Jessica Kourkounis

We told you about the Philadelphia Art Hotel, a super-short, quirky artist residency that breaks all kinds of rules, this summer. PAH’s proprietors, Krista and Zak Peel, have since moved into the Kenzo house they spoke about, complete with three floors for the married couple, live-in artists and a gallery, and — perhaps one day — an artist-made mini-golf course. They announced today that they’ll be holding a benefit/gallery exhibit at the Walking Fish Theater (2509 Frankford Ave., 215-427-2822) on Fri., Dec. 4 from 5:30 to 10 p.m., and OH MY GOD, can you please go and donate so they can get that golf course? HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE??

Anyway. The exhibit features “12 miraculous, miniature, museum models” by artists including Karl Erickson, Matt Bergstrom, Cara Levine and Ross Martens. The works have been photographed for a 2010 calendar, too, which will be available for $30 at the benefit and $40 online.

Last summer, City Paper contributor Andrew Thompson wrote a piece about Charles Hayes, a 62-year-old ex-addict whose life turned around after he began painting at the Ridge Avenue Shelter. Unsurprising to anyone familiar with art therapy, gallery owners didn’t take a liking to his work. But that didn’t stop him. He loaded all of his cosmic, theological paintings into a cart and pushed them around North Philly, selling them for $20 to $50 apiece. And he seemed OK with that:

“Things come to mind that I wouldn’t normally think of if I didn’t have a brush in my hand,” he says. “If I never get in a gallery, I’m gonna always figure out things to get across to people.”

Well, how’s this for a feel-good story? Hayes finally got his gallery show. Since last month, his paintings have been displayed at Pageant : Soloveev (607 Bainbridge St., 215-925-1535) in the group show “Aforteore.” Swing by to take a look soon — the show closes on Nov. 22.

Cool Aggregator

Every Tuesday, Critical Mass sifts through the art blog world so you don’t have to.

— McJAWN gives us a peek of one of the pieces in “The Cosby Show,” a bad sweater-inspired exhibit up at CafĂ© Mocha (263 S. 10th St., 215-592-4303). Is it just me, or does the Temple grad look kinda smug in the illustration?

— Breast painting is an artistic endeavor pursuable only by those endowed enough to put bosom to canvas without smearing too much paint. PW Style finds out more from local breast artiste and Craigslist find, Ashley, in this odd yet stimulating interview. Can’t wait till the prick painter comes out of the woodwork.

— Phrequency offers a look at this past Friday’s Making Time, featuring The XX and the Phenomenal Handclap Band at Voyeur. Without being able to hear the music, it’s not at all like being there. But with the help of the photos, you can easily channel your inner awkwardly observational drunk. My favorites: Nos. 19, 34, 54, and 73.

— Ahh, Phooey posts Dilbert-esque irreverent comics on an infrequent but pleasurable basis. Not all are all that funny, but this one is.

— Weeks after its blowout annual event, Design Philadelphia is hosting a free lecture by designer Tord Boontje, who works with lace. His exhibit “Lace in Transition” at the Design Center puts all doilies to shame. Prepare to have your mind Boontjed.

City Paper welcomes Jonathan Wallis, assistant professor of art history at Moore College of Art and Design, to our Critical Mass team. His column, “Perspective,” will run monthly in this space, bringing a critical eye to a visual art scene that continues to thrive in Philadelphia. Questions? E-mail Wallis at jswallis@gmail.com.

philamuseum.org

Water of the Flowery Mill, by Arshile Gorky, oil on canvas, 1944.

To Be or Not to Be …

A retrospective exhibition should be more than just the collection and display of work from the lifetime of an artist. It should also be necessary in some way, whether due to changes in critical approaches to art history, new scholarship on the artist’s life and work, hitherto unknown or unseen works that revise the existing inventory of the artist, or a new curatorial approach. “Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective,” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is an august example of a proper retrospective — almost 30 years has elapsed since the last large gathering of Gorky’s work, and it is clearly time for another look.

Michael R. Taylor, the curator of the exhibition, never chooses his exhibitions lightly — he is a curator and an art historian when he tackles his projects (this one was five years in the making). For Taylor, it’s not just about looking at art; it’s about asking questions that a retrospective can hopefully answer. With three new biographies about Gorky, as well as revisions to the study and understanding of the development of modern American abstraction and surrealism in recent decades, Taylor recognized that it was time to revisit the artist’s life and work, and the show delivers grandly. It is a visual spectacle — a feast for the eyes, and also a provocative reconsideration of one of the most talented and self-driven painters in American modern art.

It’s hard to go wrong with an artist like Gorky. His long periods of self-imposed apprenticeships with artists such as CĂ©zanne and Picasso clearly paid off; his ability to absorb the modern languages of pictorial structure and the handling of paint and color stands out among his contemporaries. It’s not that he is better — he is different. I don’t know of any other modern artist who enacted apprenticeships with recent and current “masters” and stayed closely dedicated to them for such long and intensive periods of study. Gorky works like an academic within a modern vocabulary, and Taylor’s curatorial decisions expose his artistic process during the course of the exhibition. The drawings and paintings in the “Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia” series from 1931-34, for example, guide viewers from an inspirational source by Giorgio de Chirico to a final painted solution unleashed almost entirely from where the artist began (observing this creative track should push aside any accusations by his detractors of a lack of individuality or originality in Gorky’s “apprenticeships”). It’s obvious that Gorky’s craft is a labor of love at all times. His work invites viewers to relish in the details — the way he turns and molds colors together, builds edges, and gracefully drags a liner brush across the canvas with linear elegance. Gorky knows how to paint, and as a disciplined “student” his time was well spent. Click For More »

It seems like we’ve been teasing about putting up a new Critical Mass banner since the Mesozoic era, and here it finally is — courtesy of our art intern Esen Pence and designer Carrie South. In honor of this great day, we’re also launching our new banner policy. Let me explain:

We’re big fans of local artists here at Critical Mass. We love the art stars like Zoe Strauss; we love the up-and-comers; and we love the little guys who haven’t made it into a gallery yet. So, in hopes of promoting all of these artist types while also sprucing up our Web page, we’re inviting everyone and anyone to submit a piece of work that could become our new Critical Mass banner. There are only two requirements: It needs to say “Critical Mass” somewhere, and it needs to fit into our dimensions (612 x 242 pixels, 72 dpi). Other than that, you’re free as a bird. It can be a photograph, a painting, a collage, a pen-and-ink piece, a graphic illustration … whatever, so long as it’s visual. And it doesn’t have to depict the arts in any way at all — for example, it can be as tangential as our Halloween banner. We’ll put the winners up for one month long each, with the first one going up Dec. 1.

You can submit as many works as you’d like, whenever you’d like, to criticalmass@citypaper.net. We will not use the pieces for any other purpose than as our Critical Mass banner, and along with each new banner, we’ll do a post on the artist who created it.

Please tell, e-mail, tweet and RT this post to all of your artist friends and contacts — and hit us up with any questions in the comments! Good luck!

Joe Boruchow

We missed the Nov. 11 opening of “Public Service” at Bean CafĂ© (615 South St., 215-629-2250), and shame on us — Joe Boruchow’s cut-paper works display Philly, in all its funkiness and despicableness, with a kind of loving understanding that any local can respect. Any follower of Boruchow’s is used to seeing his pieces nailed to telephone poles and other makeshift outdoor galleries, but we’re happy to say they work just as well in a proper cafĂ©. The exhibit will be up through Dec. 8.

Tweeting Colors

Tweet the rainbow.

Every Tuesday, Critical Mass sifts through the art blog world so you don’t have to.

— One of the better things to come out of the Great Depression was the temporary public pursuit of what typically is part of the private sector: the arts. As part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, the Works Progress Administration helped stimulate the weak economy by funding artists of all shapes and styles. In honor of this pretty damn wonderful idea, Phillyist reports that the National Constitution Center is hosting a WPA poster contest, open to all ages.

— Since the Phils lost last week, the cloud of Philly’s bruised pride has hung low over the city. Uwishunu is trying to ameliorate this precipitation by promoting a list of Philly firsts, which include the first fire department and stock exchange in the U.S. Take that NYC!

— In conjunction with First Friday, FunnelPages curated its own show … of Internet art. Pieces include a photographic storytelling of a whale hunt, a searchable, visual database of all of the nation’s business leaders, and an interactive color bar that changes along with your tweets. Now where’s the Internet wine and cheese?

— Something I’ve wanted for a really long time: a Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff reunion. Unfortunately, according to Make Major Moves, Will Smith’s movie career keeps getting in the way. Maybe the two of them can find some time to sing the national anthem at Citizens Park during next year’s World Series.

— Leave it to Peter Dobrin, the Inky’s go-to music writer, to find a positive in the SEPTA strike. On his blog Arts Watch, Dobrin notes that there was one thing he really didn’t miss about the buses — the noise. But isn’t it a part of the city’s well-wrought orchestra? Almost like the low rumblings of timpani, if you will?

Matt LaFleur

We here at Critical Mass are big fans of the boutique/gallery/booze proprietor Art in the Age (116 N. Third St., 215-922-2600). (Have you been to their First Fridays? Dudes do not skimp on the ROOT cocktails. It’s hard not to like ‘em after a few.) So we’re happy to hear that this Fri., Nov. 6, the store will be celebrating its first birthday, with a party from 6 to 8 p.m. featuring complimentary ROOT drinks, the opening of the “Impermanent Bliss” exhibit (see above for one of the featured works), and many giveaways. Art in the Age’s Laura Price tells Critical Mass that said giveaways include goodies from “our vendors like Billy Kirk, NSF, Popomomo, Gitman Brothers, Lauren Moffatt and free tickets to any R5 show in November.” Word.

Todd Marrone

Every Tuesday, Critical Mass sifts through the art blog world so you don’t have to.

— Local music blog Phrequency reported yesterday that it just turned one, and will be celebrating its time on this cyber Earth with a party at Kung Fu Necktie (1248 N. Front St., 215-291-4919) on Wed., Nov. 11 at 8 p.m. McRad, Dragonzord, Deep Possum and DJ PHSH will be performing, and it’s free. Not including the present.

— If the steep decline of This Is It ticket sales is any indication, MJ hype may have reached its dĂ©nouement. Or not: The Piazza offers its own take on “Thriller” with a video of the world’s largest simultaneous performance of the dance, which took place last Saturday. The scene is especially set ’cause all the Zombies are wet.

— The medium for most reviews is words, but local artist Todd Marrone expresses his impressions through art produced during a performance, or what he calls “sketchy reviews.” His newest is a rather enthusiastic portrait of Kyp Malone from his set at Johnny Brenda’s.

— PW Style did the leg work for fashion-conscious fans and found a strange/fun “Phil-box” hat on a Japanese Web site. PW also featured a T-shirt tribute to Utley’s beating of New York last night. His new nickname should be King Kong.

Jason Hackenwerth

I went to the opening reception for Jason Hackenwerth’s exhibit, “The Titan and the Fireflies,” at 2424 Studios (2424 E. York St., 215-423-1800) this Friday. And I worried. (For some reason, senior editor Patrick Rapa didn’t.) Making Time Halloween was going to be held there the very next night, and Hackenwerth’s enormous, fragile pieces are made completely out of balloons. Sweet, tempting, pop-able balloons. Surely some drunk Where the Wild Things Are character would wreck the whole thing. Which would be a shame, because the work is weirdly cool. The pieces look like giant underwater creatures, or something Wayne Cohen would whip out at a show … and when you look inside them, it’s like peering into something’s guts.

Thankfully, the folks over at 2424 Studios have some sense, and lifted the artwork via pulley away from all the dancers’ grubby hands. “We raised them completely, so nothing happened,” leasing manager Jessica Ruck told Critical Mass.

The show will be up through Nov. 28.

And if you’re curious about how the hell Hackenwerth creates these huge balloon specimens — let alone what art class he took to learn such things — the video below helps.