Art Festival Launching In Philadelphia In 2026

ArtPhilly will showcase Philly culture, past and present.

A five-week, citywide festival of the arts is planned in Philadelphia next summer to coincide with the nation’s 250th birthday. ArtPhilly, starting May 27, will feature over 30 performances and installations by artists from around the region.

ArtPhilly is intended to be a recurring event. The inaugural event is titled “What Now: 2026.”

One of its headlining works will be a new piece of documentary theater by Anna Deveare Smith, who was once a student at Arcadia College. “The Basil Biggs Project” will be about her own ancestor who was once hired to disinter and rebury dead Civil War soldiers at the Gettysburg battlefield.

Other projects include a music exploration of Black electronic music by DJ King Britt, a giant pop-up book about the history of Chinatown by artist Collete Fu and a music and poetry project about the cultural history of pepperpot soup conceived by the late Philadelphia artist Homer Jackson.

More events will be announced for designated Festival Districts across the city. According to an ArtPhilly statement, the festival involves 17 curators.

“For so much of its history Philadelphia has been at the forefront of art and culture in the United States,” said ArtPhilly co-founder Katherine Sachs. “By spotlighting the incredible artists and vital communities of our city, we hope that ArtPhilly reminds people how exciting and dynamic Philadelphia has been and continues to be.”

Editor’s note: ArtPhilly will be a “recurring” event, rather than a triennial event as organizers had initially indicated.

https://whyy.org/person/peter-crimmins/

Henri Rousseau: A Painter’s Secrets Opens At The Barnes Foundation In Philadelphia October 19-February 22, 2026

A once-in-a-generation exhibition. A visionary artist revealed.

Henri Rousseau. Scouts Attacked by a Tiger (detail), 1904. The Barnes Foundation, BF584. Public Domain.

Step into the lush, hypnotic world of Henri Rousseau, one of the boldest forces in modern art.

Born in 1844, and with no formal art training, Rousseau defied the odds to become a cult figure to avant-garde legends such as Pablo Picasso. His paintings—dreamlike, symbolic, and deeply strange—range from imaginative visions of the jungle to portraits that capture his neighbors and loved ones.

Henri Rousseau: A Painter’s Secrets is the first major US exhibition in decades dedicated to this pioneering French painter. Featuring more than 60 works—including world-famous highlights like The Sleeping Gypsy, The Snake Charmer, and Unpleasant Surprise—the exhibition invites you to see Rousseau in a whole new light.

Don’t miss this world-premiere exhibition that unveils new research discoveries—including hidden layers beneath some of Rousseau’s celebrated paintings—and brings together, for the first time, the two most important Rousseau collections in the world, those of the Barnes Foundation and the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris.

Developed in partnership with the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, Henri Rousseau: A Painter's Secrets is curated by Christopher Green, consulting curator, Professor Emeritus at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, and Nancy Ireson, Deputy Director for Collections and Exhibitions & Gund Family Chief Curator at the Barnes, with the support of Juliette Degennes, curator at the Musée de l’Orangerie.

For more details and timed tickets, please visit: https://www.barnesfoundation.org/

The Philadelphia Museum Of Art To Feature Dreamworld: Surrealism At 100, November 8, 2025–February 16, 2026

Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War), 1936, Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904–1989), 1950-134-41

In his Manifesto of Surrealism of 1924, André Breton celebrated the unbridled imagination as the key to freedom in all aspects of life. Artists responded by inventing a wide variety of new expressive forms designed to stir up the human capacity for wonder and amazement. Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 will feature approximately two hundred works by more than seventy artists associated with the international Surrealist movement.

The PMA will be the only U.S. venue for this traveling exhibition, following distinct iterations at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which launched this project to celebrate Surrealism’s centenary, and three other European museums. PMA highlights will include Joan Miró’s Dog Barking at the Moon (1926), Salvador Dalí’s Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936), and Dorothea Tanning’s Birthday (1942).

To learn more, please visit: https://philamuseum.org/visit

The Calder Mobile Returns To Pittsburgh International Airport

I think it looks sensational. It’s one of the largest and most important mobiles. So it’s such an incredible asset for Pittsburgh to have.”

THE ALEXANDER CALDER MOBILE IS NOW INSTALLED IN THE ATRIUM OF THE NEW LANDSIDE TERMINAL AT PITTSBURGH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. | PHOTO BY VIRGINIA LINN

That’s the assessment of Alex J. Taylor, a renowned expert on the work of Alexander Calder upon seeing the artist’s 500-pound mobile called “Pittsburgh” now installed in the atrium area of the new landside terminal of Pittsburgh International Airport. Calder created the piece for the Carnegie International in 1958, and it’s been displayed now at three different Pittsburgh airport terminals since 1959.

“It looks much more delicate in this setting than it did in its prior space,” Taylor added.

The mobile, which carries an insurance value of $12 million, was the centerpiece of the airport’s media tour on Thursday that aimed to showcase much of the new artwork that graces the new terminal — even on the outside of the five-story parking garage.

“The idea from the beginning was not to build an airport in Pittsburgh, but to build Pittsburgh’s airport,” said Christina Cassotis, airport CEO. “It needed to reflect and serve this community by bringing in the assets of the community and putting them on display for the world to see. And we know Pittsburgh punches way above its weight when it comes to arts and culture and has a rich legacy of doing so.”

There are 15 artists who have contributed their work, 80% of whom are from Pittsburgh.

CHRISTINA CASSOTIS (FAR RIGHT), CEO OF PITTSBURGH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, STANDS WITH SEVERAL OF THE ARTISTS WHO HAVE CONTRIBUTED WORKS TO THE NEW LANDSIDE TERMINAL AND OTHER AREAS. | PHOTO BY VIRGINIA LINN

Calder, a Pennsylvania native who died in 1976, had several of his mobiles displayed at airports around the country, with one of the largest still hanging at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, Taylor said. “Some of those other airports, like Dallas and Chicago, lost them,” he added.

Still, the Calder mobile has a bit of a spotted history in Pittsburgh. After it was purchased by G. David Thompson and donated to Allegheny County, the county decided — without Calder’s permission — to paint the mobile yellow and green, the official colors of Allegheny County, said Taylor, an Australian who is associate professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh.

“He was very grumpy about it,” he said about Calder. Later, the mobile was painted red — an action that Calder approved — but the color came out more pink. Then, changes were made to prevent the mobile paddles from moving with the air currents. Another time, they put what Taylor called “a horrendous advertising booth” underneath the mobile.

“It was treated very poorly. It wasn’t until the 1970s that it was restored to its original colors” of black and white, like it is today.

“I think in the ’50s, airport officials probably didn’t quite understand what this thing was and the idea that they could repaint it probably didn’t seem so outrageous to them,” he said. “Of course now we understand it’s one of [Calder’s] greatest works.”

Keny Marshall, arts and culture manager at the airport, said the mobile, which had been removed from the current terminal a while ago, was in good shape and all it needed was a cleaning before they installed it last week.

Calder Gardens in Philadelphia will open to the public on September 21, 2025, following a celebratory week of special events, and you can now purchase memberships and advance tickets online. In the lead-up to its inauguration, Calder Gardens announced the September 2025 opening in January 2025, unveiled its new website and visual identity in May 2025, and in 2022, the design by Herzog & de Meuron was unveiled for the Philadelphia cultural destination. For more information, please visit: https://caldergardens.org/

https://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/author/virginia-linn/

The Barnes Foundation In Philadelphia Presents “Matisse & Renoir: New Encounters At The Barnes” June 23–September 8, 2024

The Barnes Foundation presents Matisse & Renoir: New Encounters at the Barnes, an exhibition featuring a selection of renowned canvases from its modern European art collection. Co-curated by curator Cindy Kang and assistant curator Corrinne Chong, this exhibition—including 34 iconic works by Henri Matisse and Pierre-Auguste Renoir from the second floor of the Barnes collection galleries—reflects the expansion of the Barnes’s educational program, emphasizing the historical and cultural context of the works.

Albert C. Barnes with Renoir’s Bathers in the Forest and Leaving the Conservatory, 1932. Photo by Pierre Matisse. Photograph Collection, Barnes Foundation Archives. © 2024 Estate of Pierre Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

On view in the Roberts Gallery from June 23 through September 8, 2024, Matisse & Renoir: New Encounters at the Barnes is sponsored by Comcast NBCUniversal.

Tracing the creative development of two foundational artists of European modernism, this exhibition will display Matisse and Renoir paintings from the same time period in proximity, such as Matisse’s The Joy of Life (1905–6) and Red Madras Headdress (1907), and Renoir’s Leaving the Conservatory (1876–77) and Mussel-Fishers at Berneval (1879). Creating space for new conversations between works—a critical aspect of education, research, and public access—it will give audiences a rare opportunity to temporarily view these paintings in new contexts and juxtapositions. While this exhibition is on view, the second floor of the Barnes collection will be closed for a floor refinishing project. Following the exhibition, the paintings will return to their original locations in the collection galleries.

“We are delighted to present this exhibition featuring two artists that Dr. Barnes collected voraciously—Matisse and Renoir—and allow visitors and students the opportunity to experience these iconic works from a fresh perspective. Seeing beloved works in new conversations for the first time is sure to be an enriching and revelatory occasion,” says Thom Collins, Neubauer Family Executive Director and President. “Like the original educational experience when Dr. Barnes and Violette de Mazia moved works of art to create new juxtapositions for students, we are enthusiastic about the enhanced educational opportunities that will result from seeing Barnes paintings in new contexts.”

Beginning with a gallery dedicated to Renoir, the exhibition presents a select overview of his work, from impressionist landscapes to his late portraits of rosy-hued women. Renoir significantly influenced the next generation of modern French artists, including Matisse, who considered him a leading colorist and figure painter. Contemporaneous with Renoir’s late paintings, Matisse’s fauve works are highlighted in the next gallery, reunited in a rare display that offers visitors the space to appreciate the expansive nature of his radical and vibrant canvases. By 1917, Matisse was painting in the South of France and began visiting Renoir at his home in Cagnes to show the older artist his recent work. Inspired by this moment of direct conversation between the artists, the exhibition juxtaposes Matisse’s Three Sisters triptych (1917) with three of Renoir’s monumental multifigure compositions. The final gallery, anchored by Matisse’s Music Lesson (1917), explores the play between interior and exterior space in his window scenes, which remained a site of formal and thematic experimentation through his late work.

“Through this exhibition, visitors will discover how a particular place or moment in time shaped the work of each artist and consider the possibility of their shared creative ideas,” say the co-curators. “We hope this temporary presentation will inspire audiences to view these well-known works in a new light with a renewed sense of appreciation.”

The exhibition will feature 34 major works, including paintings and one sculpture, from the second floor of the Barnes collection. Highlights include:

Henri Matisse, Le bonheur de vivre or The Joy of Life(1905–6): This monumental canvas, which once hung in the famous collection of Gertrude and Leo Stein, is one of the watershed paintings in the history of European modernism. When Matisse first exhibited it in Paris in 1906, audiences were shocked by the bold colors, the jarring shifts in scale, and the distorted anatomies.

Matisse, The Music Lesson (1917): Matisse set this portrait of his wife, daughter, and two sons in the living room of their family home in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. While the children are occupied with the piano, Madame Matisse is seen through a large open window sitting in the garden, as if the exterior space was an extension of the living room. Music played an important role in the Matisse household; the artist himself was an accomplished violinist. Perhaps the violin resting in the foreground of this family portrait is Matisse's way of including himself in the picture.

Matisse, Red Madras Headdress (1907): The model for this painting was Amélie Matisse, the artist's wife, who posed frequently for her husband in some of the most revolutionary canvases of the early 20th century. When Matisse first exhibited this picture in 1907, it was not received very well by critics. Matisse deliberately challenges the conventions of portraiture by distorting his subject's body and focusing instead on color and pattern.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Leaving the Conservatory(1876–77): Renoir uses subtle body language to convey the flirtatious exchanges among a group of young Parisians gathered outside a music school. One man gently nudges his friend into conversation with a woman holding a scroll of paper, likely a piece of sheet music. The artist arranged the seemingly random grouping carefully, using members of his bohemian circle as models. While the painting dates to Renoir’s impressionist period, its large scale suggests that he may have intended it for the Salon.

Renoir,Mussel-Fishers at Berneval (1879): During a visit to the Normandy coast, Renoir painted this idyllic scene of a peasant family gathering mussels. Images of fisherfolk were popular at the Salon, but Renoir deviates from the theme by focusing on the children rather than the adult. Consistent with his other portraits of children, the artist rejoiced in painting the young harvesters’ rose-flushed cheeks and apricot-hued flesh, but their disheveled hair and ragged clothing hints at their labor.

Renoir, The Seine at Argenteuil (1888): In 1888, Renoir spent a leisurely yet productive summer at the home of the impressionist artist and patron Gustave Caillebotte in Petit Gennevilliers, France. This canvas presents a view from the south bank of the Seine toward the resort town of Argenteuil, concealed by the avenue of trees along the riverside. Departing from the technical experimentations that characterized his landscapes of the same period, Renoir returns to the bold color contrasts and loose, broken brushwork that marked his impressionist canvases of the mid-1870s.

For hours and tickets, please visit: https://www.barnesfoundation.org/

Mary Cassatt At Work At The Philadelphia Museum Of Art, May 18–September 8

Maternal Caress, 1896, Mary Stevenson Cassatt (American, 1844–1926), 1970-75-2.

Mary Cassatt at Work

May 18–September 8

A celebrated member of the French Impressionists, Pennsylvania-born Mary Cassatt challenged the conventional expectations of Philadelphia’s elite. In Paris, Cassatt committed herself to a career as a professional artist and made the social, intellectual, and working lives of modern women a core subject of her prints, paintings, and pastels. Though recognized in her lifetime for her intimate depictions of women and children, Cassatt has yet to be appreciated for her serious engagement with the realities of gender and labor in her portrayal of other traditionally feminine activities, such as embroidery, reading, or making social appearances.

These depictions lie at the heart of Mary Cassatt at Work, which will present over 130 diverse works that follow the artist’s evolving practice and demonstrate her interest in the “serious work” of artmaking. The exhibition will present new findings about the materials she used and her processes—which were advanced for her era—as it coincides with a detailed technical study of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s significant Cassatt holdings.

Mary Cassatt at Work is the first major showing of the artist’s oeuvre since 1998–99. By considering her professionalism, her biography, and the wider Parisian world she inhabited, a richer and more complex picture of Cassatt develops, inviting contemporary conversations about gender, work, and artistic agency.

Tickets & Promotions

Mary Cassatt at Work is a separately ticketed exhibition. Tickets are for timed entry every thirty minutes from 11:00 a.m. until an hour and a half before close each day. Your timed ticket is for entry to the exhibition queue; entry wait times may be extended during higher volume moments, which include hours late in the day and weekends.

Member Benefits

Members receive unlimited access to Mary Cassatt at Work with their membership card, no tickets required. Member guest tickets must be booked in advance.

For tickets and more details, please visit: https://www.philamuseum.org/mary-cassatt-tickets-events

Mary Cassatt at Work Opens May 18th At The Philadelphia Museum Of Art

A celebrated member of the French Impressionists, Pennsylvania-born Mary Cassatt challenged the conventional expectations of Philadelphia’s elite. In Paris, Cassatt committed herself to a career as a professional artist and made the social, intellectual, and working lives of modern women a core subject of her prints, paintings, and pastels. Though recognized in her lifetime for her intimate depictions of women and children, Cassatt has yet to be appreciated for her serious engagement with the realities of gender and labor in her portrayal of other traditionally feminine activities, such as embroidery, reading, or making social appearances.

The Bath, 1890–91, by Mary Cassatt (American, 1844–1926) (Art Institute of Chicago: Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection, 1932.1287) Image © Art Institute of Chicago

These depictions lie at the heart of Mary Cassatt at Work, which will present over 130 diverse works that follow the artist’s evolving practice and demonstrate her interest in the “serious work” of artmaking. The exhibition will present new findings about the materials she used and her processes—which were advanced for her era—as it coincides with a detailed technical study of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s significant Cassatt holdings.

Mary Cassatt at Work is the first major showing of the artist’s oeuvre since 1998–99. By considering her professionalism, her biography, and the wider Parisian world she inhabited, a richer and more complex picture of Cassatt develops, inviting contemporary conversations about gender, work, and artistic agency.

For more details, please visit: https://philamuseum.org/
Main Building 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway Philadelphia, PA 19130 215-763-8100

The Barnes Foundation Presents "Alexey Brodovitch: Astonish Me" Opening March 3–May 19, 2024

In spring 2024, the Barnes Foundation will present Alexey Brodovitch: Astonish Me, a major exhibition exploring the influence and significance of photographer, designer, and instructor Alexey Brodovitch (1898–1971). Brodovitch is best known for his art direction of the US fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar from 1934 to 1958 and his role in making photography the cornerstone of its visual identity. Curated by Katy Wan, Managing Curator, D.Daskalopoulos Collection Gift, Tate Modern, London, this exhibition will focus on the legacy of this overlooked figure, consider his collaborations with many of the major figures of 20th-century photography, and encourage new perspectives on art direction and graphic design.

Alexey Brodovitch: Astonish Me is sponsored by Comcast NBCUniversal. Key support is provided by the David Berg Foundation and additional support comes from The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, Julie Jensen Bryan and Robert Bryan, Hearst, and Donna and Jerry Slipakoff. This exhibition will be on view in the Roberts Gallery from March 3 through May 19, 2024.

As art director at Harper’s Bazaar, Alexey Brodovitch transformed the magazine and design fields through his creative layouts—often incorporating surrealist inventions and European avant-garde innovations—and celebrated collaborations with photographers including Richard Avedon and Lillian Bassman. Upon first arriving in the United States in 1930, he taught at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (now University of the Arts) in Philadelphia and, later, the New School for Social Research in New York City. Brodovitch’s unique pedagogy influenced an extraordinary number of celebrated documentary and fashion photographers, including Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Eve Arnold, and Hans Namuth. He also collaborated with luminaries such as Man Ray and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

“Alexey Brodovitch had a tremendous impact on photography as an artistic medium in the mid-20th century. His influence on the world of design is indelible, but he has been overlooked in the history of art,” says Thom Collins, Neubauer Family Executive Director and President of the Barnes. “He called Philadelphia home beginning in 1930; while Dr. Barnes was building his collection of modern European paintings and introducing it to the city, Brodovitch was introducing leading European design to his students—and later, through his work at Harper’s Bazaar, to a wider audience. We are proud to present the first major US museum exhibition to explore the influence of Brodovitch, along with the first monograph to examine his present-day relevance and pivotal relationships with photographers.”

Born in the former Russian Empire (now Belarus) to an aristocratic Jewish family, Brodovitch dreamed of becoming an artist when he was a young man. After serving in the Russian Civil War, he was exiled to Paris. He lived in Montparnasse, a diverse community inhabited by some of the 20th century’s most revolutionary artists, where he was exposed to myriad artistic styles. Brodovitch’s exposure to vanguard art movements fueled an intense interest in photography and typography. He took on freelance work as a graphic designer, creating posters, advertisements, and restaurant decoration and paraphernalia. His first design success was in 1924 for a Grand Prix poster contest for the Bal Banal, which many artists entered, including one Pablo Picasso.

Brodovitch arrived in the United States in 1930 and moved to Philadelphia to work at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts) where he established the Department of Advertising Design. He introduced his students to cutting-edge magazines and other leading European design work and founded his methodology on creative problem-solving, which was unorthodox during the time. In 1933, he established the Design Laboratory, a workshop that used contemporary examples and technology to explore innovative design possibilities.

In 1934, Harper’s Bazaar editor-in-chief Carmel Snow saw Brodovitch’s work in New York City. She immediately suggested the magazine hire him as art director. During the subsequent years, he frequently used surrealist devices in his magazine layouts, which featured constellations of small photographs, a creative use of white space and contemporary fonts, and playful spreads that unfolded like musical compositions. Changes in size, layering, and color provided the viewer with a sequence of experiences, evoking movement and energy on the printed page. Brodovitch also pursued personal projects: from 1935 to 1937, he photographed several performances of the itinerant Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo using a 35mm camera and slow shutter speeds. The resulting images were ethereal—capturing the movement and experience of dance. In 1945, this body of work was published in the boldly experimental photobook Ballet, which became one of the most significant achievements of its medium and the only book of his own work that Brodovitch ever produced.

“Alexey Brodovitch was regarded by his peers as the father of modern art direction. He created unconventional and experimental designs that are common practice today, and the lessons he imparted through his own work and his influence on those he mentored have transformed the worlds of photography and graphic design,” says curator Katy Wan. “Though Brodovitch is not a household name, the images by photographers whom he worked with and influenced are instantly recognizable all around the world. Our hope is that this exhibition affirms his legacy in modern photography and design.”

Featuring more than 100 works from public and private collections around the world, Alexey Brodovitch: Astonish Me is arranged thematically and showcases photographs, prints, works on paper, books, and magazines, including works by artists Brodovitch mentored and collaborated with, including Eve Arnold, Richard Avedon, Lillian Bassman, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Irving Penn.

Exhibition highlights include:

Richard Avedon. Dovima with Elephants, Evening Dress by Dior, Cirque d’Hiver, Paris (1955): This iconic photograph by Richard Avedon is a testament to his mentor, Brodovitch, who challenged artists to “astonish” viewers through surprise and invention. (Richard Avedon Foundation, NY)

Lisette Model. Woman at Coney Island (1939-41, printed 1976): Brodovitch presented Model’s ebullient subject in a Bazaar spread dedicated to the cherished tourist destination of Coney Island. (Tate, United Kingdom)

Henri Cartier-Bresson. Calle Cuauhtemoctzin, Mexico City (1934-35): Brodovitch was allegedly the only art director permitted the crop the photographs of Cartier-Bresson, who famously espoused the ‘decisive moment’ of releasing the shutter. Brodovitch dared to give Cartier-Bresson’s photograph a fresh presentation in Bazaar.

Eve Arnold. Models Limbering Up Backstage before a Fashion Show in Harlem (1950): Brodovitch understood the significance of Eve Arnold’s photography of the Harlem fashion shows in the 1950s, when she brought them to his attention at one of his classes at the New School. (Magnum Photos)

Poster for Bal Banal (1924): Brodovitch’s design won first prize in the poster competition for a soirée organized by the Union des Artistes Russes in Paris. It helped launch his career in commercial art and graphic design. (Collection of Dr. Curt Lund)

Cover image. “The Girl of Tomorrow,” Harper’s Bazaar (February 1939): Brodovitch’s bizarre and fantastical imagery captures the spirit of surrealism. He did not self-identity with the surrealists but was influenced by their aesthetic. (Collection of Vince Aletti)

Photograph. Tricorne (1935): Brodovitch’s emphasis on mood, atmosphere, and dynamism transformed the direction of dance photography. This evocative image was included in his one and only photobook, Ballet (1945). (Philadelphia Museum of Art. From the Collection of Dorothy Norman, 1968)

Floor Chair, Model 1211-C (c. 1948): Brodovitch’s modern aesthetic extended to furniture design. This model won third prize in its category at the International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1950. (Museum of Modern Art, New York)

For more information and to plan your visit, please go to: https://www.barnesfoundation.org/plan-your-visit

The Barnes Foundation Presents "Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris", Opening October 22, 2023- January 21, 2024

In fall 2023, the Barnes Foundation will present Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris, the first major US exhibition dedicated to French artist Marie Laurencin in over 30 years. Co-curated by Simonetta Fraquelli, consulting curator for the Barnes; and Cindy Kang, curator at the Barnes, this exhibition explores Laurencin’s career, from her self-portraits to her collaborative decorative projects; from her early cubist paintings to her signature works—feminine and discreetly queer—that defined 1920s Paris.

Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris is sponsored by Comcast NBCUniversal and Denise Littlefield Sobel. Additional support is provided by LAGOS. Funding for the exhibition comes from The Kaleta A. Doolin Foundation. This exhibition is on view in the Roberts Gallery from October 22, 2023, through January 21, 2024.

Beginning in the early 20th century, French artist Marie Laurencin (1883–1956) created a unique pictorial world that placed women at the center of modern art. Working in Paris, in an environment dominated by male artists, Laurencin had a highly original painting style that defied categorization. She moved seamlessly between the male-dominated cubist avant-garde, lesbian literary and artistic circles, and the realms of fashion, ballet, and decorative arts.

Laurencin became a fixture of the contemporary art scene in prewar Paris and had a passionate and tumultuous relationship with the poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire. Pablo Picasso had introduced them in 1907, and she immediately became part of the cubist inner circle. Their breakup in 1913, combined with the death of her mother, likely prompted a hasty marriage to the German baron and artist Otto von Wätjen in 1914. The couple fled to Spain during World War I and circulated among other self-exiled artists, including Francis Picabia. In 1921, the couple divorced and Laurencin returned definitively to Paris, having developed her signature style of diaphanous female figures in a blue-rose-gray palette.

Laurencin’s feminine yet sexually fluid aesthetic defined 1920s Paris. She was commissioned by Serge Diaghilev to design the ballet Les Biches and by society figures like Coco Chanel and Helena Rubinstein to paint their portraits. Laurencin’s romantic relationships with women, particularly with the married fashion designer Nicole Groult, inspired intimate paintings that visualized the modern Sapphism of contemporary lesbian writers like Natalie Clifford Barney. One of Laurencin’s final projects was to illustrate the Poems of Sappho in 1950.

“We are proud to present the first US exhibition in over three decades dedicated to Marie Laurencin’s work,” says Thom Collins, Neubauer Family Executive Director and President of the Barnes. “Shining new light on a remarkable artist deserving of a major reexamination, this exhibition is the Barnes’s fourth in an ongoing series exploring the achievements of significant but underrecognized women working in the European modernist vanguard of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including Suzanne Valadon, Marie Cuttoli, and Berthe Morisot.”

This exhibition holds a special significance at the Barnes; in 1923, Dr. Albert Barnes named Laurencin one of “the best French women painters” after having acquired several of her works, including Still Life with Bowl and Fruit (1907) on view in Room 10; Woman with Muff (1914) on view in Room 16; and Head (before 1921), on view in Room 11.

“Through this exhibition, we aim to reassess Marie Laurencin’s career, emphasizing the female relationships and networks—the Sapphic Paris—that Laurencin cultivated, which was just as significant to her assertion of modernity as her association with the male cubist avant-garde,” say co-curators Fraquelli and Kang. “We examine how Laurencin’s visualization of a ‘Sapphic modernity’ subtly but radically challenges existing narratives of modern European art. Presenting new scholarship on her life and influence, this exhibition and catalogue tell Laurencin’s story through her art and bring new attention to her significant body of work.”

Featuring over 50 works by Laurencin from public and private collections around the world, Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris showcases paintings, works on paper, illustrated books, decorative objects, and ballet costumes, as well as works by Laurencin’s contemporaries and collaborators such as Max Ernst, André Mare, Jean Metzinger, and Francis Picabia. Arranged thematically and in roughly chronological order, the exhibition examines Laurencin’s interest in self-portraiture; her cubist milieu in prewar Paris; her difficult though productive period of exile in Spain; her designs for interiors and ballets; her fashionable portraits of women; and her inimitable vision of Sapphic modernism.

Select exhibition highlights include:

The Elegant Ball, Dance in the Country (Le bal élégant, La danse à la campagne) (1913), one of Laurencin’s major cubist pictures, exhibited at the 1913 Salon des Indépendants in Paris (Musée Marie Laurencin, Tokyo)

The Woman-Horse (La femme-cheval) (1918), an enigmatic self-portrait of a woman painter in exile that shows Laurencin developing her signature style (Musée Marie Laurencin, Tokyo)

Women with a Dove (Femmes à la colombe) (1918), an intimate double portrait of Laurencin and her lover Nicole Groult (Centre Pompidou, Paris)

Women in the Forest (Femmes dans la forêt) (1920), which reinterprets 18th-century French pictures of romantic intrigue as a Sapphic world devoid of men (private collection)

Spanish Dancers (Danseuses espagnoles) (1920), one of Laurencin’s largest works that depicts her unique aesthetic world intertwining women and animals (Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris)

Portrait of Miss Chanel (Portrait de Mademoiselle Chanel) (1923), a significant portrait of the famed fashion designer Coco Chanel when she was working with the Ballets Russes concurrently with Laurencin (Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris)

For more details, and tickets, please visit: barnesfoundation.org

The Artist’s Mother: Whistler & Philadelphia At The Philadelphia Museum Of Art Through October 29th.

When James McNeill Whistler’s portrait of his mother, Anna Matilda McNeill Whistler, was exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1881, few could have predicted that it would one day be an iconic American painting. To celebrate this exceptional loan to the museum—the first time in 142 years that the painting will be seen in this city—the exhibition will explore the circumstances surrounding the portrait’s creation and its legacy in Philadelphia.

Just as Whistler was inspired by Rembrandt’s etchings of his own mother, so too were local artists spurred by Whistler and their own ambitions to make depictions of their mothers. Some would respond directly to Whistler’s Mother while others took an entirely different approach. The installation will bring Whistler’s iconic portrait into dialogue with paintings, drawings, and etchings by artists associated with Philadelphia—Cecilia Beaux, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Dox Thrash, Alice Neel, Sidney Goodman, and others—and invite consideration of the individual women represented and the relationship between artist and sitter; child and parent.

For more information and to purchase tickets, please go to: https://philamuseum.org/

The Barnes Foundation In Philadelphia Presents William Edmondson: A Monumental Vision, June 25–September 10, 2023

In summer 2023, the Barnes Foundation will present William Edmondson: A Monumental Vision, the first major East Coast exhibition dedicated to the work of self-taught American sculptor William Edmondson (c. 1874–1951) in decades. Though Edmondson was considered one of the most important Black artists of the American South in the early 20th century, in-depth attention to his work has been sporadic. Co-curated by the Barnes’s James Claiborne, Curator of Public Programs, and Nancy Ireson, Deputy Director for Collections and Exhibitions & Gund Family Chief Curator, this exhibition sheds new light on Edmondson’s practice and artistry and explores the artist and his oeuvre within the context of African American social history.

Major support for William Edmondson: A Monumental Vision has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Additional support is provided by Comcast NBCUniversal, the Wyeth Foundation for American Art, and the Henry Moore Foundation. This exhibition is on view in the Roberts Gallery from June 25 through September 10, 2023.

Edmondson made carving his vocation around 1932, having previously worked as a hospital orderly in Nashville, Tennessee. Inspired by a vision—described by the artist as a divine calling—he developed a career making headstones for the city’s Black cemeteries. Soon he expanded his repertoire to include freestanding figurative sculptures, depicting nurses, teachers, angels, and preachers. Following a solo exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1937—the institution’s first show dedicated to a Black artist—he increasingly found buyers beyond his immediate community, attracting the attention of East Coast intellectuals and collectors. As Edmondson found fame beyond Nashville, media coverage of the artist played into racialized stereotypes about the Southern Black experience, with many journalists framing Edmondson’s sculptures as the work of a “modern primitive.” Such readings may have been encouraged by how white photographers, including Louise Dahl-Wolfe and Edward Weston, captured the artist at work in the 1930s and 1940s.

More than 80 years later, William Edmondson: A Monumental Vision presents over 60 works by Edmondson. Acknowledging the complexities of his early critical reception, the Barnes exhibition also presents a selection of Dahl-Wolfe’s and Weston’s photographs, not as documentary evidence of Edmondson’s practice but as independent works of art that at once celebrate and romanticize their subject. The show reassesses the artist as more than a passive actor in an unfolding drama—a self-taught sculptor “discovered” by white patrons and institutions—and explores how Edmondson’s identity and position within history influenced his life and work.

This exhibition also examines the complex relationship between Black cultural production and the American museum. To further investigate this theme, acclaimed visual and movement artist Brendan Fernandes—who works at the intersections of dance and visual art, addressing cultural displacement, migration, labor, and queer subjectivity—has been commissioned to create a new work, which will activate the exhibition on select dates throughout the summer. In Returning to Before, Fernandes, a classically trained dancer, has choreographed a piece that will employ the techniques of ballet and modern and contemporary dance to respond to and interact with Edmondson’s sculptures. In considering the guiding role that spirituality plays in both his own work and that of Edmondson, Fernandes prompts audiences to interrogate a museum’s capacity to serve as a space for spiritual creative expression. He and exhibition designer Yaumu Huang have created a contemplative display space—constructed as a kind of altar or memorial—that includes a Jacquard tapestry designed by Fernandes. A corps of dancers will activate this environment, evoking, as Fernandes describes, “the innate choreographic nature of Edmondson’s own sculpture making, chiseling, and carving.” Through this collective movement of the dancers and audiences within the Roberts Gallery, the museum space becomes a place for communal homage to the artistic and spiritual legacy of Edmondson.

Returning to Before will begin on July 14, with an evening performance and conversation featuring Brendan Fernandes. Following the opening, performances will take place in the exhibition space on Saturdays from July 15 through September 9 at noon and 2 pm. (Included with admission.)

“Across our programs, we extend and grow Dr. Albert C. Barnes’s commitment to racial equality, social justice, and education. William Edmondson: A Monumental Vision is representative of our commitment to presenting underresearched and underrepresented artists, and to demonstrating the contemporary relevance of historic works of art,” says Thom Collins, Neubauer Family Executive Director and President at the Barnes. “This exhibition expands our understanding of William Edmondson as a major figure in American art and marks the first in a series of collaborations that elevate the role of performance in exhibitions. Recognizing the interpretive potential for performance to build new pathways into historical art, we are expanding and deepening our program, developing our capacity for collaboration and placing performance at the heart of exhibition development.”

Arranged thematically, the works in this exhibition are on loan from museums and private collections across the US, including many from the Cheekwood Estate and Gardens in Nashville, which holds the largest collection of Edmondson’s work. In addition to the animals, angels, and other religious iconography Edmondson was known for, exhibition highlights include:

Ancient Egyptian Couple (limestone sculpture, c. 1940), from the Museum of Everything, London Edmondson’s only sculpture of a male nude, made for Sidney Mttron Hirsch: Reclining Man (limestone sculpture, date unknown), from Cheekwood Estate and Gardens, Nashville, gift of Michael LeBeck in memory of Sidney Mttron Hirsch

Important works from the collection of KAWS, including Untitled (Angel) (c. 1940), Untitled (Seated Girl) (date unknown), and Untitled (Crucifix) (c. 1935–45), all limestone sculptures Mermaid (limestone sculpture, c. 1932–41), the collection of Robert and Katharine Booth

12 photographs of William Edmondson by Louise Dahl-Wolfe (c. 1895–1989)

A rare carving of Eleanor Roosevelt (limestone sculpture, c. 1940), from a private collection

“Recognizing the gaps in Dr. Barnes’s collection, we focus on presenting the voices and work of women and artists of color in our exhibition program,” says co-curator Nancy Ireson. “Through this exhibition, we seek to recontextualize William Edmondson, reinstating the importance of community in his work and rejecting narratives that oversimplify his life and practice. As we highlight Edmondson’s position in art history, questions about equity in the cultural sector arise that still resonate today, making the exhibition a space for important discussions.”

“This exhibition is our first to draw a holistic connection between the Barnes’s performance and exhibition programs,” says co-curator James Claiborne. “By bringing Brendan Fernandes’s performance directly into the exhibition, we hope to create new and compelling points of entry for audiences and engage visitors in an active dialogue about multifaceted Black experiences across time and place. We are excited to showcase Fernandes’s new work, Returning to Before, and witness how it brings Edmondson’s sculptures, and the stories they tell, to life in new ways.”

For more details, please visit: https://www.barnesfoundation.org/plan-your-visit

The Philadelphia Museum Of Art Presents Judith Joy Ross, April 24–August 6

“Judith Joy Ross has, as an artist, no formula. She starts over again each time—the riskiest way to do it. She has a style, of course, but it is austere. It cannot, if she panics, be used to take the place of content.”

—American photographer Robert Adams

The work of Judith Joy Ross marks a watershed in the lineage of the photographic portrait. Her pictures—unpretentious, quietly penetrating, startling in their transparency—consistently achieve the capacity to glimpse the past, present, and perhaps even the future of the individuals who stand before her lens. Since the early 1980s, Ross has used a large-format, 8x10-inch view camera as a tool to capture the distilled essence of her brief encounters with a cross-section of the American people, with a focus on those in eastern Pennsylvania, where she was born and raised.

For Ross, whose stated purpose is “to notice what is going on with other people and to record it,” this has required a spontaneous and radical reformulation of the relationship between the photographer and the photographed. When successful, these encounters yield pictures that enable an acute emotional and psychological connection that resists sentimentality, upends prejudice, and traverses boundaries of time, place, and circumstance.

Featuring approximately 200 photographs, this exhibition charts Ross’s work through all her major projects as well as smaller series and individual images that have never been seen before. Together, these bodies of work explore what it means to be a citizen and a human being, forming a profound portrait of our age. The Philadelphia Museum of Art will be the only US venue for the exhibition, following its European tour in Madrid, Paris, and the Hague.

About the Artist

Judith Joy Ross was born in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, in 1946. She graduated from the Moore College of Art in Philadelphia in 1968 and earned a master’s degree in Photography in 1970 from the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

Ross has received a grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1985), an Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (1986), a City of Easton/Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Grant (1988), the Charles Pratt Memorial Award (1992), and a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Grant (1991). Her photographs are included in numerous institutional collections including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; among many others.

For more details and tickets, please visit: https://philamuseum.org/

The Barnes Foundation Presents Sue Williamson & Lebohang Kganye: Tell Me What You Remember, March 5 Through May 21, 2023

Philadelphia, PA. —In spring 2023, the Barnes Foundation presents Sue Williamson & Lebohang Kganye: Tell Me What You Remember. Bringing together the work of two of South Africa’s most acclaimed contemporary artists, the exhibition offers a cross-generational dialogue on history, memory, and the power of self-narration in the context of apartheid and its legacies. On view in the Roberts Gallery from March 5 through May 21, 2023, and curated by Emma Lewis, curator at Turner Contemporary, Margate, England, this exhibition is the most significant presentation of each artist in the US to date, and the first time their work has been presented in dialogue.

Sue Williamson & Lebohang Kganye: Tell Me What You Remember is sponsored by Comcast NBCUniversal. Additional support is provided by the Honickman Family.

Three decades after the dismantling of apartheid began, the generation born during the transition to democracy has reached adulthood and its artists have used their work to navigate their difficult inheritance. At the same time, the distance between their experience and that of an older generation grows. Sue Williamson & Lebohang Kganye: Tell Me What You Remember reflects upon this moment. In their respective practices, Sue Williamson (b. 1941) and Lebohang Kganye (b. 1990) incorporate oral histories into film, photographs, installations, and textiles to consider how the stories elders share—and what they choose to withhold—shape family narratives and personal identities. Exploring the complexities involved in the passing down of memories, their works implicitly and explicitly address racial violence, social injustice, and intergenerational trauma.

“Dr. Albert C. Barnes’s commitment to racial equality, social justice, and education is the historical legacy that we have worked hard to extend and grow in everything we do at the Barnes,” says Thom Collins, Neubauer Family Executive Director and President. “For our first exhibition of 2023, we are proud to present the work of two acclaimed South African artists, Sue Williamson and Lebohang Kganye. Highlighting the ways in which artists are responding to a critical moment in contemporary South Africa, this is a prescient exhibition that invites audiences to consider how the current political and social landscape in the United States has resonance in a global context.”

Williamson’s early works represent her use of first-person testimony as a means of documenting and contributing to the struggle against apartheid; later, she recorded conversations between women with firsthand experience of enforced segregation and their children or grandchildren—the so-called “born frees.” Kganye draws on conversations with her grandmother and aunts to trace her ancestral roots, revealing histories of displacement and dispossession and highlighting storytelling and song as modes of resistance. By inviting these artists into dialogue, this exhibition is a conversation between women of two generations with shared conviction in the profound importance—and complexity—of recording living memories.

This exhibition features 15 bodies of work, including video installations, photographs, sculptural installations, and textiles. Exhibition highlights include:

Three works from Sue Williamson’s series Truth Games (1998), which highlights important cases investigated by the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Each piece pictures an accuser, a defender, and the event in question. Text lifted from press reports of courtroom evidence is printed on slats that obscure sections of the work. By sliding these slats across the image, viewers are invited to engage with the event and critique how testimony was disseminated by the media.

Lebohang Kganye’s Mohlokomedi wa Tora (2018), a photographic installation that represents how Kganye’s family’s migration, owing to land acts and apartheid law, resulted in four different spellings of their surname. A central rotating light represents the Sesotho word for light, kganya, which is the etymology of this name. Mohlokomedi suggests the vocation of caretaker, tending to the light that symbolizes her ancestral inheritance.

Two dual-channel video installations by Williamson, What Is This Thing Called Freedom? (2016) and That Particular Morning (2019), from her series No More Fairy Tales. Made 20 years after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and shortly after student protests that swept South Africa, when it became clear that many of apartheid’s wounds remain unhealed, these filmed conversations between grandmothers and mothers and their adult children explore intergenerational understanding.

Williamson’s The Lost District (2019), a painted map of the area of District Six, from which 60,000 residents were forcibly removed between 1968 and 1982. Signage and etched glass panels are installed on the map. When lit, these panels cast shadows that describe the area as it once was. The work is accompanied by oral histories and soundscapes that Williamson made in the community in 1981.

Kganye’s Dipina tsa Kganya (2021), a three-channel video installation featuring the artist in two performances inspired by the Sesotho oral tradition of direto, the praise-singing of clan names as a way of passing down the origins of the family story as an act of resistance to historical erasure.

Kganye’s In Search for Memory (2020/2022), in which the artist uses her characteristic technique of cutting out and rearranging archival photographs into stagelike sets to call attention to the gaps, inconsistencies, and fabrications that shape how memories are constructed and passed down. In this series of photographs and accompanying diorama, Kganye creates scenes that imagine a protagonist traveling between apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa and an imagined future to which Nelson Mandela returns. “At a time of intensified interest in how the ‘past’ is written, and by whom, Sue Williamson and Lebohang Kganye’s engagement with oral histories reminds us of the quiet urgency of collecting living memories, especially those that speak across the generational divide. This important task resonates far beyond the contexts in which the two artists work,” says curator Emma Lewis. “By bringing into dialogue their varied work with conversation, statement, story, and song, the exhibition explores the very different ways that art can be mobilized to reveal the power—and partiality—of self-narration.”

To learn more about works in Sue Williamson & Lebohang Kganye: Tell Me What You Remember, visitors can use Barnes Focus, a mobile guide that works on any smartphone with a web browser. To use it, visitors simply open the guide by navigating to barnesfoc.us on a mobile browser and focus on a work of art; the guide will recognize the work and deliver information about it. Barnes Focus also leverages the Google Translate API, so you can automatically translate the guide into a variety of languages. Barnes Focus was created by the Knight Center for Digital Innovation in Audience Engagement at the Barnes.

For more information please visit: https://www.barnesfoundation.org/plan-your-visit

The Barnes Foundation In Philadelphia Presents ModIgliani Up Close, October 16, 2022–January 29, 2023

This fall, in celebration of its centennial, the Barnes Foundation will present Modigliani Up Close, a major loan exhibition that shares new insights into Amedeo Modigliani’s working methods and materials. On view in the Roberts Gallery from October 16, 2022, through January 29, 2023, Modigliani Up Close is curated by an international team of art historians and conservators: Barbara Buckley, Senior Director of Conservation and Chief Conservator of Paintings at the Barnes; Simonetta Fraquelli, independent curator and consulting curator for the Barnes; Nancy Ireson, Deputy Director for Collections and Exhibitions & Gund Family Chief Curator at the Barnes; and Annette King, Paintings Conservator at Tate, London.

Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) is among the most celebrated artists of the 20th century. While many exhibitions have endeavored to reunite his paintings, sculptures, and drawings, Modigliani Up Close offers a unique opportunity to examine their production and explore how Modigliani constructed and composed his signature works. Featuring new scholarship that builds on research that began in 2017 with the major Modigliani retrospective at Tate Modern, this single-venue exhibition and its accompanying catalogue are the culmination of years of research by conservators and curators across Europe and the Americas. Modigliani Up Close furthers understanding of Modigliani’s approach to his art, refines a chronology of his paintings and sculptures, and helps to establish the locations and circumstances of where he worked.

“We are pleased to present this major exhibition that offers a detailed investigation of Modigliani’s unique style,” says Thom Collins, Neubauer Family Executive Director and President. “Stemming from a multiyear, global research effort, the show has brought the international art community together to create a collaborative vision of the artist’s practice, leaving a lasting legacy for future Modigliani scholarship. The Barnes collection is home to 16 works by the artist, one of the largest and most important groups of the artist’s works in the world, and the project provided a unique opportunity to fully explore their significance. We see once more how Dr. Barnes broke new ground in the history of collecting modern art.”

Featuring nearly 50 works from major collections, and organized into thematic sections, the exhibition presents paintings and sculptures alongside new findings that have resulted from the technical research of collaborating conservators, conservation scientists, and curators. Using analytical techniques, including X-radiography, infrared reflectography, and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), conservators and conservation scientists reveal previously unknown aspects of Modigliani’s work. Visitors will feel closer to Modigliani as an artist, seeing his work through the eyes of the experts, catching glimpses of the artist’s hand hidden beneath the surfaces of his work.

“Thanks to the work of conservators and curators from museums around the globe, Modigliani Up Close offers an unrivaled opportunity to understand how the artist made his iconic paintings and sculptures,” says Nancy Ireson. “The exhibition is a perfect demonstration of how, in addition to producing innovative research, the Barnes Foundation brings together colleagues in the field to share their findings and thoughts.”

This exhibition holds a special significance at the Barnes, as Dr. Albert C. Barnes was one of Modigliani’s earliest collectors in the United States and helped shape the artist’s critical reception in this country. In addition to works on paper, there are 12 significant paintings and one carved stone sculpture by Modigliani in the Barnes collection. With 12 paintings each, the Barnes and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, have the largest collections of Modigliani paintings in the world.

Modigliani Up Close is sponsored by Morgan Stanley and Comcast NBCUniversal. Additional support is provided by the David Berg Foundation, Sue Perel Rosefsky, Alter Family Foundation, Pamela and David Berkman, Julie Jensen Bryan and Robert Bryan, Laura and Bill Buck, Marianne Dean, Dietz & Watson, Roberta and Carl Dranoff, Deborah Glass, Anne and Matt Hamilton, Pamela and James Hill, Amy Donohue-Korman and John Korman, Sueyun and Gene Locks, the Samuel P. Mandell Foundation, Yasmina M. Moukarzel, Nicole and James Schaeffer, Joan Thalheimer, Harriet and Larry Weiss, Margaret and Tom Whitford, Randi Zemsky and Bob Lane, and other generous individuals.

To learn more about works in Modigliani Up Close, visitors can use Barnes Focus, a mobile guide that works on any smartphone with a web browser. Previously only accessible for works in the Barnes collection, Modigliani Up Close marks the first occasion Barnes Focus can be used to explore loaned works in an exhibition. To use it, visitors simply open the guide by navigating to barnesfoc.us on a mobile browser and focus on a work of art; the guide will recognize the work and deliver information about it. Barnes Focus also leverages the Google Translate API, so you can automatically translate the guide into a variety of languages.

For more details, please visit: https://www.barnesfoundation.org/plan-your-visit

Philadelphia Ballet Breaking Ground On North Broad Street Expansion

From a vantage point looking northeast from Broad Street, a rendering of Philadelphia Ballet's newly expanded dance center as it will appear when finished. A dance studio is shown in the glass box atop the structure. Varenhorst Architects

Philadelphia Ballet is finally getting a long-delayed front door on the burgeoning northern leg of the Avenue of the Arts.

The company expects to hold a groundbreaking next month on an expansion of its North Broad Street headquarters that will more than triple its current space with a suite of dance studios, offices, a new black box theater, and other public areas. The $34 million project builds onto the ballet’s current low-slung building to create a five-story facade on Broad Street with glassed-in studios visible on the top floor.

A rendering of "Studio F" on the top floor of Philadelphia Ballet's future addition to its North Broad Street headquarters. Varenhorst Architects

Completion of the 43,000-square-foot addition, expected in spring 2024, caps a plan the ballet envisioned when the company acquired its site on Broad near Callowhill Street in 2007.

The expansion of facilities at the city’s major dance organization will put it on par with those of peer companies across the country, says Philadelphia Ballet executive director Shelly Power.

“We are bursting at the seams,” said Power of current facilities. Square footage will go from 15,000 to 58,000, with the number of studios nearly doubling to seven and a half.

“At least we’ll be with the national average,” says Power. “We’re the last [major] company to really have a building that lets us grow a school, do community engagement, to have a black box.”

A space in the Philadelphia Ballet's expanded facility can be used either as a small black box theater or a rehearsal studio. Varenhorst Architects

The expansion promises to add to the already blossoming street life of this stretch of Broad north of City Hall. Plans call for the ballet’s facade to be fronted with streetscape furniture and a video billboard to catch the eyes of passersby.

“We could be showing what’s going on in the studio, we could be showing a clip of Swan Lake,” says Power. “I think it’s just going to enhance North Broad.”

The building project is part of a larger plan to return the company to growth mode after a difficult period. The pandemic forced the cancellation of The Nutcracker, the ballet’s reliable cash cow, in 2020. Fund-raising for the expansion proved tougher than expected.

The building project and related strategic plan are, in many ways, a validation of recommendations made in 2013 by arts consultant Michael Kaiser, who was brought in to diagnose the company’s organizational ills.

“You don’t get healthy by shrinking,” Kaiser advised at the time. “I said to them, ‘Think big.’ "

Now, the ballet is. The strategic plan calls for increasing the number of productions and boosting the number of dancers in the company. This season there are 50 dancers, up from 43 in 2021-22 and on the way to a goal of 54. The company also expects to vastly increase the number of students in its school.

“I expect it to double if not triple,” says Power. “We expect to get up around 500.”

A gathering space is shown in a rendering of Philadelphia Ballet's expanded dance center on North Broad Street just south of Callowhill Street. Varenhorst Architects

Since 2017, the design of the facilities expansion has evolved to rebalance the public function of the building with dancer-only spaces. A public gathering area will host events like dancer meet-and-greets and book readings. An artists’ wall is expected to host exhibitions. Parents will be able to have coffee there while waiting for students to come from classes and rehearsals.

“This is quite different than the plans they were looking at in past iterations mainly because they were so focused on the dancers,” said Power. “But we really expanded because we wanted to focus on the community and become a hub for the area where people could come and see things, experience things and be a part of it.”

“It’s going to change the dynamics of the whole company,” said Philadelphia Ballet Peter Dobrin artistic director Angel Corella, citing the prospect of closer contact between the public and dancers. He also said improved facilities would strengthen the company’s ability to attract and retain dancers.

“Our dancers are getting offers all the time,” he said.

With the company's former name still on the current building in the background, Philadelphia Ballet artistic director Angel Corella and executive director Shelly Power stand on the site of the North Broad Street addition.Read more CHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer

In addition to the new black box theater and rehearsal studios, the project will provide administrative offices, physical therapy facilities for dancers, and a cyber school classroom.

The $34 million budget — 60% of which is already raised from private donors and state government — will also cover renovations of the existing building, which opened in 2012.

The addition has not yet been named for a donor, Power said.

Nearly all of the spaces in the new building will be multipurpose. Chief among them is the first-floor black box theater designed to be reconfigured in 30 minutes from theater to a rehearsal space of a size the ballet does not currently have.

“It’s bigger than the Academy [of Music] stage. [Now], when they’re doing Swan Lake, literally, they’re in the hallway waiting to run in as a corps. Here, they can fit the whole company in, they can actually have people seated watching the rehearsal. And then it turns into a performance space.”

Looking toward North Broad Street across the site where the Philadelphia Ballet's expanded facilities will be built. CHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer

Power also sees the space’s potential for building relationships with donors and audiences.

“You can have free performances, you can have young kids come in for a 45-minute show, and then you get to be right on top of the dancers.”

When dancers call children up from the audience and demonstrate live by saying, “Let’s lift you, let’s turn you,” that’s real engagement, says Power.

“That’s where you win your fans for the future.”

Source: https://www.inquirer.com/, Peter Dobrin

Matisse In The 1930s Coming October 20, 2022–January 29, 2023 To The Philadelphia Museum Of Art

By 1930, Henri Matisse had achieved significant international renown, yet he found himself in a deep creative slump. The turning point came in the fall of that year with a commission to decorate the main gallery of the Barnes Foundation, then located in a suburb of Philadelphia. The resulting monumental mural, The Dance (1930–33), turned Matisse’s artistic practice around.

Matisse in the 1930s explores changes in the artist’s work across multiple formats, including easel and decorative painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, and the illustrated book. The exhibition also addresses the methods of working that renewed Matisse’s style, as well as his modern renderings of mythological themes from antiquity, his depictions of female models in the studio, and his partnership with his studio manager and model, Lydia Delectorskaya.

2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway Philadelphia, PA 19130 215-763-8100

https://philamuseum.org/

The Barnes Foundation Presents Isaac Julian: Once Again (Statues Never Die), June 19 – September 4, 2022

Philadelphia, PA —This summer, in celebration of its Centennial, the Barnes Foundation will debut a newly commissioned film installation by artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien, CBE RA (b. London, 1960). On view in the Roberts Gallery from June 19 through September 4, Once Again (Statues Never Die), a five-screen installation, explores the close relationship of Dr. Albert C. Barnes, Barnes Foundation founder who was an early US collector and exhibitor of African material culture, and Alain Locke, a cultural theorist known as the Father of the Harlem Renaissance.

This exhibition is sponsored by the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms Initiative, Comcast NBCUniversal, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and is made possible by Agnes Gund, Emily and Mike Cavanagh, Marjorie Ogilvie and Miller Parker, Brenda A. and Larry D. Thompson, Darrell and Melenese Ford, and Ronald Blaylock.

Once Again (Statues Never Die) stars actor André Holland (Moonlight and Passing) as Alain Locke, Danny Huston (Succession and Marlowe) as Dr. Barnes, rising star Devon Terrell as sculptor Richmond Barthé, and Sharlene Whyte (Small Axe and Lessons of the Hour) as the curator. It also features a special appearance by singer and songwriter Alice Smith.

“This project explores Dr. Barnes’s and Alain Locke’s storied relationship, its mutually formative critical dialogue, and its significant impact on their work as cultural critics, educators, organizers, and activists on behalf of various African American causes,” says Julien.

Once Again (Statues Never Die) examines the significant and often neglected place of African objects in numerous collections of western art museums. Utilizing poetic reparation and historical archives—drawing on Julien’s extensive research in the archives of the Barnes Foundation—the film explores the impact of Locke’s political philosophy and cultural organizing activities on Dr. Barnes’s pioneering art collecting and his democratic, inclusive educational enterprise. Additionally, it looks at contemporary debates around statues with recourse to the 1953 film by Chris Marker and Alain Resnais, Les statues meurent aussi (Statues Also Die). Combining the original script written by Isaac Julien and Martina Klich with recently discovered archival footage from the 1970 film You Hide Me by Nii Kwate Owoo about the African sculptures in the British Museum, the film engages with the current critical debates on African art collecting and repatriation of the sculptures.

Exploring Locke’s engagement with the Barnes collection, Isaac Julien aims both to honor Locke’s important contribution to the arts and to open critical conversations regarding the African art works that influenced the Black cultural movement. The installation spotlights Dr. Barnes’s subsequent writings on the meaning and value of African material culture and its import to the African diaspora, which were reproduced in such Harlem Renaissance periodicals as Opportunity. In the film, Julien revisits some of the themes he approached in his landmark 1989 film Looking for Langston and continues his exploration of the queer subculture of the Harlem Renaissance by exploring the relationship between Locke and sculptor Richmond Barthé with a staging of Barthé’s sculptures at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). A selection of Barthé’s sculptures will also be presented in the Barnes exhibition.

“A visionary collector and pioneering educator, Dr. Barnes was also an advocate for the civil rights of African Americans, women, and the economically marginalized,” says Thom Collins, Neubauer Family Executive Director and President and exhibition curator. “Committed to racial equality and social justice decades before the advent of the civil rights movement, he established a scholarship program to support young Black artists, musicians, and writers—including Locke’s associates such as poet Gwendolyn Bennett and artist Aaron Douglas—who sought to further their education at the Foundation and beyond. It is this important and lesser-known chapter of the Barnes Foundation’s history that Isaac Julien—with his distinguished career as a maker of deeply compelling and thoughtful video installations, his sustained commitment to investigating African diasporic politics and culture, and his abiding interest in the Harlem Renaissance—is bringing to light.”

Following its debut at the Barnes, Once Again (Statues Never Die) will be presented during the Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present in the United Arab Emirates in March 2023.

The Barnes has engaged cultural partners across Philadelphia, including The Fabric Workshop and Museum; Institute for Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania; and BlackStar Projects to present other works by Isaac Julien during the run of Isaac Julien: Once Again (Statues Never Die) and beyond. Related programming is listed below. Visit the website for more details.

The Fabric Workshop and Museum In Focus: Isaac Julien August 16, 2022–April 2023 On view in the First Floor Gallery, In Focus: Isaac Julien presents a selection of works from the museum's permanent collection displayed in conversation with Julien’s Paradise (Omeros) #2, a photographic multiple created for The Fabric Workshop and Museum in 2002.

Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania Poetic Cinema: Isaac Julien and the Sankofa Film and Video Collective Curated by Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Penn Live Arts at the Annenberg Center, and BlackStar Projects. A programmatic series of three works, developed in concert with artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien, from the Sankofa Film and Video Collective screened in-person at Penn Live Arts at the Annenberg Center and the Prince Theater. Each screening will be accompanied by a conversation between a scholar and artist or filmmaker providing context and building on the works presented.

Looking for Langston (1989, 45 min) June 13, 2022 Prince Theater Guest speakers in conversation: Isaac Julien, artist and filmmaker; Kaja Silverman, Katherine Stein Sachs CW'69 and Keith L. Sachs W'67 Professor Emerita of Art History at the University of Pennsylvania; and Ja'Tovia Gary, artist and filmmaker.

Territories (1984, 25 min) and Who Killed Colin Roach (1983, 35 min) July 11, 2022 Prince Theater Guest speakers in conversation: Maori Karmael Holmes, CEO & Artistic Director of BlackStar Projects & Thomas Allen Harris, Senior Lecturer, African American Studies & Film and Media Studies, Yale University.

The Passion of Remembrance (1986, 80 min), newly restored and premiering as a 4K version August 3, 2022 In conjunction with the BlackStar Film Festival. Zellerbach Theater, Penn Live Arts, Annenberg Center Guest speakers in conversation: Karen Alexander, writer, educator and freelance curator & Louis Massiah, documentary filmmaker and Founder/Director of Scribe Video Center.

BARNES RELATD PROGRAMMING:
Barnes on the Block Sunday, June 19, 4–8:30 pm Presented by PNC Arts Alive, and in partnership with Mural Arts Philadelphia, Barnes on the Block returns for another round of outdoor fun for the entire family. This year’s event coincides with Juneteenth, Father’s Day, and the opening of Isaac Julien: Once Again (Statues Never Die). Meet us on the Parkway for visual art displays, live performances, food trucks, a beer garden, and more.

First Friday! Friday, July 1, 6–9 pm

PECO Free First Sunday Family Day Sunday, July 3, 10am–5 pm

Exhibition Tours Thursday–Monday, beginning in June 1 pm

Education Initiatives
Online Class: Understanding Video Art Instructor: Matthew C. Feliz, Lecturer, Bryn Mawr College July (dates will be listed on website) Explore key works of video art and learn about the theories behind them. This is a four-week class that takes place online.

Workshop: Isaac Julien In Focus Instructor: TK Smith, curator and writer Tuesday, August 2, 10 am–4 pm This one-day workshop, at the Barnes, explores key works in Julien’s oeuvre leading up to Once Again (Statues Never Die). Students will have access to the exhibition.

Community Engagement
Barnes West Barnes Presents! Harlem Renaissance in Review August 18, 5:30 pm Jazz performance at Saunders Park in West Philadelphia featuring classic Harlem Renaissance standards.

EXHIBITION ORGANIZATION
Created and directed by Isaac Julien, and co-written with Martina Klich, Once Again (Statues Never Die) is commissioned by the Barnes Foundation and the Ford Foundation, with additional support from the Sharjah Art Foundation, Linda Pace Foundation, Carol Weinbaum & The University of California, Santa Cruz. This exhibition is presented at the Barnes Foundation and curated by Thom Collins, Neubauer Family Executive Director and President. Advisors to the project are Dan Hicks, Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at the University of Oxford and Curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum; Jeffrey C. Stewart, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke and MacArthur Foundation Chair and Distinguished Professor of Black Studies at UC Santa Barbara; curator, filmmaker, and writer Mark Nash; and Chika Okeke-Agulu, a Nigerian-born artist and scholar based in Princeton, New Jersey. The work is executive produced by Mark Nash and produced by Andrew Fierberg.

ABOUT ISAAC JULIEN
Isaac Julien, CBE RA (b. London, 1960), is a filmmaker and installation artist who currently lives and works between London and California. His multi-screen film installations and photographs incorporate different artistic disciplines to create a poetic and unique visual language. His 1989 documentary-drama exploring author Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance titled Looking for Langston garnered Julien a cult following, while his 1991 debut feature Young Soul Rebels won the Semaine de la Critique prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Julien has participated in the Venice Biennale; the Gwangju Biennial, South Korea; Prospect 1, New Orleans; Performa 07, New York; and documenta 11, Kassel. His work is held in significant collections around the world. Julien has taught extensively, holding posts such as Chair of Global Art at University of the Arts London (2014–2016) and Professor of Media Art at Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe, Germany (2008–2016). He is the recipient of the James Robert Brudner ’83 Memorial Prize and Lectures at Yale University (2016). Most recently he received the Charles Wollaston Award (2017), for most distinguished work at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, and in 2018 he was made a Royal Academician. Julien was awarded the title Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s birthday honors, 2017. In 2022, he was awarded the prestigious Goslarer Kaiserring Award.

Isaac Julien is Distinguished Professor of the Arts at the University of California Santa Cruz, where he leads the Isaac Julien Lab together with critic and curator, Mark Nash. The Isaac Julien Lab was designed to mirror the Isaac Julien Studio in London and is a platform where students learn about the strategies behind the production of moving images, photographic works, exhibitions and publications. The Lab aims to create innovative pedagogical methodologies, visual and sonic languages for production, exhibition and installation while examining the various aspects that concern contemporary artists and curators working in the field of media art and moving image, in relationship to current modes of research, development, exhibition, production and scenography of moving image artworks.

Sean Scully: The Shape Of Ideas Now Open At The Philadelphia Museum Of Art, Through July 31st.

Encounter the poetic sensibility and technical virtuosity of one of the leading abstract artists of our time. Sean Scully’s arresting paintings and works on paper, presented here in a comprehensive fifty-year retrospective, explore his signature stripes and reflect the artist’s bold experimentation with scale and composition. From the intimate to the monumental, the works on view stir the spirit and reveal Scully’s tireless dedication to the expressive power of painting.

About the Artist

Sean Scully (born Dublin, Ireland, 1945) works in the mediums of painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and photography. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Harkness Fellowship. He has been nominated twice for the Turner Prize.

Scully’s works are in a number of private and public collections, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, among others.

In 2015 Scully participated in the Venice Biennale with his solo exhibition Land Sea at the Palazzo Falier. For the 2019 Biennale, the artist presented Human, a solo exhibition at the historic Basilica of San Giorgio. He currently splits his time living and working in New York and the Bavarian countryside of Munich.

2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway Philadelphia, PA 19130 215-763-8100

https://philamuseum.org/