Filed under: News!
(voidentity series – tania leshkina)
Alexander Conner (Adaptation Senior Curator) was selected as the Philadelphia Correspondent for the international online arts journal LAND. He recently contributed a short essay on the work of London-based photographer Tania Leshkina.
Read it here: Tania Leshkina by Alexander Conner
(voidentity series – tania leshkina)
Filed under: Call for Entry
(Photo credit: Christopher Motta)
The gravestone of the notoriously confident and talented Satchel Paige warns, “…don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” A simple offering of guidance – for artist and base-runner alike.
The Rules for Staying Young explores the impact of baseball as an inspiration and conceptual model for historical and contemporary American artists, while investigating the ties between the game and the visual arts. From Thomas Eakins to Stephen Shore, baseball has captured the imagination and eye of American artists since its conception. The parallels between the timeless nature of our pastime and the evolving artistic studio are abundant, and remain profoundly relevant to contemporary practice. This exhibition highlights the rich territory between game and artist, where the perpetual moments of art and baseball meet.
Artist Eligibility
- Artist working within the United States
- Work in ALL medium/media will be considered
- Work must be related to the game of baseball (explain how if necessary)
- There are NO scale restraints for work
Submission Materials
- Medium-sized JPGS (15 max) of work to be reviewed OR website
- Brief statement regarding submitted work
- Submit materials to adaptationart@gmail.com (BASEBALL as header)
SUBMISSION DEADLINES
- All work + materials must be submitted by JANUARY 10TH, 2010 to be eligible for inclusion (The earlier you submit the better…)
Curatorial Staff / The Rules for Staying Young
Brookes Britcher (Director / Senior Programmer, Adaptation) / Alexander Conner (Senior Curator, Adaptation)
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We are pleased to announce that the NWAA (New Wilmington Art Association) will be the first venue to host this exhibition!
The Rules For Staying Young / May 2010
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Filed under: News!
All For One (Photographs 1977-2009) / Peter Capano will be CLOSING at the New Wilmington Art Association Thursday, September 17th 2009 from 6-10pm, with a live performance & films by Drew & the Medicinal Pen. Please join us!
Refreshments (compliments of DogFish Head Brewery) and Philadelphia soft-pretzels will be served.
Exhibition details:
September 4th – September 17th 2009
- Opening – September 4th 2009 / 6-9pm (Meet the artist)
- Closing – September 17th 2009 / 6-10pm (Meet the artist with a live performance & films by Drew & the Medicinal Pen [Brooklyn, Ny])
- Exhibition by appointment – contact Michael Kalmbach (302-312-5493) to schedule a visit
Hosted by:
The New Wilmington Art Association
4 West 5th Street
Wilmington, DE 19801
Live performance by:
Drew & The Medicinal Pen
An energetic four-piece band and multi-disciplinary project from Brooklyn, Ny, Drew & the Medicinal Pen is comprised of music (live/recorded), drawings, film/video, photographs, writing, painting, performance and curated screenings. Recently the project was featured in a front-page New York Times article on young Brooklyn artists, recieved airplay on Japanese radio and the Independent FIlm Channel, produced collaborations with filmmaker Brent Green and legendary Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty, as well as completed two U.S.tours.
Recent Press for All For One (Photographs 1977-2009) / Peter Capano
- CommunityPub / Sept. 13th, 2009 : <Artists fill void in Downtown Wilmington>
- LOMOphilly / Aug. 28th, 2009 : <Our neighborhood’s past, through the lens of Peter Capano>
Filed under: Call for Venue
We are currently seeking multiple venues for this proposed exhibition:
Vanishing Point
* If you are interested in hosting this exhibition please contact us at : adaptationart@gmail.com *
Vanishing Point aims to present work that confronts the notion of a “new abstract”. Inclusive to all medium, the exhibition presents abstraction as a means of reconciliation to the dislocation of self in modern life.
Engaging concepts of science, personal histories, politics and beyond, these artists build upon the histories of abstract art to fashion a sense of stability in an environment ever changing, ever updating – an environment built upon a constant feed for more information, with its reference point focused evermore on the self in synthetic environments.
Through this visual storm these artists have honed their use of abstraction not only as a means to understand their world, but as a mechanism to locate themselves as an individual in a sea of turbulent messages and meaning. Our understanding of our self becomes more abstract each day – these artists represent a direction where abstraction is no longer universal, but an intrinsically personal understanding.
Below – Excerpt from the curatorial statement by Alexander Conner (Senior Curator – Adaptation)
( This proposal is looking at artwork that is, in essence, abstracted in a conceptual manner. This common thread throughout the show, will allow each artist’s works to place themselves at different coordinates along on its continuum. “Vanishing Point” will attempt to relate to its viewers how this conceptual abstraction is indicative of how each artist orients themselves socially to establish and examine their current status as makers within their greater milieu.
In Holland Cotter’s February New York Times article entitled, “The Boom is Over, Long Live The Art!”, he poses a variety of rhetorical questions:
“Will the art industry continue to cling to art’s traditional analog status, to insist that the material, buyable object is the only truly legitimate form of art, which is what the painting revival of the last few years has really been about? Will contemporary art continue to be, as it is now, a fancyish Fortunoff’s, a party supply shop for the Love Boat crew? Or will artists — and teachers, and critics — jump ship, swim for land that is still hard to locate on existing maps and make it their home and workplace?”
These questions touch on an aspect of revolution through parsing escapism that we at Adaptation have noticed for some time in work by early-career artists today. This is not an ascetic endeavor, but one which has relegated itself beyond the realms of objective inclusion and into subjective collusion. Artists who have graduated from academies into the world of day jobs experience the comfort of camaraderie with so many others like themselves. However, this large amount of makers, competing with one another tooth-and-nail for exhibition, residency, and grant opportunities, leads to a more competitive and complex field of advancement and play within individual’s art-making practice.
Abstraction, as a conceptual entity within art-making, is a handy vehicle for the artist to attempt to make sense of, as well as obfuscate, the quickly approaching future (or for the nihilistic, perhaps end) of their art-making. These artists treat the abstract with a sensibility of engagement and distance that is dependent on the manifestation of their own belonging within different contexts. And it is this constant hindsight, this nostalgia without irony, that is particularly indicative of their individual interpretations of their collective revolution. )
Artists
Strauss Borque-LaFrance / Jenna Hannum / Katie Hinton / Simona Josan / Michael Kalmbach / Adam Lister / Caroline Santa / Cullen Stephenson / Stephanie Terao / Matthew West
/ Thank you to all the artists that submitted work to this show – We hope to find a place for your work in future exhibitions. /
We are currently seeking multiple venues to host this exhibition:
* Please contact us if you are interested in hosting this exhibition : adaptationart@gmail.com *
All for One (Photographs 1977-2009) / Peter Capano
Introduction
All For One (Photographs 1977-2009) compiles a small selection of 50 gelatin-silver prints from the defining photographic project by Philadelphia artist Peter Capano. Spanning over 30 years, this work offers an unparalleled visual document of a volatile period in Philadelphia history, and a passionate story of the struggles of an urban adolescent. Through his images, Capano beautifully documents the exploits and camaraderie that defined the 10th & Oregon gang with a sense of compassion and immediacy. The work visually traces the evolution of a Philadelphia neighborhood and its local ties to everything from the Mafia to the Mummers. Capano offers the story, told with raw, harsh honesty, of a community in which a sense of pride and place were determined, and honored, at the end of the block.
Technical Details
- 50 Vintage and contemporary silver-gelatin prints (Artist printed)
- Print sizes range from 8″ x 10″ - 11″ x 14″
Curatorial Staff / All For One (Photographs 1977-2009) / Peter Capano
Brookes Britcher (Director / Senior Programmer, Adaptation) / Alexander Conner (Senior Curator, Adaptation)
Below : Exhibition views and selections from All For One (Photographs 1977-2009) / Peter Capano
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All For One (Photographs 1977-2009) / Peter Capano
All For One (Photographs 1977-2009) compiles a small selection of 50 gelatin-silver prints from the defining photographic project by Philadelphia artist Peter Capano. Spanning over 30 years, this work offers an unparalleled visual document of a volatile period in Philadelphia history, and a passionate story of the struggles of an urban adolescent. Through his images, Capano beautifully documents the exploits and camaraderie that defined the 10th & Oregon gang with a sense of compassion and immediacy. The work visually traces the evolution of a Philadelphia neighborhood and its local ties to everything from the Mafia to the Mummers. Capano offers the story, told with raw, harsh honesty, of a community in which a sense of pride and place were determined, and honored, at the end of the block.
Raised in South Philadelphia at 10th & Ritner, Capano grew up in the looming shadow of a gang that would eventually intersect with nearly all aspects of his personal and artistic life. His passion and ability in the arts began early and were recognized in 1974 when his illustration portfolio gained him admission into the prestigious Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts at the age of 15. Shortly after, he formally entered the ranks of the 10th & Oregon gang at age 16. His continued interest in the arts flourished though, and in 1976 he was admitted to the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts) to study illustration and drawing. He completed PCA in 1981, but art school had shifted his artistic interest to photography; a discipline he was already honing, photographing as part of his everyday life in South Philadelphia. During his time at PCA he discovered the book “Tulsa”, by the Midwestern photographer and filmmaker Larry Clark. The lifestyle captured in Clark’s work confirmed to Capano that the images he was creating and the life around him were not a mere anomaly, but that the youthful world of sex, violence and addiction that embraced him everyday was a shared one. This realization would prove to be the greatest personal catalyst for Capano to continue making images of his community for the next 28 years.
Citing a drastic and senseless increase in gun violence and drug activity, Capano walked away from the gang after 10 years of involvement in 1986. Coincidentally 1986 was the year he met his then soon-to-be wife, and nearly a year after he had begun teaching photography professionally to youths. He continued to photograph his friends as the years in the gang and “old-habits” subsequently took their toll on the lives and families of the children he grew up with, culminating with the needless passing of his lifelong friend and gang-mate Guy. He continues to visit his old neighborhood and remarks sadly that many things remain unchanged. With All For One (Photographs 1977-2009) Capano offers a resonant pictorial vision and record of growing up where the line between violence and play was transparent and the hope of leaving the corner, for most, was an elusive dream.
Currently, Peter Capano is teaching photography, and has been doing so for the last 25 years. He has lost nearly all direct connection with the 10th & Oregon gang and his old neighborhood, except for his wife Martha, who grew up down the block.
Adaptation is pleased to partner with the NWAA to present this unique body of work to the public for the first time in nearly 30 years.
Brookes Britcher
Curator / Adaptation
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We are pleased to announce that the NWAA (New Wilmington Art Association) will be the first venue to host this exhibition!
NWAA
4 West 5th Street
Wilmington, DE 19801
September 4th – September 17th 2009
- Opening – September 4th 2009
- Closing (Artist conversation with panel) – September 17th 2009
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Filed under: News!
Alexander Conner / Senior Curator @ Adaptation
Recently Alexander Conner and Brookes Britcher of Adaptation were interviewed by the New York Times about the state of the arts in the country, and the activity of the Philadelphia arts community in the recent economic downturn. This is an enormous honor for our small Philadelphia-based curatorial outfit. Alexander Conner, a practicing artist as well as our curator, was the focus of the Times story, resulting in a video documentary titled “The Recession-Proof Artist”. Links to the story and video are available below.
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Tight Times Loosen Creativity
< read it here >
The Recession Proof Artist – Video by Jigar Mehta
< watch it here >
Filed under: Opa!
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“If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”
Gaston Bachelard, Poetics of Space
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Adaptation was conceived as an artist-run critical collective in 2003, compiling a talented class of fifteen regional artists, musicians and writers. After numerous exhibitions and activities as a collective, Adaptation evolved into a “museum-model” exhibition venue located in the Walnut Hill section of Philadelphia. From 2007 through 2008 we produced and hosted eight exhibitions, featuring over forty national and international artists and performing acts. During this time we also created and hosted an Artist-In-Residence program focused on providing creative resources to existing Philadelphia talent. Our 2007/2008 exhibition series in Walnut Hill was capped off with an invitation from the Philadelphia Inquirer to attend the Arts & Business Council of Greater Philadelphia’s 2008 Awards event.
Continuing our priority to remain lucid and adaptive as an organization, we have evolved into a solely curatorial DIY group. Our goal is to provide challenging and dynamic curatorial interventions to traditional and non-traditional art venues. The activities generated by Adaptation attempt to provide a venue and a context for artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, designers, architects and others of the creative ilk to actively engage in the cross-pollination of ideas and practice through the activation of a space.
We hope to see you at our next event.
adpt.
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Contact us about collaborations with you or your organization / adaptationart@gmail.com
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OPA!
Brookes Britcher /// Director + Senior Programmer
/// philadelphia, pa ///
Brookes Britcher received his MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art and his BS from Drexel University. He is a multi-disciplinary artist that maintains a permanent studio practice at Adaptation. Over the last ten years his work has been exhibited around the country in numerous curated and group shows, and exists in various private collections, most notably J.W. Mahoney of Art In America and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. and Tim Rollins of Tim Rollins & K.O.S..
Selected exhibitions include the Apparel Center (Chicago, IL), the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art (Grand Rapids, MI), the White Box (Nyc, NY), the Curators Office (Washington, D.C.), the James Oliver Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), The Gallery Project (Ann Arbor, MI), the Nexus Foundation (Philadelphia, PA), the New Wilmington Art Association (Wilmington, DE) and the Cranbrook Art Museum (Bloomfield Hills, MI). He has lectured at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI, as well as been a Visiting Critic of Architecture at Lawrence Technical University in Troy, MI
Alexander Conner /// Senior Curator
/// philadelphia, pa ///
Alexander Conner received a B.A. in Middle Eastern Studies and a B.A. in Sociology from Rutgers University. He lives in Philadelphia and is an inter-disciplinary artist using drawing, photography, printmaking, technology, sound, and video in order to structure his thoughts related to people and their environments.
Selected exhibitions of his work include, the Aferro Gallery (Newark, NJ) and Apex Art (New York, NY). Conner’s projects are featured in Rhizome’s ArtBase Collection and the Newark Public Library’s Artist’s Books Department. Besides acting as Senior Curator at Adaptation, he is an avid cook and bread baker.
Katrina Kuntz /// Associate Curator
/// new york, ny ///
Katrina Kuntz is an independent curator and critic based out of NYC, NY.
In addition to her active contributions to the New York City art dialogue, she holds an MA in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA in Fine Arts & BA in Art History from the University of Cincinnati. Currently, she is completing her PhD in Art History and Criticism at SUNY – Stony Brook in New York, writing her dissertation on failure in contemporary art.
Beyond her role at Adaptation, she lectures at Stony Brook University and Dowling College, as well as contributes to the Los Angeles based journal ArtUS.
Andrew Henkels /// Associate Programmer
/// new york, ny ///
Andrew Henkels received his B.A. in Film from Fordham University in New York, Ny. His multi-disciplinary project, Drew & the Medicinal Pen, is comprised of music (live/recorded), drawings, film/video, photographs, writing, painting, performance and curated screenings. This long-term project, massive in scope, has received countless critical accolades. In addition to his curatorial duties at Adaptation he develops event programming for Rooftop Films in Brooklyn, NY.
Laura Stortz /// Promotion + Development
/// philadelphia, pa ///
Laura Stortz received her B.A. in Marketing and Advertising from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pa, graduating with special distinction for creative marketing practices. Prior to developing promotional strategies at Adaptation she created text/copy solutions for the Star Group in Philadelphia, Pa. Beyond her activities at Adaptation she is an accomplished distance runner and advanced yogi.
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Filed under: Exhibitions
U R Here presents photographic work that confronts the displacement of being in a foreign place, yet the need to understand, comprehend or assimilate into those environments – evident through the image. The picture becomes the disjointed bridge between a temporary home and an unfamiliar place.
ART
Jacob Koestler / Andew Maydoney / Alexander Conner / Joshua Mackie / Brookes Britcher / Lauren Caulk
PERFORMANCE
Aaron Aleiner (aka “Teddy Serious”)
Filed under: Exhibitions
LITMUS is a contemporary drawing micro-survey, featuring artists from Philadelphia, Missouri, Boston, Chicago, New York and Paris.
ART
Anne- Margot Ramstein / Cullen Stephenson / Wendy-Jane Hyatt / Tatiana Flis / Jason Lips / Brookes Britcher / Dan Mahlman / Mike Newton
PERFORMANCES
Gavin Riley / “Cloak” (Ben Holt)
Filed under: Exhibitions
Over-flowing day dreams, night visions, occult shivers and sounds seeping through cracks in the floor…
This comprehensive exhibition showcases selections in various medium from the ongoing five-year project ‘Drew and the Medicinal Pen’. Match-Book (drawings), TV (graffiti work), Love/Hate NY (photography), Film, Video, Posters, Dream Log (writings/drawings), as well as a LIVE performance of music associated with this project (in anticipation of a US tour commencing August 2008) will be represented in this exhibition.
Participating Artists and Performers
ART / MUSIC
Drew + the Medicinal Pen
Drew Henkels / Anna Morsett / Missy Liu / Brendan Pezzoli
*This exhibition will be traveling to The Potion Gallery (Brooklyn, NY)*
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“Inside/Out”: Drew and the Medicinal Pen at Adaptation
July 5, 2008
by Katrina Kuntz
It is difficult to write about art as honest as Drew Henkels’s. His drawings and his writings, including song lyrics and general musings, offer small but alluring and brilliant glimpses into the private world of the artist. Neither forced nor heavy-handed like the art that nowadays saturates both the gallery system and the market, work from Henkels’s on-going multidisciplinary project, “Drew and the Medicinal Pen,” originates in so natural and personal a place that it is shocking in its rarity and creativity. The problem with evaluating such art is it can feel like picking on a guy who wears his heart upon his sleeve. But, Henkels is the kind of artist whose passion doesn’t outstrip his intelligence and whose tendency towards introspection is tempered with a stern dose of reality. His art is without pretension or agenda but is fueled by an urgent need to put to paper his thoughts and experiences. What gets preserved in the process are hopes, desires, fears, and fantasies that too often go unnoticed or underappreciated but which give deeper meaning to life.
Dream Logs, a series of ink on paper drawings and writings excerpted from Henkels’s journal, is the repository of his autobiographical reflections. The small, intimate works have an intuitive impulse, almost a rawness, to them. His line work fluctuates between thin and delicate contours and steady, heavy strokes depending upon his state of mind while his script can undulate across the page, climaxing in tangles, or strictly align with the pale grid of the graph paper. Misspellings and crossed out words betray not only the fluidity between Henkels’s mind and hand but also his intensity and a fidelity to instinct. In less talented hands, Dream Logs would be nothing more than a collection of sophomoric diary entries but Henkels has created a special place for recording and decoding his interior world that is at once nuanced, sensitive, and unaffected. Through imagery that verges on the surreal (think ears that morph into brass instruments and disembodied feet perched on windowsills) coupled with spontaneous prose, Henkels’s dreams are given tangible form. The darkest of the drawings bleed through the thin paper, weaving a complex tapestry of ghost and surface images, fancy and reality.
The aural component of Dream Logs is symbolized by an installation of nearly 70 hand-altered cassette tapes which bears the titles of what seems to be the soundtrack to Henkels’s life. The retro look of the cassettes and their handmade labels call to mind the teenage pastime of creating mixed tapes as a stand-in for unspeakable tormented emotions and as a form of highly personal expression. With terse titles like “A Quarter Life Crisis, 1/27” and “Carpe Diem Tomorrow, 2/05,” the installation suggests that Henkels never grew out of this pursuit, or perhaps that he still considers the mixed tape method of therapy just as effective as his “medicinal pen.” What is evident, however, is that music, live as well as recorded, plays a central role in Henkels’s project and it is easy to see how musical improvisation and experimentation is in keeping with his drawing and writing practice. There is more to “Drew and the Medicinal Pen”: more drawings of dismembered body parts (a recurring motif), sketches of imaginative scenarios for future projects, graffiti painted throughout New York City, icons doodled inside matchbooks, and some excellent video work that showcases Henkels’s artistic training without overwhelming his inclination towards whimsy and capriciousness. Combined, this body of work paints a portrait of an artist who doesn’t feel the need to make art that announces itself as art. Henkels effortlessly finds artistic possibility in the everyday and, as every honest artist should, doesn’t ask for anything in return.
