Grave Concerns
Matt Pruden solo exhibition
October 8-November 6, 2009
Nexus Gallery at the Crane Building
1400 North American Street, Suite 102
Philly, PA
OPENING RECEPTION: THURSDAY OCTOBER 8, 6-9 PM
GALLERY HOURS: WED - SUN 12-6 PM
FROM THE PRESS RELEASE:
"With “Grave Concerns” Matt Pruden presents his 3rd solo exhibition at Nexus.
Stemming from research into 19th century attitudes towards the afterlife, each graphite drawing in the “Grave Concerns” series brings together a symbolic funerary ornament from Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, and a terse bit of text from the Magic Eight-Ball. The drawings are a mash-up of high and low cultural sources: both ends of the spectrum that addresses perennial concerns about the nature of fate, supernatural force, and the survival of consciousness.
The funerary decorations observed throughout Laurel Hill derive from a long literary and art-historical lineage, a deeply symbolic language denoting such profundities as faith, grief, redemption, loss and immortality. The Magic Eight-Ball is a child’s toy invented in the 1940’s but still popular into the present. When an anxious question is posed to it and the ball is shaken, a pithy response floats out of darkness to the surface. Much as the Ouija board descended from the “talking boards” of Victorian séances into a spooky parlor game, so the Magic Eight-Ball is a laughably watered down version of divination.
Working across many media, Pruden is primarily concerned with cultural responses to the unknown, geographical imaginings, and the spectre of loss. He makes use of obscure histories as a kind of cultural subconscious, probing the ways in which they inform our contemporary world. Having previously delved into such 19th century phenomena as polar exploration, mountaineering, and Spiritualism, he now brings his focus to bear on material that is both very near at hand and forever mysterious."
About to Surface
Featuring work by Andria Bibiloni, Julie Boyer, Brooke Holloway, Jessica Jane Julius, Brenna K. Murphy, and Lareen Griffin.
September 28th through October 16th, 2009
Center for Emerging Visual Artists
1521 Locust Street
Philly, PA
3 pieces below are by Brooke Holloway, who told me she did a giant wall piece for this show...super excited to see it.
An exhibiton curated by Julien Robson, Curator of Contemporary Art at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. Select work and installations by artists participating in the 2009 Philadelphia Open Studio Tours.
these works were also hanging in the lobby at Moore last year, correct?
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