Last Chance

Catch it or Regret It

by Molly Eichel

Writer John Hersey said that journalism gives the reader a chance to learn about an event while fiction gives them the chance to live it. His book, Hiroshima, is a perfect mixture of medium, chronicling the lives of six survivors of the atomic bomb attack in exquisite detail. Noted African-American artist Jacob Lawrence was commissioned to illustrate the book in the early '80s. But rather than take scenes directly from Hersey's account, Lawrence's paintings embody the moment of the "noiseless flash" of the atomic bomb's detonation. While you're at PAFA, stop by the Peter Saul retrospective, which ends Jan. 4. 

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Thank William Penn for lifting his curse by looking at how his fair city has evolved from his initial vision to present via the streets we walk on every day. Using records, prints and photographs — like a bird's-eye view of 12th and Market in 1912 — the Atwater Kent Museum explores urban life through 300 years of the city's history. Billy would be pumped.

John Rosser digitally manipulates photographs, giving them an otherworldly, alien glow. Among the 200 images in his Area 919 show are Ball Ding, in which spherical buoys give off a purple and blue aura, making them look like giant marbles, and Nuke (pictured), which features nuclear plant cooling towers amid a gradient of candy-colored sky.

The show's title refers not to nudity (bummer, I know) but to the idea that artists lay themselves bare when showing their work. "Naked" features four artists with markedly different styles, from Keith Sharp's reflections-on-water photography to Erin McGee Ferrell's streetscapes (don't miss the one of Geno's, with its impressionistic bent) to Ed Marston's insects and Eric Fausnacht's fowl paintings.

The Art Alliance's exhibit examines the use of glass in contemporary art. But the show doesn't look at glass as a medium, rather how it interacts with the meaning of a piece. In Recollection, local artist Jennifer Blazina has recreated an early-20th-century schoolroom featuring glass desktops adorned with screen prints of students and teachers.