Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design
Past Exhibits at the Pearlstein Gallery
Embracing the Uncarved Wood
The Pearlstein Gallery of Drexel University with support from The Phillips Museum of Art at Franklin & Marshall presents Embracing the Uncarved Wood, Sculpture Reliefs from Shandong, China.
Embracing the Uncarved Wood in the Philadelphia Inquirer
Curator Statement for Embracing the Uncarved Wood
Curators:
- Christopher Zhu, Art Critic
- Richard K. Kent, Professor, Art & Art History, F&M
- With Special thanks to Claire Giblin
DETAILS:
- What: Embracing the Uncarved Wood
- Where: Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Nesbitt Building (3215 Market Sts.)
- When: Exhibit runs September 21 - October 21, 2009
- Monday Friday 11am - 5pm
- Opening reception: October 1st 5-7pm
- Cost: FREE and open to the public
A gallery talk by Richard Kent & Virginia Maksymowicz will be given at 6:00 during the reception.
Semiopticon
Semiopticon review and images featured on Phrequency.com
The Leonard Pearlstein Gallery in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University is pleased to present an installation by Thomas Buildmore and Morgan Thomas. The installation will be open to the public from August 10th to September 11th. Gallery hours for the exhibition are Monday through Friday, 11am to 5pm. The gallery will host an opening reception for SEMIOPTICON August 12th at 6pm to 8pm. The gallery is pleased to feature Triumph Brewing Company at the reception. Admission is free and open to the public.
The SEMIOPTICON installation aims to explore the use of semiotic symbols seen throughout historic and contemporary art, and recognizable to our audience, to transform the gallery into a sacred and worshipped space. In the same way the Capuchin monks decorated their walls with skulls, the elaborate paintings of the Sistine Chapel, and the illustrated scenes of future hunts by cavemen, the paintings on each gallery wall strive to reflect on this innate drive in human nature to communicate through decoration.
Additionally, not unlike street art/graffiti or Buddhist sand paintings, the impermanence of the painting installation intensifies the connections and identifications visitors will perceive. Much like any painting installation, the ephemeral nature of the paintings, whether in a gallery or on the street, transcends the place into a worshipped space that will invoke a sense of loss at its removal. Buildmore and Thomas purposely reduce the installation to simple black and white so visitors can closely examine the significance, style, and beauty of each design and iconography. By treating the gallery as hallowed ground, even through the installation process, Buildmore and Thomas challenge their viewers to see the gallery as a contemporary sacred and spiritually invigorating place.
Check out the Press Release for Semiopticon.
SEMIOPTICON in the Philadelphia City Paper.
DETAILS:
- EVENT DETAILS:
- What: Semiopticon
- Where: Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Nesbitt Building (3215 Market Sts.)
- When: Exhibit runs August 10th - September 11th
- Monday Friday 11am 5pm
- Reception August 12th 6pm - 8pm
- Cost: FREE and open to the public
- More information: 215-895-2548 or gallery@drexel.edu
Buildmore and Overkill Studio at work at Proletariat in Boston.
Structure, Purpose, Beauty: 20 Years
Voith & Mactavish Architects, LLP
20th Anniversary Exhibit
Structure, Purpose, Beauty: 20 Years
For twenty years, the Center City Philadelphia architecture firm of Voith & Mactavish Architects, LLP has been achieving the art of innovation within the context of tradition. The Leonard Pearlstein Gallery is pleased to host an exhibition of VMA¹s work, showcasing the firm¹s wide range of projects, including educational facilities, performing arts venues, religious buildings, private homes, and historic preservation projects. The variety of work is united in its response to the project¹s context, a commitment to process, sustainability, and stewardship of the environment, and a focus on craftsmanship and beauty that too often is missing from architecture of today.
View "Structure, Purpose, Beauty: 20 Years" Press Release
DETAILS:
- EVENT DETAILS:
- What: Voith & Mactavish: Structure, Purpose and Beauty: 20 years
- Where: Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Nesbitt Building (3215 Market Sts.)
- When: Exhibit runs June 29th to July 24th
- Monday Friday 11am 5pm
- Reception July 17th, 5:00-7:30PM
- Cost: FREE and open to the public
- More information: 215-895-2548 or gallery@drexel.edu
Andrea Modica Presents New Photography and Original Works
Westphal College Photography Professor Andrea Modica will present photographs from her series Fountain, Colorado, as well as premiere her 11x14 platinum prints, in the Pearlstein Gallery from May 4th through June 5th. After moving to Colorado in the late 1990’s, Andrea Modica became interested in the unique world of the slaughterhouse and the professional and personal lives of those who make the slaughterhouse their livelihood. For nine years, Andrea documented the children of the Baker family who run a slaughterhouse in Fountain, Colorado. Her photographs record her gradual immersion into the Baker family as photos of the exterior of the slaughterhouse give way to private photographs taken in the family’s dimly-lit basement.
Andrea is a Guggenheim fellow and has exhibited her work extensively in the United State and Europe. Her photographs are featured in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institute, the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, among others.
Check out the Press Release for the Fountain, Colorado exhibit.
DETAILS:
- EVENT DETAILS:
- What: Andrea Modica presents Original and New Photography
- Where: Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Nesbitt Building (3215 Market Sts.)
- When: Exhibit runs May 4 June 5, 2009
- Monday Friday 11am 5pm
- Artist forum and reception, May 14th 5 8pm
- Cost: FREE and open to the public
- More information: 215-895-2548 or gallery@drexel.edu
Ink Not Ink
Curated by the Shenzhen Art Museum and an expert panel of Chinese critics and curators, including Fan Di¹an, Director of the National Art Museum of China, Ink not Ink will be the first survey-scale exhibition of contemporary Chinese art ever presented in the Greater Philadelphia region. More than 80 paintings, prints, sculptures, and videos by 40 Chinese artists, including renowned figures such as Wenda Gu, Wei Qinkgju, and Lin Tianmiao, will be presented. The central theme of the exhibition is the critical role that the ancient tradition of ink painting plays in the cultural memory and imagination of many contemporary Chinese artists even as they respond to China¹s explosive economic growth and rapid globalization. As outside cultural influences become increasingly potent inside China, artists are boldly experimenting with new mediums and technologies on an imposing scale, creating unprecedented admixtures of Western and Eastern imagery. For additional information, please check www.drexel.edu/westphal/inknotink.
For a panoramic view of Wenda Gu's United Nations, check out Will Brown's photography of the installation.
Ink Not Ink in the press DETAILS:Exhibition Locations:
- Bossone Research Enterprise Center, 3128 Market St.
- Paul Peck Alumni Center, 3142 Market St.
- Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Nesbitt Hall, 3215 Market St.
- Wednesday, April 1, 3:30-5:00PM
- Bossone Research Enterprise Center, Mitchell Auditorium, 3128 Market St.
- Wednesday, April 1, 6-8 PM (Tickets Required)
- Bossone Research Enterprise Center Lobby, 3128 Market St.
- Exhibition open to general public: Thursday, April 2, 10AM-5PM
- More Information: 215-895-2548 or email: ink@drexel.edu
Master Calligrapher
The Pearlstein Gallery is pleased to announce the work of Chukin Takagi, a master calligrapher from Japan and a Graphic Design Rankin Scholar. Chukin’s latest work includes expressive typography and a visual translation of a 7th century Buddhist chanted teaching, Hannyashingyou. In addition to showing her work, Ms. Takagi will lecture and work with students on this ancient art form that once created, cannot be altered.
DETAILS:- Calligraphy Rankin Exhibit
- Press Release
- Exhibit Dates: February 19 - March 20, 2009
- Opening Reception: Thursday, February 19th, 2009, 6-8pm
- For more information, please contact Elizabeth at 215.895.2548 or email gallery@drexel.edu
View a series of images from the Chukin Takagi exhibit below! [Photos courtesy of Kara Khan]
The Polish Poster Exhibit
Drexel University has recently acquired a remarkable collection of Polish poster art assembled as a lifetime passion by collector Frank Fox. Now, the Westphal College will showcase some of the collection’s finest pieces in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery along with a screening of filmmakers Andrea Marks and Glenn Holsten’s Freedom on the Fence, their documentary exploring the political, social, and artistic import of poster art in Poland. Marks and Holsten, as Rankin-Scholars-In-Residence, will give a lecture open to the public and also work with Graphic Desigin and Film & Video students.
Selections from the College's Polish poster collection were on display in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery. In conjunction with the exhibit, filmmakers Andrea Marks and Glenn Holsten were Rankin Scholars-in-Residence and screened their documentary about Polish poster art, Freedom on the Fence.
The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote a rave review of the Polish Poster exhibit. Click here to read the review.
View a series of images from the Polish Poster Exhibit below! [Photos courtesy of Kara Khan]
DETAILS:
- Polish Poster Exhibit
- Exhibit Dates: January 7, - February 6, 2009
- Opening Reception: Wednesday, January 14, 2009
- Movie Screening: Thursday, January 15, 2009 6pm
- FREE and open to the public
- For more information, please contact Elizabeth at 215.895.2548 or email gallery@drexel.edu
Pull Up A Chair, Rest Your Feet
Magnificent shoes by Salvatore Ferragamo, Roger Vivier, Prada and Lacroix will be exhibited alongside breakthrough chair designs including Harry Bertoia’s 1952 asymmetrical chaise lounge for Knoll International, and Bill Stumf and Don Chadwick’s 1994 Areon Chair for Herman Miller, in our unique Rest Your Feet exhibit in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery from November 3rd through December 12th.
As part of Rest Your Feet and the Sibby Merkel Brassler Lecture Series, we’re presenting two important guest speakers: Linda O’Keefe, Creative Director of Metropolitan Home, will speak on November 5th at 6 PM, and Valerie Steele, Director and Chief Curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), will talk on November 18th at 6 PM. Dr. Steele has curated over 20 exhibitions including London Fashion which won the first Richard Martin Award from The Costume Society of America. A cocktail reception will precede each lecture at 5 PM in Nesbitt Hall (33rd & Market St.).
Rest Your Feet will include pieces from the Drexel Historic Costume Collection, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Temple University’s Shoe Museum. Faculty and students from the departments of Fashion and Design & Merchandising and Architecture & Interiors organized the exhibit.
Rest Your Feet was shown on FOX29 Philadelphia, view the footage.
DETAILS:
- Rest Your Feet Exhibition & Speaker Series
- Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Nesbitt Hall, 3215 Market St.
Exhibit runs Monday, November through Friday, December 12
Opening Reception, Wednesday November 5, 2008 5:00-7:30 PM - Speaker Series:
- Linda O’Keefe, Wednesday, November 5, 6 PM, reception 5 PM
- Dr. Valerie Steele, Tuesday, November 18, 6 PM, reception 5 PM
- FREE and open to the public
- For more information, call 215-895-1029 or visit www.drexel.edu/westphal
Architecture Student Work
Graduating architecture students complete their studio sequence by choosing an independent thesis project on a design challenge. Their impressive drawings, models and digital images, resulting from these year-long projects, are on display at the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery through October 24th. This is your chance to see the finalists in the Izenour and the Stewardson competitions and the medal winners in the Michael Pearson Thesis Prize.
DETAILS:
- Annual Exhibit of Architecture Student Work
- Now through October 24
- Leonard Pearlstein Gallery (Nesbitt Hall, 33rd & Market St.)
- Gallery Hours, Monday through Thursday 11 AM–7 PM and Friday 11 AM–5 PM
- Free and Open to the Public
- For more information, call 215.895.2409 or email gallery@drexel.edu
EAM Student Curates Pearlstein Exhibit
Entertainment & Arts Management student Tara Caton is curating an exhibition in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery featuring artists she came to know through her co-op at The Center For Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA). The exhibit, Far Away from the Beginning: A Departure from Childhood Idealism, runs from August 4th through September 5th.
Tara did her co-op at CFEVA, a non-profit arts organization. CFEVA’s mission is to coordinate a regional support system for visual artists; to promote deserving artists and their relationship with the community; and to increase access to visual art for everyone. In addition to the exhibit, students who aspire to be artists can attend an information session on the Career Development Program at CFEVA, given by the program’s director Amie Potsic. Artists selected for the Career Development Program develop their business and marketing skills through a rigorous public exhibition schedule, enhancing their abilities to promote their work. The information session is August 6th at 4:30 PM in the Pearlstein Gallery. An artist talk in the Gallery starts at 5:30 PM with a reception following.
DETAILS:
- Far Away from the Beginning: A Departure from Childhood Idealism
- The Leonard Pearlstein Gallery (Nesbitt Hall, 33rd & Market St.)
- Monday, August 4 through Friday, September 5
- CFEVA Information Session, August 6, 4:30 PM, Leonard Pearlstein Gallery
- Artist Talk, August 6, 5:30 PM, Leonard Pearlstein Gallery
- Opening Reception, August 6, 6-8 PM, Leonard Pearlstein Gallery
- Free and open to the public
BITMAP Exhibit Unravels 8-bit Gaming
There is still time to see BITMAP: as good as new in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery. The interactive exhibit, on display until July 25th, features old computer monitors and Nintendo and Atari game consoles that have been hacked into for artistic exploration. This unique exhibit offers the opportunity to explore all facets of early video game technology. There are paintings that emulate the technology of the time, game cartridges turned into action figures and several types of altered video game media. 8Bit, a film that describes the history of video games and how their sounds and graphics influenced contemporary culture, kicked off the exhibit. Director Marcin Romocki introduced the film and attended the exhibit’s opening reception. If anything and everything video gaming is your thing, then be sure to see BITMAP.
Photography Senior Show
Photography takes many forms, from portraiture and photojournalism, to the commercial and fine arts. Our 14 graduating Photography seniors have amassed enormous experience and skills, and their talents will be on display at their Senior Show starting on June 13th from 6-9 PM in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery.
The student work presented at the show spans much of the history of photography in terms of technique from 19th century hand-coated platinum-palladium prints to today’s state of the art digital prints. Sarah Cohen used her mother as the subject of her collection. The images portray the issues of married women in a suburban lifestyle and the idea of yearning for youth. Jamuna Rosner’s work focuses around identity, how others view and define us, and by how we make a living. She photographed an exotic dancer as part of her thesis. Joe Small used a single camera and exposed the film multiple times to make seemingly mundane objects life-like and to transform the dreary nature of the city into the seemingly beautiful nature of still lifes.
Students represented include Stephanie Dore, Jacquelyn Tamny, Joe Small, Trevor Moran, Cara Worcester, Sean Grizzel, Brian Michael Lauer, Catherine Cupo, Sarah Cohen, Kelsey Fain, Jennifer Betser, Jamuna Rosner, Carrie Strine and Maxime Lattoni.
DETAILS:
- Photography Program Senior Show
- June 13 through June 21 with an opening reception on June 13, 6-9 PM
- Leonard Pearlstein Gallery (33rd and Market St.)
- Free and open to the public
- For more information, call 215.895.5868
Graphic Design Senior Show
Our Graphic Design seniors demonstrate tremendous talent and versatility in creating corporate identities, environmental designs, books and publications, packaging, paper sculptures and motion graphics. These visual communications will be showcased at their Senior Show on June 10th from 6-9 PM in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery.
Kyle Cook’s motion graphic ‘Chromesthesia,’ winner of won the 2008 International Applied Arts Magazine’s Student Award Competition, explores color, composition and typography. Daniel Steinberg won 1st Place in the Research Day University Undergraduate Creative Arts/Design category for his senior thesis work ‘You Are Now Here,’ a renewal of Philadelphia’s Metropolitan Transportation System. Jess Hetzel created an identity system and packaging for ‘The Post Restaurant’ and her thesis work will be included in the American Corporate Identity 2008 hard cover book.
Looking for graphic design talent or just interested in great design? This is an opportunity to see the work and meet designers Andrew Wright, Brad Breneisen, Caitlin Anderson, Chris Burton, Chris Ineson, Colleen Duffey, Daniel Steinberg, Doug Sitvarin, Greg Sevcik, Jenna Navitsky, Jess Hetzel, John Villani, Julia Dobbins, Justine Brining, Kyle Cook, Liz Vento, Michele Kopec, Nefeli Stavrinidi, Patsy Walsh, Sarah Thomas, Stephen Nunes, Aaron Radder and Susanne Gillin.
DETAILS:
- Graphic Design Senior Show
- Tuesday, June 10, 6-9 PM
- Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Nesbitt Hall (33rd & Market St.)
- Free and open to the public (includes reception)
- For more information call 215-895-1649
Art Icons in the Gallery
Pop, Process Art, Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism, Neo-Dadaism and Photo Realism are all highlighted in our currentexhibition of American Contemporary art icons in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery. Roy Lichenstein, Chuck Close, Frank Stella, Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol Lewitt, Robert Indiana and Bruce Nauman are represented in Master Prints from the Thomas Segal Gallery on display through June 6th.
DETAILS:
- Master Prints Exhibition: May 14 -June 6
- Pearlstein Gallery, ground floor Nesbitt Hall, (3215 Market St.)
- Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday, 11 AM-5 PM
- Info: 215-895-2548 or gallery@drexel.edu
Sarah Steinwachs: Building Environments
The Leonard Pearlstein Gallery is proud to announce its upcoming April exhibit, Sarah Steinwachs: Building Environments. In her new body of work, Steinwachs surgically dissects, layers, and paints individual sheets of graph paper, building small-scale environments by superimposing the dissected grids. Steinwachs’ multilayered dioramas reference the density of interior and exterior urban architecture and the infinite grid that overlays our modern landscape.
Influenced by her experience observing and drawing the urban landscape, Building Environments is an extension of a previous body of work consisting of highly rendered pencil drawings of the urban environment. While the urban influence is the same in these new works, the process has dramatically changed from using the additive mark to the absence of mark-subtractive process of cutting away paper with a knife.
Steinwachs’ work is a reflection on the accumulation of intentionally and unintentionally arranged matter in the built environment. The density and scope of this arranged matter is magnificent, from skyscrapers, to sprawling neighborhoods, to the interior view of a row house. Every time there is a scale shift, there are always spaces between other spaces that manage to get filled up with something else. Her work is a constant evaluation of this man-made network and the incomprehensible visual intricacy that it produces.
DETAILS:
- Sarah Steinwachs: Building Environments Exhibition April 2 – May 7, 2008
- Pearlstein Gallery, ground floor Nesbitt Hall, (3215 Market St.)
- Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday, 11 AM-5 PM
- Info: 215-895-2548 or gallery@drexel.edu
Jeffrey Blondes, Painter and Filmmaker
The Pearlstein Gallery welcomes painter and filmmaker Jeffrey Blondes for an exhibit of his extraordinary pastoral scenes inspired by his home in rural France entitled Periodicity: In the Presence of Nature. Periodicity features the artist's hallmark landscapes, transitional sea paintings, and his most recent Optics Paintings. Blondes' 24-hour and 52-hour films highlight the artist's new focus on bringing his observations and experience as an 'en plein air' painter.
DETAILS:
- Pearlstein Gallery, ground floor Nesbitt Hall, (3215 Market St.)
- Now - March 21
- Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday, 11 AM-5 PM
- Info: 215-895-2548 or gallery@drexel.edu
Open To Interpretation John Langdon and Eric Zillmer: The Art and Science of the Inkblot
The Leonard Pearlstein Gallery in the Westphal College is proud to announce the upcoming January exhibit, Open To Interpretation, John Langdon and Eric Zillmer: The Art and Science of the Inkblot. An opening reception will be held on Wednesday, January 16, 5:00-7:00 PM in the Lobby of Nesbitt Hall (3125 Market St.). The gallery is open Monday-Friday 11 AM- 5PM, through February 8th.
Original inkblots by artist and designer John Langdon elevate the perceived simplicity of the inkblot from basic monoprint to complex ambigrams. Known for his research in ambigrams, Langdon applies his expertise to create word plays developed using the inkblot technique. Eric Zillmer’s research into the science of inkblot analysis presents the audience with a rare opportunity to see a complete set of clinical Inkblots prints in conjunction with a collection of clinical responses
The Opening Reception on January 16 is Free and Open to public as are all visits to the gallery during open hours. For more information please email: gallery@drexel.edu.