Drexel’s First College and Workers Exhibition Opening in Pearlstein Gallery

Set/Setting (Cabin Steps), Jacob Lunderby, 2022.

The Leonard Pearlstein Gallery of Drexel College’s Antoinette Westphal Faculty of Media Arts & Design, will current Current Tense: Drexel Artwork Now, the college’s first exhibition of artwork created by school and workers, on Wednesday, Jan. 11 with a gap reception from 5-7 p.m. The open-call present was visitor juried and curated by the Alex Baker, director of Fleisher/Ollman Gallery.

Current Tense: Drexel Artwork Now will concentrate on the non-public studio work of 18 members of Westphal Faculty’s school and workers. Forty artworks in complete can be on show.

The exhibition will run from Wednesday, Jan. 11 by means of Saturday, March 18. Working hours are Tuesday by means of Friday from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Saturday 12 p.m. – 5 p.m. within the URBN Annex (3401 Filbert St.).

“Of the over 180 submissions by 40 Drexel school and workers that I thought-about for inclusion, I used to be accustomed to solely about 5 or so artists — what a gratifying expertise to find out about such a big group of Philadelphia artists I had no earlier information of,” mentioned Baker. “The exhibition not solely displays the considerations of Drexel-affiliated artists however serves as a snapshot of what it means to make artwork within the twenty first century, the place creativity isn’t dominated by anyone media, expressive methodology, or worldview.”

Fleisher/Ollman Gallery reveals work from artists working inside and out of doors of the mainstream, with a selected curiosity in self-taught artists. Baker’s expertise coping with artists working in a wide selection of media and kinds makes him particularly certified to contemplate a various pool, just like the greater than 150 submissions entered by the Westphal Faculty neighborhood.

“Not solely is it superior that the school is doing this present, however I additionally respect having the skin and non-partisan experience of somebody as achieved as Alex Baker,” mentioned Jody Graff, affiliate professor within the Westphal Faculty. “It offers the artists who’re lesser recognized in our faculty, or maybe simply beginning out a brand new area of labor an opportunity to be seen and given sincere suggestions.”

On show is figure by Leah Appleton, Theo A. Artz, Greyory Blake, Jen Blazina, Nick Cassway, Lewis Colburn, Meghan Cox, Michael DeLuca, Jody Graff, Peter Allen Hoffman, Jacob Lunderby, Bruce Pollock, Sarah Steinwachs, Mark Stockton, Rosalind Sutkowski, Lisa Sylvester, Ekaterina Vanovskaya, Ricardo Zapata.

“We have been lucky to have Alex Baker share his experience and information to curate this present,” mentioned Orlando Pelliccia, director of the Pearlstein Gallery and instructing professor in Westphal Faculty. “It must be understood {that a} ‘curated’ present follows a theme set by the curator, and by definition, some work is chosen, and a few isn’t. Whether or not a piece is chosen or not isn’t essentially a judgment of the standard of the work, however the suitability to the theme set by the curator.”

Baker was appointed director of Fleisher/Ollman Gallery in Philadelphia, in June 2012, the place he has organized over 30 exhibitions together with Outsiderism; Eugene Von Bruenchenhein: Time Produced Non Higher; Division of Neighborhood Providers: Isaac Tin Wei Lin, Barry McGee, and Dan Murphy, and Mending and Restore in Response: Jesse Harrod and Lisi Raskin.

Earlier than Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, he was senior curator of Modern Artwork on the Nationwide Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Melbourne, Australia from 2008-2012. Previously curator of Modern Artwork on the Pennsylvania Academy of the High-quality Arts and affiliate curator on the Institute of Modern Artwork, he has organized exhibitions at these venues with artists together with Robert Ryman, Ellen Harvey, Eamon Ore-Giron, Barry McGee, Steve Powers, Todd James, Chris Johanson, Margaret Kilgallen, and Laylah Ali, amongst others. On the NGV, he curated Ranjani Shettar: Dewdrops and Sunshine (2011), Harrell Fletcher: The Sound We Make Collectively (Melbourne) (2010), and Ricky Swallow: The Bricoleur (2009). Baker has a PhD in Visible Anthropology from Temple College.