Also this issue:

Dancing in the Rain
Leah Stein faced downpours and language barriers to teach improvisational dance in Poland.
-Anastacia Wilde

Customs Design
-Susan Hagen

Viva Variety
-Ashlea Halpern

Take Two
-Deborah Bolling

Miller Time
-Alex Richmond

August 1- 7, 2002

artpicks

Chaos, Theories

True, dirty-birdie film reels and ripped bodybuilders conceivably tread common territory, but throw in fictional landscapes and for-richer-or-for-poorer politics and you've got one jumbled mess. Or if you're a card-carrying member of the artiste world, you've got a sensible, probing collection at Vox Populi. This month, Vox plays mama to five new experimental artists -- John Lorenzini, Erin Weckerle, Nami Yamamoto, Mauro Zamora and William Speidel -- housing their works until the end of August. The "Hi-five" exhibit opens its doors Friday, prefaced by a forum with the artists themselves. Weckerle, known for carpeting the stone floor of Eastern State's cell block eight with pillows, steps aboard with her fabric trimmings and iconographic pictures poised to pummel societal categorizations (layman translation: gender and class status). Lorenzini, meanwhile, specializes in digital imagery, desktop alteration and vintage pornography as his primary media. Removing only the sweaty, undulating bodies and those priceless porn-star grimaces, Lorenzini appropriates his images by examining the stage sets or rooms where the photos were originally taken (layman translation: a Where's Waldo game of finding the money shot). And while Speidel's sculptures and video study the relationship between wood ornamentation and bodybuilding, Zamora's paintings fill the gap between landscape and architecture, arranging common things in uncommon ways (layman translation: as if you took 67 toothbrushes and hung them from your ceiling, only far more intelligent). Additionally, Vox's fourth room features Philadelphian Tricia Treacy and Belfast-born Martin McClure. Their show "Urban Narratives: Environments Foreign Yet Familiar" is a visual narrative by way of the postal service. It investigates the experience of living in a city and its consequent removal. Deep stuff, peoples.

--Ashlea Halpern

“Hi-five” and “Urban Narratives: Environments Foreign Yet Familiar,” opening reception, Fri., Aug. 2, 6-10 p.m., gallery talk, 5 p.m., free, Vox Populi, 1315 Cherry St., fourth floor, 215-568-5513.

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June 13, 2002
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