On a recent, particularly freezing weekend, I headed southwestard to see what was happening in alleged Sixth Borough, Philadelphia. As is rumored, Philly really is like one huge amalgamation of Park Slope and the Lower East Side, but cheaper -- for the price of a basement apartment below a Taco Bell in East Flatbush, you can get a palatial duplex with exposed brick in a Williamsburg-like section of Philly. The real reason for my trip was to scope out the Philly art scene. Just far enough away from New York (a little under two hours) to escape its looming shadow, and close enough to absorb some of its overflow, the Philadelphia art scene is booming. Everyone I met was in some sort of art collective (or two) and wearing cool, over-sized plastic glasses. Every artist/gallery person I met seemed unironically excited about making really cool and interesting art. There were hardly any jaded eye-rolls, and not a lot of too-cool-for-school-ness that I associate with the New York art scene. Everyone seemed to be rooting for everyone else. It was very heartening. But also kind of daunting. Which is why we had the kind Move to Philly founders Kendra Gaeta and Laris Kreslins show us around. It turns out that they know everything about the Philadelphia art world. And then some. Here is how the weekend went down.
FRIDAY
The drive was an easy one, and we checked into the charming Penn's View Hotel (located in the Old City district) at around 10ish. After some catching of breaths, it was on to The Khyber, Philly's Knitting-Factory-esque venue, to see New York band Rahim. It felt slightly not the point to see a New York band in Philadelphia, but before we knew it, we didn't know where we were. Did I mention that the beer was really cheap? As such, the rest of the evening is rather hazy, but somehow we managed to get back to the hotel, where we watched a bit of Robocop before falling asleep.
SATURDAY
In an email sent to me before my trip, Kendra told me she had a bright yellow car, which I knew was a good sign. At 11 a.m., she and her boyfriend Laris picked us up at our hotel in said yellow car. The first thing we did was go to The Rocket Cat Café to fuel up. I got some tea there. It's located on Frankford Ave., an on-the-up-and-up stretch of recently-gentrified Fishtown. We then went to a hipster-Christian thrift store next door, where I bought a sweet little necklace.
Then the art whirlwind began. Our first stop was Bambi, a new gallery, also on Frankford, which is currently having a Mark Mothersbaugh postcard show. The owner, Candace Karch, was very nice, and upon meeting me, immediately became MySpace friends with PAPER Magazine.
Then it was on to the Crane Building. This huge warehouse in South Kensington, which houses the 5,000+ square-foot Ice Box Studios, is the aorta through which most of the cool, new Philly-based art travels. We were there for the Ryan Trecartin sculpture show. Trecartin is apparently Philly's answer to Dash Snow. His wacked-out video art was recently featured in 2006's Whitney Biennial, and he and his crew like to run around town wreaking havoc. Sounds good to us.
It was then time to see what was happening with those Philly art collectives, about which we had heard much. Luckily for us, currently on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art, was an exhibit titled, "Locally Localized Gravity," a show inspired by Philly's lively art collective scene. Four Philadelphia art collectives -- Black Floor Gallery, LURE, basekamp and Space 1026 -- were invited to create large-scale installations for the exhibit. Unluckily for us, our plans to see said exhibit on Sunday were thwarted by a mean snowstorm, which forced us to return to New York early. But Luckily for us, on Saturday, Kendra and Laris brought us to Black Floor, so we could see what was cooking there. Located in a burnt-out looking warehouse in North Chinatown, Black Floor is a gallery/living space for a crew of young artists who migrated from Cincinnati to Philly. We played a round of ping-pong and petted the gallery cats, while I imagined that this is what Fort Thunder in Providence must be like. Unluckily for everyone, in late March, Black Floor Gallery closed, which was a sad thing to hear.
Right across from Louis Kahn's old office on Walnut Street (which is now like a Club Monaco or something) is Fleisher Ollman Gallery. With copies of N+1 and The Bruce Springsteen "Born to Run" Glockenspiel Addendum for sale at the front, Fleisher Ollman promotes an amusing and non-annoying brand of pretension. The gallery specializes in "self-taught" art, and gallery director William Pym showed us these amazing maps of made-up cities by this artist Andrew Berman, who'll be having a show at Fleisher Ollman sometime soon. We want one.
For a different, more interactive art experience, Laris and Kendra took us to Adam Wallacavage's house. Wallacavage, a photographer and founding father of Space 1026, is something of a Philadelphia celebrity. He's known for his photographs of skating stars like Bam Margera (a friend of his) and Tony Alva, and also for his house. His house is SICK. When we rang the doorbell, he was re-doing the moldings in his living room. His signature octopus chandeliers (which he shows at Jonathan LeVine Gallery) hang beside his stuffed antelopes, his collection of Jules-Verne-y sea kitsch and his hand-made wallpaper. His house looks like it was decorated by Martha Stewart's deranged cousin. Check out his sweet new book of photography called Monster Sized Monsters. He and Laris and Kendra were all shooting the shit about all the artists that they knew and it all felt very small town-y.
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