Even though I had a pretty rough semester, I was able to find help and many options on how to catch up with all of the work I needed. This project was originally to be done about the exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art but I was unable to attend to it, so I got other options of different places I could go to make it up. The place I went to on January 10th, 2017 was called The James A. Michener Art Museum, it is located at 138 S Pine St, Doylestown, PA 18901.
At this museum there were a lot of exhibitions of different themes and one of them is Contemporary Art. This show was actually a permanent show which means theres no specific name of a show, instead there are just a lot of artist and their work. There two specific art works that caught my attention as soon as I walked in the room, maybe due to their size and color, also I realize that I have a thing for big sized art and colorful one. One of this art works is called A Wooden Watershed, 1926 and is by the artist Daniel Garber (1880-1958) This piece actually has an interesting story behind it. Daniel Garber was commissioned to paint a mural for the Natural Resources Exhibit in the Pennsylvania Building. This building was designed by architect Ralph Benker and its cost was $750,000 to be built at this time this was a considerable amount of money as well as one of the most expensive buildings to be constructed at the Sesquicentennial. The other piece that caught my attention was called Door and Surround and it’s by Phillip Lloyd Powell (1919-2008). This door had a microscopic analysis by furniture conservator, Behrooz Salimnejad of the door’s paint layers and he concluded that the original piece had six shades of bright red, reddish-orange, and yellow-orange oil-based paint. Salimnejad also did some intense conversation for this door over the last several months.
Another art piece at the museum was Street Quartet (1990) by Paul Keene (1920-1990). Keene is a Philadelphia born artist, he is a self described “abstract realistic” in which his story describes both the difficulties and achievements of African American artists in the 20th century. Keen’s figures images usually involves and combines the history mythyology and memory of his personal life in Haiti, Paris, Philadelphia with his love of music. His window scenes and landscape studies demonstrates to us his knowledge on knowing how to manipulate scale, color light and atmosphere. The fourth painting I saw at this museum was Vulcano from the Air by an American painter and photographer Diane Burko. Burko was first known for her painting and later on she has being recognized as a Photographer for her cinematic aerial explorations documenting the natural environment.She is very concerned about climate change as well.
As there were these beautiful paintings as well as statues/3D objects there were many more, not only in this selection of contemporary art pieces but also in other selection of expositions/shows. They all look very interesting and I feel it could be really nice to go and take a tour at that museum. I remember the lady that works there and showed me where everything was said that if my professor wanted to make a reservation for a student tour, then he could get one I believe she said for free. I really enjoyed seeing the type of art work they had on display, I would definitely will go back in the future to look at new work or shows they put up.