September 4-10, 2003

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The Mobile Pleasure Lounge Goes Mod

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Since opening Old City's Taji Modern Gallery, Taji Nahl has mixed and sampled, as would a DJ, his different eras of museum-quality furnishings from 20th-century masters like Charles Nelson and the Eames with the sights and sounds of equally modernist video and music makers of the Philadelphia area. If there's a commingling of chairs and lamps from the 1920s to the 1960s, then Nahl's pal, composer/bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, must be involved; Tacuma, at his Tritone and Clef Club performances, uses Nahl's furnishings as backdrop to his avant-fusion noodlings. The collaboration continues with "The Mobile Pleasure Lounge Goes Mod," a video collage installation and First Friday event featuring the work of Tom Spiker (perhaps best known for guitar and bass work in Calvin Weston's Big Tree). Tacuma and musical accompanists June Lopez, Tony Catastrophe and others will create a constant "live remix" loop for the event. The end result mixes the history of Op furniture design with Spiker's own live interactive camera work for an installation more seriously kitsch than your average kitchenette.

“The Mobile Pleasure Lounge Goes Mod,” with Taji Nahl, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Tom Spiker, June Lopez, Tony Catastrophe and DJ D-Star, Fri., Sept. 5, 7-9 p.m., free, Taji Modern Gallery, 62 N. Third. St., 215-922-2757.

—A.D. Amorosi

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