Visual Art

by Robin Rice

Kori Newkirk

Through Feb. 14, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, 1315 Cherry St., fifth floor, 215-568-1111. The Fabric Workshop presents the white-on-white, site-specific sculpture of artist-in-residence Kori Newkirk. Danger and beauty -- the awesome duo of the sublime transformed by a pop sensibility -- are represented in subject matter that includes sharks and neon icicles. Interactive snow globes invite viewer participation.

"Mythic Visions: Yarn Paintings of a Huichol Shaman"

Through March 31, University of Pennsylvania Museum, 3260 South St., 215-898-4000. In a relatively recent tradition, José Ben’tez Snchez "paints" with yarn to depict blazing peyote visions linked to the Huichol Indians' cosmology. "Mythic Visions" presents 31 paintings by Snchez, circa 1980-2000. Although peyote is not native to the Huichol lands, every year small groups of Huichol people travel 300 miles to gather the peyote cactus in the desert in the Mexican state of San Luis Potos’.

"Group: 5 New Resident Artists"

Through Feb. 1, Nexus Foundation for Today's Art, 137 N. Second St., 215-629-1103. Nexus welcomes 10 new members this year. Susan Abrams' work blends photography and papermaking to deal with the cycles of life: generation, growth and decay. Virginia Batson utilizes the residue of the human body, her own hair and fingernails, in her installation. Fashion merchandising and display are the context of Anne Cecil's work. Photographer Jenny Drumgoole takes her immediate family as a primary subject, while James Wasserman shoots abandoned desert homesteads and residents from the same area, Wonder Valley, Calif. Five additional Nexus newbies -- Matthew Brownell, Tom McCloskey, Elizabeth New, Catherine Passante and Jodi Sweitzer -- will be featured in the Feb. 6-29 show.

"Hopping Fences: Influences in Modern Living"

Jan. 16-May 2, Philadelphia Art Alliance, 251 S. 18th St., 215-545-4302. A multidisciplinary event, "Hopping Fences" is a collaboration between the Philadelphia Art Alliance and the Design Center at Philadelphia University. Five area architecture and design firms are making site-specific installations for the Art Alliance galleries. Each firm has a distinctive aesthetic, but all direct their energies toward a contemporary synthesis of architecture, design and fabrication. This is a significant direction of design practice today. Work in the exhibition will be interactive with visitors --often playful, sometimes deliberately challenging to perceptions.

Sarah McEneaney

Jan. 24-April 4, Institute of Contemporary Art, 118 S. 36th St., 215-898-5911. It's hard to believe that the ICA is the first to give Sarah McEneaney a well-deserved solo museum show. McEneaney has slowly but inexorably gained broader and more elite recognition for her detailed, autobiographical egg-yolk tempera paintings.

"Collateral Damage: Echoes in Our Soul"

Feb. 6-March 20, Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St., 215-925-9914. Perhaps the first major local antiwar exhibition growing out of the situation in the Middle East is planned by the women's collective Peace by Piece for the Painted Bride Art Center. Organized by Lou Ann Merkle, the show will include the work of 10 artists in sculpture, photographs, linocut prints and multimedia works.

"Manet and the Sea"

Feb. 15-May 31, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th and the Parkway, 215-235-7469. Blockbuster alert! This season, the 19th-century painter Edouard Manet will be the primary attraction at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Manet and the Sea" surveys the great realist's marine paintings and places them in the contemporaneous context of artists like Monet, Morisot and Whistler. Though we think of Manet as documenting ordinary daily life, which he does, a number of these works take historical themes.

Thom Lessner

April 16-May 8, Spector Gallery, 510 Bainbridge St., 215-238-0840. Lessner is featured in Spector's first spring show. It's the second solo show for this self-taught painter who depicts pop culture icons in acrylic and house paint on wood panels. He's received recent recognition locally for his high-spirited images used by the Paul Green School of Rock in their advertising. Rock stars riding bicycles will be prominent in this body of work, and high-school students from the school will play rock 'n' roll classics at the opening.