Open Wide

Artists do it outside. And they want you to watch.


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Published: Jun 1, 2010

TICKLED PINK: Laura Anderson Barbataï¿½s Scarlet Ibis spreads its wings across the Schuylkill.

Stefan Falk

TICKLED PINK: Laura Anderson Barbata's Scarlet Ibis spreads its wings across the Schuylkill.

[ astral pleins ]

How do you get people to go see art, especially people who don't go to galleries or museums? One option: Bring the people to the artists, like the annual Open Studio Tours.

But then there's a radical solution: Bring the artists to the people.

Enter Art in the Open Philadelphia, a new festival on the banks of the Schuylkill River. For four days, 36 artists will set up shop — from Fairmount Water Works down to Schuylkill River Park on the east bank, and in Bartram's Gardens on the west — and create work outdoors. Much of it will be informed by the river itself, as people walk by, perhaps stop to watch and, depending on the artist, even participate in the creative process.

The concept was inspired by en plein air, says Mary Salvante, Art in the Open co-founding producer and director of Rowan University Art Gallery. The term directly translates to "in the open" and is used to describe painting outdoors, long practiced by the Impressionists. But Art in the Open is a little different.

"We wanted to reframe this concept of plein air painting to be more relevant currently, in terms of what kind of art is being produced today," Salvante says. To that end, the festival's artists include photographers, bookmakers, sculptors, knitters, musicians, dancers and installation artists. San Francisco artist Valerie George is bringing her "Car Kit," a 1983 300TD Mercedes Benz Wagon modified to be a self-contained recording studio. Baltimore's Laure Drogoul has prepared an Apparatus for Orchestral Knitting — essentially a knitting circle connected to an amplifier. The local Leah Stein Dance Company will create an entirely new performance during the festival's four days.

Audiences will be invited to create, too; at "art stations" scattered throughout the festival grounds, volunteers will hand out art materials to anyone interested. Other organizations are also getting in on the act: the Philadelphia Museum of Art presents its new "Water Work" exhibition and Schuylkill River Development Corporation is sponsoring boat and kayak tours of the Schuylkill.

For some of the artists, the festival's format — working outside, with an audience — presents a challenge.

"Photographers don't usually work in the open, other than in the initial shooting," says photographer Blaise Tobia, who also teaches at Drexel University. "How could I be a part of such a thing?"

Shooting digitally, editing on a laptop computer, and printing from a portable printer, Tobia plans to construct panoramic images of the river, echoing a seminal seven-daguerreotype panorama taken at the Philly riverfront in 1848.

This connection to Philadelphia history, and the history of the Schuylkill, is an important part of Art in the Open.

"Historically, the Schuylkill River was popularized by 19th-century plein air painting," Salvante says. "Today there is a renewed interest in the river and riverfront as assets that enhance people's lives in an urban context."

Artist Tremain Smith agrees. She will spend four days doing paintings of the Cira Centre building as seen from across the river, using found objects and acrylics.

"I think the energy of the river and the people and the other artists and the buildings could combine to help me find a new direction in my work," she says. "It seems like something I could do past these four days."

(editorial@citypaper.net)

Art in the Open Festival | Wed.-Sat., June 9-12, 9 a.m.-6 p.m., free, eastern bank of the Schuylkill River from the Fairmount Water Works to Locust Street and at Bartram's Garden (western bank), artintheopenphila.org