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(09/29/16 6:50am)
Until October 10, a series of massive, cylindrical cloth curtains will hang in a cavernous warehouse at Municipal Pier 9 on the Delaware River, next to the Race Street Pier. Staggered throughout the space, the curtains create a constantly wavering and cloudlike atmosphere. Each can be made to spin with the pull of an adjacent rope, an intimate act that causes the fabric to float out like a billowing skirt, or a bed sheet on a clothesline. A natural breeze frequently blows through the open doors of the warehouse, allowing the work of the pulling to mix anonymously with the work of the wind. The installation is habitus, by Ann Hamilton.
(09/22/16 8:41am)
Four monumental, hand–
drawn musical scores, each
accompanied by audio and video,
make up Charles Gaines’ piece
Manifestos 2 in the Institute of
Contemporary Art’s The Freedom
Principle: Experiments in Art
and Music, 1965 to Now, a new
show that opened Wednesday,
September 14. Each musical score
corresponds to a document of the
civil rights struggle: Malcolm X’s
last public speech; Peace, Power,
Righteousness: An Indigenous
Manifesto (1999) by Canadian
Mohawk scholar and activist
Taiaiake Alfred, Indocumentalismo
Manifesto—an Emerging Socio–
Political Ideological Identity (2010)
by Raúl Alcaraz and Daniel
Carrillo and the Declaration
of the Rights of Woman and the
Female Citizen (1791) by French
activist Olympe De Gouges.
For the piece, the text of each
document was meticulously
transformed into music, with
each letter becoming a note or
silent musical rest. A chamber orchestra then performed and recorded the resulting scores.
Manifestos 2 is about synthesis.
It brings together different
works of literature from different
movements and different time
periods. It manipulates form by
inextricably linking the musical
with the literary and the visual.
(09/22/16 7:43am)
Street: Can you describe for me your role at the Institute of Contemporary Art?
(09/15/16 7:58am)
University culture is an
alluring one. The intellectualism,
the youthfulness and the
permeating notion of hope for
the future all contribute to a
sort of mythic ideal. Though
romanticized, there is truth to
the idea that college is a period
in a person’s life unlike any
other, for those who are privileged
enough to experience it.
It’s a time for figuring oneself
out and a time when failure
hardly ever has lasting consequences.
It’s a time to take
risks and test different modes
of self and develop deep and
varying interests. This ephemeral
period has been captured
in literature and film, most
recently by a group of Penn
students. Working diligently
the semester before the seniors
on the team graduated this past
spring, these students compiled
and published a book, 33 to
40, about their time at Penn.
(09/08/16 8:57am)
Philadelphia will be alive with contemporary performance and theatre starting Friday, Sept. 9, with the beginning of FringeArts’ annual Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Now in its twentieth year, the 17–day celebration will include over 1,000 contemporary performances across the city, with both performances curated by FringeArts and works produced by independent artists. International, national and Philadelphia–based artists will be on display for the entirety of the festival.
(09/01/16 8:12am)
Chestnut Hill’s Vanna Venturi House is an icon of postmodern architecture. Designed by Robert Venturi, it marks a break from the functionalism and aesthetic sterility common to much of the 20th century’s modernist design, as with Louis Kahn's Goddard Labs on Penn's campus. Designed and constructed between 1959 and 1964 while Venturi was working on his manifesto, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, the house served to manifest his vision for change in contemporary architecture. In the manifesto, which outlines Venturi's architectural ideas, he states "architects can no longer afford to be intimidated by the puritanically moral language of orthodox Modern architecture." With Venturi's argument against the sterility of then—contemporary modernism, the Vanna Venturi House came to codify a wholly new architectural language. Today, it's a jewel of architectural history and the architectural diversity of Philadelphia. Though it remains a private residence, just passing it on the street is enough for Penn students to understand its greatness and see its beauty.