BY DAVE ALLEN Avant-garde music happenings held in art galleries have been common for decades, but they’re no less risky than when Andy Warhol brought the Velvet Underground into his Exploding Plastic Inevitable show. The very different stimulations from sounds and visuals often end up competing for attention, and the music can sometimes become an easily-ignorable soundtrack for those who just want to look at the pretty pictures. In spite of this danger, Network for New Music’s 2008-09 season is dedicated to exploring the interaction between music and visual art, and SOUND/ART/SPACE, an intimate chamber concert held at NEXUS/foundation for […]

…But Nobody Wants To Die Cerulean Arts is pleased to present Heaven’s Gate featuring oil paintings by Yuri Makoveychuk, an artist, animator and filmmaker based in the Ukraine and New York. Comprising large-scale, oil on canvas paintings, Heaven’s Gate represents a contemporary take on traditional themes of human folly, reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Brueghel. Makoveychuk’s traditional technique, combined with a thoroughly contemporary artistic sensibility, gives the work its arresting power. At first glance, the works seem to be digital photographs, the illusion is so complete. The figures depicted are culled from different eras – some in 1930s fedoras, […]

CITY PAPER: Felix is painting again. He peels off his blankets, switches on the lamp and warms his hands by the electric heater he keeps close to the spot on the floor where his bedding lies. Then, he sits with his black faded sketchbook in his lap and draws until sunlight fills the small cramped bedroom he rents in a crumbling building at the end of a narrow alley off Washington Avenue. If Felix is happy with what he’s put on the page, he’ll pull on his red-checkered lumberman’s jacket and make his way down the creaky wooden spiral staircase […]

BY ELIZABETH FLYNN I’m sort of prejudiced about South Philly. I happen to think it’s the coolest neighborhood in town. When I moved here as a disgruntled center city bohemian — having been gentrified out of my fabulous CC apartment after 9/11 — it was still very Italian and Old World. But in the last five years I’ve watched the neighborhood change drastically as an influx of hipsters and Mexicans moved in to take advantage of the cheap rent and convenient access to the rest of the city. The recent evolution of 9th St from Federal to Washington is living […]

Vlad The Impaler [courtesy of the ROSENBACH MUSEUM]  ‘Tis the season of the macabre, what with Halloween right around the corner and John McCain trying to scare as many white people as possible, and nobody was more macabre than Vlad The Impaler, the historic template for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. As governor of a region of what is modern-day Romania, Vlad was one of those guys that today we would refer to euphemistically as a ‘strong leader.’ A real hardcore ‘law and order’ kinda guy, Vlad ruled with an iron fist, or, more accurately, a sharp stick. According to Wikipedia: His […]