| Mall's window wonderland.
A window-design contest for art students will help give the Gallery at Market East its seasonal look this month. The contest, known as "Windows to a Winter Wonderland," features four seasonally themed window designs produced by students at the Art Institute of Philadelphia. Shoppers can vote on which design they think is best at the Gallery's visitor center or its Web site, www.galleryatmarketeast.com. A winner will be announced in late January. "We wanted to do something that would tie into the city's desire to make Center City a festive environment," Maureen Brady, marketing director for the Gallery, said yesterday. "Pedestrians can pass by, see this, and vote for their favorites." The four designs, which feature plenty of tinsel, mannequins and holiday ornaments, hang in the storefront windows of the former Strawbridge's on Market Street between Eighth and Ninth Streets.
Pensacola Junior College presents Faculty Art Show
Pensacola Junior College's annual Faculty Art Show runs through the holidays and into next year, closing Jan. 4. Its 19-member art department isn't short on ideas, and a few surprises accompany this year's edition.Photography has usually been the department's stronghold, even as video and digital media flood academia. David Hines, Warren Thompson and Mark Francis have an implicit competition, but their approaches are night and day.Hines is a traditionalist, shunning computer manipulation with his darkroom aesthetic. His 35mm "guerilla shots" are spontaneous urban takes of Amsterdam. People go by without noticing his surveil-lance, a tactic whose quality seems purely accidental.Francis is more interested here with landscape and architecture that ranges from the stillness of the desert to the regal lion-statued entrance to the Art Institute of Chicago.Thompson is more photojournalistic, a sense that hits home with a grid of 40 black-and-white shots of Mardi Gras partygoers taking a break from poverty or the banality of modern life.Cynthia App fills the gallery's video space with her documentary film, "The Lost Island." This gentle but affirming presentation of Perdido Key struggling to preserve its native animals is as highly polished as it is convincing.Spiros Zachos, known for his 2-D figurative work, has taken up ceramic sculpture as if he's found a new calling.
Art Institute the place to get 'Hurt' this weekend
Rebekah Jacob MODERN and the Art Institute of Charleston present a night with artist Donna Hurt in celebration of the recently installed colored photography exhibition "Nobody Home." The reception will take place Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the new gallery at the Art Institute of Charleston, 24 North Market St. " 'Nobody Home' portrays the damage to the New Orleans community after hurricane Katrina, and in a broad sense, addresses community development in the shadow of tragedy, says Jacob, who is curator of the exhibit. "Six weeks after Katrina, Hurt returned to New Orleans, and the car ride from the airport to the city transported her into another world of lifeless gray debris. Being witness to the monotony of decay, rot and mud overwhelmed her senses. Out of necessity, her eyes began to seek out any color in the bleakness.
Tim Cain column: A glimpse through the looking glass
It's always interesting to see people outside the element in which you'd normally see them. How do they handle things that appear to be outside their field of expertise?In the case of some Decatur arts and media folk, I'm pleased to report, the answer is: Quite well, thank you.Partners in Education's Youth Leadership Institute recently got a look behind the scenes at arts and media in Decatur.The Youth Leadership Institute, according to the Partners in Education mission statement, "provides high school juniors from throughout Macon County participatory experiences in leadership, business, health care, arts and media, education, government and social services that enhance their knowledge of the community as a whole."Speaking from personal experience, the 40 or so students are selected through a screening process that can be pretty draining for those selecting.
Bioartists' Flesh Sculptures Draw Fans and Critics
One of SymbioticA's recent projects entailed growing frog tissue in the form of a steak. At the end of the exhibit, Catts fried it up and ate it. The flavor left something to be desired. "The polymer didn't degrade completely, and the muscle cells, we didn't exercise them, so they tasted like jelly. It was like eating jelly on plastic," Catts says. Ethical Quandaries Why on earth would you do this? Many bioartists say it's to put a spotlight on how the biotech industry is pushing and sometimes breaking ethical boundaries. But animal rights advocates, ethicists, and artists are criticizing bioartists for doing exactly the same thing. "I feel like artists at this point are mirroring what's happening. I don't feel they are encouraging shifts to new levels of consciousness," says Carol Gigliotti, an Arts Professor at the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver.
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