August 4-10, 2005

first friday focus

Ryan Roth's Discovering Nothing, from "A Case for Art" at Highwire (top); Sarah Daub's untitled cut-paper work from "Triple Trouble" at Vox Populi.

by Lori Hill

Vox Populi

This cooperative gallery welcomes the work of three new members this month, in a show called "Triple Trouble": Corey Antis' fantastical depictions of bunkers and fallout shelters, Sarah Daub's cut-paper examinations of troubling objects like straitjackets and rat traps and Xiang Yang's embroidery-in-a-bowl pieces.

Natalie Frigo's work in the gallery's video lounge might be the show-stealer, though. Frigo, who's shown her projects at film festivals as well as art spaces, manipulates historic film footage to her own ends. The two works here are particular to American political culture, but have wider implications. First Ladies shifts the picture frame on news footage of U.S. presidents to focus on their wives, so often relegated to the background — trailing their VIP husbands on strolls across the White House lawn, on their way to Air Force One, or at inaugural speeches. Frigo has said her work, however subtly, "addresses unnoticed alternate histories."

Alternate doesn't begin to describe the history Frigo assembles in the work November 22, 1963. She removes JFK from each frame of the Zapruder footage of his assassination, leaving a strangely vacant collection of imagery. Taking the position that footage was "corrupted" before the public saw it on television anyway, Frigo decided to modify it to alter the day in viewers' minds: It wasn't JFK's horrific murder in broad daylight, but Jackie O's car ride through Dallas on a sunny day.

Reception Fri., Aug. 5, 6-10 p.m., exhibit runs through Aug. 28, 1315 Cherry St., fourth floor, 215-568-5513.

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Highwire Gallery

Some people come into money. Others find themselves with antiques. Leslie Kaufman wound up with briefcases. When Kaufman, an artist and member of Philadelphia Sculptors, inherited a warehouse full of briefcase forms — rounded wooden boxes — from a friend who had just purchased an old briefcase factory, she knew there was creative potential there. After a while, she decided it wasn't what could be done with the briefcase forms, but what could be done in them. So she issued a challenge on the Philadelphia Sculptors Web site, calling it "A Case for Art" and asking artists to create "suitcases" around the themes of travel, heritage, discovery and inventiveness (the last is a nod to Ben Franklin's upcoming tercentenary, and artists were encouraged to include a Franklin reference somewhere in their pieces).

Among the submissions: Etta Winigrad's Life in a Box (full of tiny wood furniture, a sleeping clay figure and a kite), Holly Smith's Mascot of Canum Venaticorum (featuring many-headed — but friendly! — dalmatians from distant planets) and Raye Cohen's Bobble Head Signers of the Declaration of Independence (self-explanatory, we think).

This month, the public can get a sneak preview of the project and see all the cases in one place at Highwire Gallery, before the multisite exhibition (and scavenger hunt) goes citywide from late August to early November. Venues range from the traditional (Fleisher Art Memorial, UArts) to the unlikely but appropriate (Robinson Luggage, Penn's View Hotel). Keep your eyes peeled around the city for these well-packed suitcases.

Exhibit runs Aug. 10-24 at Highwire Gallery, with a reception Sun., Aug. 21, 1-4 p.m., 1315 Cherry St., fourth floor, 215-829-1255. Visit www.philasculptors.org for more information.

And Then There's…

For a few more weeks, Jenna Colby's discus-headed little girls inhabit Art Star Gallery. Her flatly colored acrylic works show the influence of popcult hero Yoshitomo Nara, not only in the figures' appearance but also in their quiet but detectable sadness. Through Aug. 21, 1030 N. Second St., Unit 301, 215-238-1557. … Sande Webster Gallery's been hosting a garden party of sorts this summer, with an exhibition of landscape paintings and photography, as well as outdoor sculpture and real live flowers right there in the gallery. Through Aug. 26, 2006 Walnut St., 215-636-9008.