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I stared at the word in front of me. It stared back, its font made bigger with each tick of the clock by its unrelenting, dogged determination to not shrink back into nonexistence.
At the corner of 36th and Market, the Esther Klein Gallery, a gallery exploring the connections between art, science, and technology, hosted a display of life. Not in a metaphorical sense, but in the most literal one. A jar of mealworms, a petri dish of cultured bacteria, and a vest–like garment of microbes from the mouth—the gallery was teeming with life. On December 5, students from the class “Integrative Design Studio: Biological Design” exhibited their final projects in a live showcase of the intersection of art and biology
The hallway is lined with trash cans filled to the brim. In them are paper towels used to wipe away accidental errors, that line of paint a little out of place, and the smudge on the side of the canvas. In my own field of vision, there’s four giant yellow rectangles, all marked “Flammable”—far too many for a single narrow hallway, in my opinion. But perhaps not for this specific place. I’m at the Duhring Building, the studios of seniors in the Fine Arts Department and where, last Thursday, the Open Studio for the Fine Arts Senior Project took place.
Down the stairs from Frontera is the home of five cultural houses. But last Friday, what was once simply a space for cultural and community gathering transformed into an art gallery for expression of this cultural and community. Titled inVISIBLE, the gallery was a student–curated, student–crafted space aimed at promoting cultural awareness and the intersectional identity of each through art.
There’s enormous talent on this campus. That’s a fact. From freshmen beginners to Grammy–awarded artists, there’s an endless stream of the performing arts for all to see. Here’s what not to miss this upcoming month:
Cellos and Radiohead—an unlikely pairing, but this Saturday, the Portland Cello Project is making it happen. Performing at the Annenberg center, the group of 9 cellists is putting its own classical twist on Radiohead’s 1997 album OK Computer.
In 1978, after seeing a Mask and Wig show, a few girls at Penn thought to join the club. They were refused. Because Mask and Wig consisted only of males, the option for a girl to join did not exist. That refusal lay the groundwork for the nation’s first of its kind and what is today one of the biggest performing arts groups on campus: Bloomers. Fast forward 40 years later, Bloomers is celebrating their birthday this weekend with their show “The Bachelor, Will You Accept This Rose?”
It’s like Pokémon Go, but in real life. This week, Mural Arts Philadelphia program unveiled its first augmented reality mural, “Dreams, Diaspora, and Destiny” at 5300 Lansdowne Avenue. Through a mobile app (downloadable as MuralArtsAR from the Apple store and soon available from Android), the mural, moving from one end to the other, comes to life with holographic statues and floating orbs.
Through February 17, 2019, the Fabric Workshop and Museum will be presenting Suzanne Bocanegra: Poorly Watched Girls. Spread out across three floors, the exhibit is a multimedia exploration of the way women in trouble are portrayed, drawing from a film, an opera, and a ballet. Amidst the campus conversations surrounding sexual assault and treatment of women fueled by the recent Kavanaugh hearings (such as those of Anita Hill, a law professor, and a survivor), the exhibition is perhaps now more relevant than ever.
There’s more that University City can claim than being home to—well, universities. Located right on 36th and Walnut at the heart of Penn’s campus is the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, the second largest performing arts venue in Philadelphia after the Kimmel Center. Here, the world of theater, music, and dance from across the globe gather—whether that’s at a world premiere of a play or at a show put on by a performing arts group on campus. So what exactly is it?
Walking inside Adrienne Theater in Center City, the first sight is unlike anything I had expected. On September 28th, Le Chapeau Project held their one–day exhibition titled “Shitholes” in celebration of all of the beautiful artwork coming from countries famously described by President Trump as “shitholes.”
The first sighting of Ngon Ngon is a grey, sleek exterior. High chairs adorn the front of the restaurant and the back room shares a similar interior design, with concrete grey chairs and black tables. I’m a little skeptical; the best bowls of pho I’ve had were always in narrow alleys in neighborhoods my mother most definitely would not want me in. In those restaurants, we would huddle over a small table, slurping up the thin, transparent rice noodles, before following suit with the aromatic broth. Here, at Ngon Ngon, the cleanliness of the restaurant is almost a red flag.
It happened again. I closed another one of Haruki Murakami’s books, leaving the world of UFOs, talking cats, and patricides in a trance. Though, to be honest, I was a little unsatisfied with the loose ending, though that’s more likely a function of my personal preference for a tight, happy finish than it was a bad ending. It was Kafka on the Shore this time. Published in 2002, the novel ranked among The New York Times' “The 10 Best Books of 2005.” And rightfully so.
Next Friday, on Sept. 28, “Shitholes” is coming to Philadelphia. A one–day only art gallery at the Adrienne Theater in Rittenhouse Square, “Shitholes” is showcasing art from countries across the world, countries described so infamously by President Trump as “shitholes.”
Last Friday, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) opened its two latest exhibits for the fall: Ree Morton: The Plant That Heals May Also Poison and Cauleen Smith: Give It or Leave It. Both open through December 23, the two, at first, seem like an eclectic collection of miscellaneous art pieces and sundry objects. And maybe, it is so. The exhibits are not bound by their creative content, but rather are threaded together by their underlying themes of openness and expansiveness.
He was the co–curator of Monument Lab. He’s an Officer in the Order of Canada. He has exhibited from one end of the world to another, crossing Sydney, Sāo Paolo, Shanghai, and so much more. This is Professor Ken Lum: Professor and Chair of the Fine Arts department, artist, curator, and educator.
At FringeArts festival from Sept. 6–23, artists will be exhibiting and attendees of the festival will be watching. Meanwhile, Chuck Schultz (LPS ‘19) will be live sketching the whole thing: the narrative, the lighting, and the movements.
Emma Berson (C ‘19) is a renaissance woman in the arts. Graphic designer, sculptor, screenwriter, director—and that’s just the shortlist. While she is focusing on film at present, she has spent her college career doing anything and everything artistic from designing politically charged apparel to creating permanent geofliters.
As classes start up again, so does the all–too–familiar race to secure your schedule. Left and right people are scrambling to hop on PennInTouch after receiving that long–awaited email from PennCourseNotify. Well, forget MATH104 and ECON001 because there are some open art classes ready to be enrolled in. Here are three art classes worth adding to your course cart.
The book ends with a line about bare genitals. To be specific, bare genitals staring stupidly and sadly at the yellow sand. And no, that’s not why this book is fitting to read after NSO. The ending of Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is a showcase of the line between the meaningful and the meaningless, a line crossed by laughing and forgetting. And that’s why this book is fitting for the new year—past the literal level, past the political jest, and past the tinges of nihilism is a reminder to laugh and to forget, to draw our own lines between what is meaningful and what is meaningless.
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