Miss Honeypenny’s First Friday High Five: February Edition
After the jump, rocks, glocks, Locks, Tut, whuskey and the fuuuuuuture.
Happiness Is A Cold Gun: “Rocks And Glocks” At Bambi, Opening Tonight!
Presented by Bambi tonight are two artists with work that is expertly cut, chromed, polished and pointed straight at you. Veleta Vancza is a metalsmith who creates a constellation of glittering, large-scale diamond and star forms, struck from iron and brass with innate talents that the gallery claims “hail from Vulcan‚Äôs forge alone.” Also on view are paintings and prints by Ron Ribant that elevate the sexiness of guns to an art form. Infused with the cool-steel beauty of form and their natural drop-deadly function, the images are alluring in their own way no matter how you feel about the dangerous subject matter. Pre-party warning: Bambi openings are always a crowded club and tonight the gallery is already full of rocks and glocks‚Ķ We think it‚Äôd be best to leave your heat and ice at home. Bling, bling, shoot, shoot.
Born In Arizona, Moved To Babylonia, King Tut: Well, Sort Of…
Droves of record breaking crowds lined up and camped out for two things in the late ’70s: Star Wars was one of them, and the treasures of the boy king Tutankhamun was the other. Holding the record for the highest-attended museum exhibition in history, the Tut tour with his original backing band set the precedent for art and artifact display as ?ºber-marketing tool and paved the golden way for many of the theme-park-style exhibits that we (are didactically told to) enjoy today. The Franklin Institute ‚Äî calculatingly smart enough to never pass up a blockbuster opportunity (remember the German sense of the grotesque of Body Worlds?) ‚Äî will be hosting King Tut‚Äôs reunion tour till September.
In the 30 years since his self-titled release, however, assinations and criticism over human-rights have served to rock Tut’s homeland, so this new exhibit is framed in a way to promote cultural understanding. Some things to know so you can fully absorb this “cultural understanding” and feel contented enough by it to forget the near $30 ticket price: More than half of the exhibit contains artifacts from different pharaohs, not Tut’s famous tomb, (no big deal right? antiquities are antiquities…), but more importantly, the ever-pastiche death mask (yep that one that you’re recalling from the National Geographic cover) isn’t in the show. Supposedly, by law, it isn’t permitted to travel outside of Egypt. (Queue the pop-cultural reference that you’re probably already humming.) As Steve Martin croons in his caricature novelty song, he gave his life for tourism — you too may have to risk life, limb and credit history by actually traveling to Egypt to lay eyes on the most iconic headpiece in history.
Bodies Of Desire: The Objectified OTHER At Locks Gallery
The idolized odalisque versus the Playboy pin-up fight over figures, especially female figures, as depicted in art and porn predates both Willem de Kooning‚Äôs and Chloe Piene‚Äôs careers and, a-hem, collective bodies of work. The works on paper on view at Locks Gallery through the end of this month play right into the hands of this conversation with images that are brazenly seductive and autoerotic. De Kooning‚Äôs Women series of drawings from the late 60‚Äôs (pictured, many of which were completed, surprisingly, with his eyes closed) were applauded at the time as seeming less like (sex) objects and more like subjects that embody not simply the artist’s desire but a desire of their own. They were celebrated then and now for inverting the male gaze with an almost mirrored reflection of retort, and recalling the philosophical dictum that desire is always desire of the Other.
Representing an element of this “otherness” are charcoal drawings on equal footing with (and infused full of) these same sentiments by young Brooklyn based artist Chloe Piene. Interspersed between each other, all works incite you to the same discourse between these artists, their work and its gazers. It’s up to you to consider or perhaps re-consider how you’ll perceive them, goddess/whore or erotic/forensic. But as all of the work is devoid of flesh-tone, it’s easy to keep it all very cerebral and sexy. Feel free to snicker or whisper “Hey did you check out the big brains on that one, she seems finely prepared for the struggle?” Wink, nudge.
Proud To Be A Coal-Crackers Daughter
Imagine for a minute you’re in that epic running wedding scene in The Deer Hunter. Now, combine it with a much cooler house band while grabbing the cheapest bottle of whiskey you can find and head to the ICA Wednesday February 14 to groove out to the Espers. As part of the events planned for their Locally Localized Gravity exhibit and as a true celebration of traditional Pennsyl-tucky Coalcracker culture, they’re hosting a BoilO making session. Hailed as “the champagne of the coal region,” it’s a popular and cheap as hell yuletide tonic made from mulling crap whiskey with honey, cinnamon, citrus and other region-approved spices. Like grog, we imagine, but even dirtier. Supposedly, every Coalcracker (popular nickname for folks who hail from the PA coal regions) has their own closely-guarded family recipe. The ICA is providing the mulling elements and supposedly the polka but we have two questions: When did the open container policy on Penn’s campus radically change? But more importantly, when the hell did the Espers get an accordion player? We suppose that polka has its prog elements in the way that it just leads on for-freakin-ever… but who cares, everybody POLKA, and drink up! (Hiiic-up.)
Seeing The Trees Through A Tech-Consumed Forest
Raising questions about the nature and function of art in a market-driven age of information, Fred Forest is a communication artist and theorist who has worked at the forefront of interactive art and new media, sociology, and institutional critique for over forty years. Opening tomorrow at The Slought Foundation is a retrospective of his work that explores instances of communication, new models of anthropological behavior, and our evolving relationship with a world conditioned by technological developments. Be sure to get fully post-modern conditioned before going.
