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(04/09/18 1:00pm)
On Adel Wu’s (E ‘21) Instagram are pictures of coffee cups, sushi, and burritos. The typical iPhone snapshots. Maybe to preserve the memory of a meal. Maybe just to put it on her Snapstory. But at closer look, these pictures are not pictures. They’re drawings, drawings with colored pencils that have garnered Adel over 8,000 Instagram followers.
(04/11/18 1:00pm)
“Pushing the Boundaries: Innovation in the Visual Sphere” is more than just the theme of the Penn Lens showcase. It describes all that they do. As the title suggests, the showcase redefines limits, fostering innovation and providing a hub for photographers all over campus to display their work. On April 12th and 13th, Penn Lens will be hosting its annual showcase in Houston Hall 225 Brachfeld.
(04/10/18 1:00pm)
Tucked between the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts and Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall is the Annenberg School for Communication, one of the more heavily traversed spots on campus. While most of Penn students have been inside, few notice the multihued, 17–component mural spanning the east wall of the school’s lobby. It’s Sam Maitin’s (C '51) "Celebration."
(04/02/18 1:00pm)
The first time I looked at a Rothko painting, my mouth fell open in awe. Not the kind of awe where I was astounded by the prodigy of the work, but the kind of awe that a piece like this was worth millions. If I had drawn a block and filled in with colors on a canvas, what would be the difference? This is just one of the many criticisms modern and contemporary art receive: its abstractness is almost too abstract to make an ounce of sense. In comparison to art of the past, which was very much characterized by portraitures and landscapes, there’s no definite object, no definite figure, or even a definite shape in modern art. How (in hell) can the two ever be connected? That’s what this year’s SPEC Art Collective exhibit, Art in Translation: Present Reinterpretations of Art History was all about: the connection between the art of the past and the present.
(04/02/18 1:00pm)
Topping the list of sectors Penn students enter upon graduation are three industries: finance, consulting, and technology. These three fields are what this school prepares the quintessential Penn student for, fields built around highly institutional settings, predictably long hours, and cemented paths leading up towards the top of the hierarchy. But what about the others? For those who break from the traditional route at Penn, their lives are substantially different. And particularly for those working independently in the arts and creative fields there is an even a larger divergence from the norm. One such person is Terrill Warrenburg (C ’16), a recent Penn grad who has pursued and found success in her art.
(04/12/18 1:00pm)
The Museum
(04/02/18 1:00pm)
Look around campus and you’re bound to see a laptop sticker or a mug from Penn Create. The people who have them probably aren't in the club. But the fact that they have them should says something about its influence. Maybe the word “club” here isn’t even used correctly. Penn Create is more of an environment, one that brings together artists from across campus to create both art and a community.
(04/19/18 1:00pm)
Picture this: a bright purple yoga mat unrolled out amidst a sea of others. The one beside is an aquamarine. The one in front is a fire engine red. On the mats are the “yogis,” so they’re called, perfecting their downward dogs and child’s poses. But surrounding them is a van Gogh, a Matisse, a Picasso. It’s a weird image, but it’s one that’s becoming more and more popular. Okay, maybe not this exact image. While other food and fitness trends have grown in popularity with society's increasing emphasis on health and mindfulness, one unlikely trend too has surfaced: doing yoga and meditating in art museums.
(03/29/18 1:00pm)
Most people studying in Van Pelt's Moelis Family Reading Room never really notice the huge mural on the wall, tossing it a sideways glance without reading the placard posted beside it. But the huge felted wool mural, entitled Field of Transformation, stands nineteen feet wide and sixty feet tall, commanding the entire space.
(04/17/18 1:00pm)
Science and art are often considered to be two separate domains. Even though the fields actually have a lot of similarities between them in the ways they approach visual analysis, it’s rare to see them overlap at the professional level. It was in this lack of crossover that Dr. Greg Dunn and Dr. Brian Edwards saw an opportunity to create an artistic representation of science itself.
(04/23/18 1:00pm)
When I was little, I would reread the Harry Potter series over and over again, its words conjuring images of the epic battles between Harry and Voldemort. But ever since the film adaptations appeared on HBO, I found myself curling up with my favorite characters in a different medium. Maybe it’s because watching it on TV is more passive. There’s no flipping of pages or scanning the lines; my eyes would fix on the same screen over the two hours. Or maybe it’s because having Harry on screen meant that I didn’t have to lug the heavy book–boxed set around in my backpack. Regardless, the outcome has been that I’ve read and seen the Sorcerer’s Stone countless times, leaving me looking for other ways to revisit my favorite characters. This semester, my screenwriting class provided an answer: read the screenplays.
(03/27/18 1:00pm)
A photo today is hardly reflective of our world, but rather a display of our ideals. Profile pictures are the best photos of us, not what we look like on a day–to–day basis. Snap stories (or now Instagram stories because of the terrible new update) tell the stories of our best days, not the days we spend hours pouring over missed readings within the confines of Van Pelt. There’s a missing ingenuity in these captured images, an ingenuity that Isabel Zapata (C ’19) reclaims through her photography.
(03/31/18 1:00pm)
Far too often, overviews of art history focus on male artists. This is not to say that those artists aren’t deserving; they are. But despite having the same level of influence, why are the female artists of these same time periods so often left overlooked?
(03/24/18 1:00pm)
In higher education, potential visual arts and graphic design majors have three choices: 1) Attend an art school, 2) Attend a large university with a visual arts department, or 3) Attend a university with an art school. It’s a Goldilocks situation: soft, medium, or hard art. The decision comes down to choosing between one of pure art or one that mixes the fine and liberal arts. But what distinguishes studying art in a college setting from pursuing an art degree at an art institute? Why do we even fathom taking art classes somewhere where art is eclipsed?
(03/23/18 1:19pm)
Jazz plays over the Kelly Writers House stereo system, while a small crowd gathers waiting for slam poet Gabriel Ramirez. A group of students imitate popular slam poses. One girl stands with her palms upturned, “summoning the poem."
(03/30/18 1:00pm)
If the Royal Shakespeare Company is the Top 40 of Spotify playlists, then the African American Arts Alliance, also known as "4A," at Penn is the indie alternative playlist. Maybe that's not the best analogy—or even a good one at that—but I make this comparison to show what 4A is all about: showcasing voices outside the mainstream.
(03/30/18 1:00pm)
The relationship between art and academia is oftentimes uneasy. University–based art teaching is comparable to scientific research, where craft and technique are subordinate to formal analysis and critical theory. But art doesn’t have to be intellectualized or institutionalized. At Penn, students like Jenn, Hadeel, and Faith all do art on their own time, allowing it to permeate their lives. This is the kind of engagement the arts program in the college houses aims to support: to imbue the arts into daily life.
(03/23/18 2:00pm)
One of the most important mantras in art is that the images on the screen aren’t enough. To really understand a piece of art, you have to experience it in person. The torsion of Bernini’s St. Peter’s Baldachin demands a three–dimensional viewing. The light and shadow of Picasso’s cardboard guitars bring the abstract shapes together to form the whole instrument. Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors has a memento mori that can only be fully seen when the viewer stands at an extreme angle relative to the painting’s surface. But what happens when the art student can no longer afford admission to the art museum?
(03/20/18 1:00pm)
Designers reinvent black for every generation. In the jazz age, it was Coco Chanel’s little black dress. Though millennials have done away with such rigidity, designers still return to classic black as a point of inspiration.
(03/20/18 1:00pm)
Art installations at Penn tend to be ephemeral. Installed one day, taken down the next week, if not the next day. Or at least this is largely the case in the Fine Arts undergraduate program, such as in Helen Nie’s exhibit challenging the conventions of OCR, Jason Barr and Linda Lin’s reimagination of Benjamin Franklin as a woman, and Jake Welde and Izzy Korostoff’s gingerbread replica of the Fisher Fine Arts Library. But for graduate students, the story is a little different. With access to local galleries in Philadelphia, graduate students in the arts have the opportunities to curate, install, and showcase their work in exhibitions.