamilton Hall, 320 S. Broad St., 215-991-0737. … Big Jar Books is showing the still-life and landscape work of Mike Pavol. Opening reception Fri., Feb. 6, 6-9 p.m. Exhibition runs through Feb. 29, 55 N. Second St., 215-574-1650. … Ann Northrup brings a little "Sun and Shade" to CSA Gallery with her poured-paint works of (and painted in) the great outdoors. Opening reception Sat., Feb. 7, 5-10 p.m. Exhibition runs through March 5, 1818 Callowhill St., 215-569-8638. … Lovers of all ages are welcome at the Philadelphia Print Collaborative's "Print Love-In" at the Fleisher Art Memorial. For just $5, artists and printmakers help you make valentines by relief, silk-screen, monoprint, letterpress and lithography. The sentiments are all yours, however. … Sun., Feb. 8, 2-5 p.m., 719 Catharine St., 215–922-3456. … Finally, be sure to catch ADM Gallery's "50% Gray" show in its final weeks; it's an impressive collection of local and international talent in a lovely space. Take special notice of Stephen Coan's "Autumn People," a series of photos of 19th-century ventriloquists' dummies, which Coan has imbued with specific, demonic personalities. Look into their wide wooden eyes, and you won't doubt their potential for mischief. ADM has also dedicated a room to the making of the Women of Northern Liberties calendar. Through Feb. 21, 314 Brown St., 215-925-6040.
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