Last Chance

Catch it or regret it

by Holly Otterbein

Proximity Gallery

Justin Pekera is not dead. But walking through his morbid, sentimental exhibit "All That's Left," you might think he is. The walls are adorned with his most precious belongings — a teddy bear, a Lethal Weapon VHS signed by Danny Glover, Polaroids of assorted girlfriends and friends — as if his family hung them there as a makeshift memorial. Most convincingly, the exhibit includes a tongue-in-cheek will, in which he bequeaths things like "framed surgical pins" and a "framed broken pool stick" to his loved ones.

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

If not death, what's the occasion? "I turned 30," says Pekera, the director of print services at the University of the Arts. In fact, since his birthday was on the day of the opening reception, he invited his family and friends to celebrate — but didn't tell them anything about the exhibit until they arrived at Proximity.

"This is a show for the people involved with the items," says Pekera, recalling the memories exchanged among his guests on opening day. But take it from someone who had never met Pekera until last week: You don't need to know the man to appreciate the exhibit. Conversely, being a stranger may be a blessing. You get to guess why he took Polaroids of 17 different houses and hung them next to each other, or why a family portrait was deliberately broken into pieces. Perhaps the most intriguing object in the exhibit, though, is just a plain old J. Crew shirt, surrounded by a wooden frame that Pekera constructed. It's the simplicity that makes it so mysterious — why, alongside things like casts and medals and teddy bears, would such a boring piece of clothing be important to him?

"Everyone asks about that shirt, even people who know me. Which is weird, because there's also a vest in the exhibit that's just as plain, and no one asks me about that. People are drawn to that shirt," he says.

"But I'm not going to tell you what it means. I want you to devise your own stories about it."

Ends Feb. 28, 2434 E. Dauphin St., 267-825-2949, proximityart.com.

Philadelphia Photo Arts Center

As we speak, the exhibit "Going from Nowhere" is growing. Curators Sarah Stolfa and Christopher Gianunzio invited eight artists (from cities as varied as Tokyo, Berlin and New York) to submit two digital images each week for the duration of the 12-week show, which the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center then printed out and added to the exhibit.

The two artists to follow through the Feb. 27 closing date are Nathan Baker, who shoots runners in all their awkward glory (see above); and Jen Davis, whose imagined online correspondence with a hunky Spaniard makes you question the authenticity of communicating via Internet.

Ends Feb. 27, 1400 N. American St., Suite 103, 215-232-5678, philaphotoarts.org.

University of the Arts

The Pop Art world can sometimes feel like a sausage party. Thankfully, it turns out there's much more to the movement than Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Check out "Seductive Subversion: Women in Pop Art 1958-1968" to see the female Poppers we rarely hear about.

(holly.otterbein@citypaper.net)