There are several art splashes going on at the Philadelphia Museum of Art this week.
Drive in or by the Philadelphia Museum of Art this week, and you’re bound to be hit in the face with motion and change.
Outside of the main building, before the west entrance, the PMoA’s grandest pieces of public art – Louise Nevelson’s Environment and Atmosphere XII and Jacob Epstein’s Social Consciousness – will begin the process of relocation to the University of Pennsylvania’s campus (on loan for 99 years, yet) as the museum undergoes extensive, on-going construction work. If you want to these fantastic works in their natural setting, you have until Sunday to see that spectacle.
The restlessness that defines the PMoA starts today, July 10 at 4 p.m. across the street from the main building as The Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building (2525 Pennsylvania Avenue) begins playing host to its youth-driven, summer annual Art Splash hang where families and locally-based artists get together to create fresh, frazzle art projects in the Perelman’s Splash Studio. Art-making, open studio time and friendly gallery activities for nine weeks is a win-win for adults and children alike, especially considering that this summer’s Art Splash iteration is focused on community engagement, and draws inspiration from the exhibitions on view in the Perelman Building such as Souls Grown Deep: Artists of the African American South and The Art of Collage and Assemblage.
While creative avatars such as paper artist Nicole Donnelly, textile artist Joy O. Ude, and writer-storyteller Misty Sol will be on hand to create found object sculptures and craft textile work, children and adults alike will first thrill to mix of making and talking from assemblage artist Brian Bazemore. The famously self-taught Bazemore – also known as BCASSO – has been part of Philly’s arts building community for 30 years (I think I knew him first as a photographer), but has grown to include paint, metal, text, found objects, and organic materials for his moody, mixed-media installations and sculptures. Plus, considering that the PMoA has on display the works of African American artists concerned with where they have been, and where they are going, Bazemore’s interest in all things BLM (Black Lives Matter) will be of utmost importance to a maintaining the language of inclusion and harmony within the culture.
Bracing stuff, this. Check www.philamuseum.org for schedules, as Bazemore will commence his two-week swim at the Art Splash starting July 11.
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