Kimmel Center Announces Installation of Works by Five Local Artists
April 19, 2006
The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia today announced the installation and permanent display of works by five Philadelphia artists beginning April 19. Artists and their works selected are: Moe A. Brooker, Everything is on Its Way to Somewhere; Fritz Dietel, Twist; Sidney Goodman, Angel; Stuart Netsky, Monet’s Haystacks; and Elizabeth Osborne, Oracle I.
All five artists were on hand today at the Kimmel Center at a public event for the official dedication of their work. The event included tours, interviews with the artists, and a reception.
"We're both honored and delighted to find a permanent place in our public spaces for five of Philadelphia's most exciting and creative visual artists," said Kimmel Center President and CEO Janice Price. "From its opening, the Kimmel Center has been synonymous with the world's best performing arts, and these five unique works now extend that reputation to the visual arts as well by adding yet another dimension to the visual beauty of the Kimmel Center."
Philadelphia Public Art Program
The City of Philadelphia Public Art Program, established in 1959, was one of the first in the country requiring that municipal projects include artwork which responds specifically to public spaces and contributes to the public's understanding and appreciation of the visual arts. Since 1959, more than 300 works of art have been commissioned or purchased through the Percent for Art Ordinance. The program is administered by the Department of Public Property.
The pieces on permanent exhibit at the Kimmel Center were chosen from nearly 4000 slide submissions by 499 area artists. The rigorous jury process, which included studio visits, resulted in the recommendation of eleven works, from which five were selected for purchase. The Kimmel Center has reserved the right to consider purchasing additional works from among the recommended artists at a later time.
The selection panel was comprised of: Louis Sloan, Artist; Joseph Rishel, Curator of European Painting, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Marciarose Shestack, Collector and Patron of the Arts; Helen Drutt English, former Director of Helen Drutt Gallery; Marsha Moss, Public Art Curator and Consultant; Janice Price, President and CEO, Kimmel Center; Nancy Rogers, former Vice President, Institutional and External Affairs, Kimmel Center; and overseen by then Deputy City Representative for Arts and Culture, Carol Clark Lawrence.
The Kimmel Center continues to enrich the already vibrant public space by adding these works to the center. Other two and three dimensional works on display include work by current and former Moore College faculty and students, including Eight Figures by Philadelphia artist Arlene Love a sculpture of eight life-size female figures cast in bronze, a gift to the Kimmel Center from William Hollis and Andrea Baldeck.
Nearly one million people pass through the Kimmel Center each year, and the works are viewable to the public during the Center’s nearly 700 yearly events, as well as during the daytime public hours and on the free daily 1pm tours.
Moe A. Brooker
Title: Everything is on Its Way to Somewhere
Media: Oil, oilstick and encaustic on wood
Size: 48" x 96"
Location: Tier 2, South
Biography
Moe A. Brooker has been an artist and teacher for more than thirty-three years. He received an MFA from the Tyler School of Art in 1972. Since then, he has taught at the Cleveland Institute of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and served as the Chair of the Foundation Department at the Parson School of Design in New York. In 1995, he began teaching at the Moore College of Art and Design, where he is presently Professor and Chair of the Basics Department. Brooker has an extensive exhibition record, including solo and group shows in Philadelphia, New York, Michigan and Ohio. He has been the recipient of several honors and awards including an invitation from Oxford University to participate in a conference of scholars in July 2006. Absolut Vodka commissioned him to do an "Absolut Brooker" ad in 1992. He is listed in Who’s Who in American Art and his art work is included in many significant public and private collections.
Artist Statement
Everything is on Its Way to Somewhere is a horizontal painting composed of two 48"x 48" wooden panels. Horizontal works are very difficult for me to do. Putting two square panels together allowed me to approach the horizontal direction with greater confidence. I wanted to challenge myself with a spatial problem that would impact the choices I would make creatively and the image that would result from those choices. My intention was to investigate the combined use of encaustics and oil stick on a larger scale. In the past 3 or 4 years, combining encaustics and oil stick had been relatively small and limited to small areas within a painting. In this piece I wanted to be able to establish a surface intimacy that characterizes my smaller works. As an artist, new information and experiences are vital to my work. The shifting and selection of those bits and pieces of information that are more useful spark and enlighten my creative processes. The need to know compels further exploration in the search for new ways and materials to make images. Painting is about making visible a thought or an idea. "Making visible" for me is about the asking of questions. Questions cause search, leading to invention resulting in discovery. The kind of information I need as an artist is the result of a constant search. The information that I use becomes a vehicle that best enables and encourages discovery, invention and the process of "Making Visible."
Fritz Dietel
Title: Twist
Media: Cypress and mixed-media
Size: 100"h x 50"w x 42"d
Location: Tier 2, North
Biography
Fritz Dietel is a sculptor who lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dietel’s work is included in many private and public collections, including the Delaware Museum of Art, Johnson and Johnson, Vanguard Group, and M.B.N.A. Dietel’s most recent outdoor commission is a 12’ bronze sculpture at the Milton Hershey School in Hershey, Pennsylvania. His work has been exhibited at numerous galleries in both group and solo exhibitions. Dietel is a recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship in Visual Arts. He attended The University of the Arts and graduated with a BFA in Sculpture in 1984.
Artist Statement
Twist was conceived while I listened to a live chamber orchestra performance. I sketched what would eventually become Twist on the back of the program. The sculpture combines my love of nature and wooden boat building. It is an organic form constructed much like a wooden boat. I glued thin strips of cypress over a collapsible wooden armature, bundling the strips together with wire and pigmented epoxy. Once the epoxy cured, I removed the wire ties and superstructure. Twist initially was exhibited as a floor piece. However, after seeing the piece exhibited in a gallery, I realized that it was much more dynamic and interesting as a wall piece.
Sidney Goodman
Title: Angel
Media: Oil on linen
Size: 95" x 65"
Location: Plaza, South
Biography
Sidney Goodman was born and raised in Philadelphia. He graduated from the Philadelphia College of Art in 1958. His first New York exhibition was at The Terry Dintenfass Gallery in 1961. His work is currently represented by ACA Gallery in New York. Major museum exhibitions over the past 40 years include solo shows at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Columbus Museum of Art and Delaware Art Museum. His paintings and drawings are included in the permanent collections of institutions including The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Goodman has been a professor of painting and drawing at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia since 1979. Previously, he taught at The University of the Arts from 1960 until 1978.
Artist Statement
My work is a mixture or composite of these three major elements- observation, imagination and memory. The painting, Angel can be seen as being integrated within these elements. I would like the viewer to experience the visual impact of this painting as well as the more contemplative. This painting has a presence that is both theatrical and dramatic. It depicts a monumental figure that in my mind has the presence of an angel. She is rising and appears to be singing. She does not have wings but the billowing folds of her garment suggest motion and flight. The Kimmel Center is the perfect home for a singing angel.
Stuart Netsky
Title: Monet’s Haystacks
Media: Billboard flickers on plastic, mounted on wood panels
Size: 78" x 117 ½"
Location: Tier 1, South
Biography
Stuart Jan Netsky was born in Philadelphia, PA on August 23, 1955. He received a Bachelor of Science from Drexel University, a Masters of Art in Art Education from Philadelphia College of Art and a Masters in Fine Art from Tyler School of Art. From 1977 through 1983, Stuart Netsky was the president and head designer of his own millinery design company in New York City. Since 1984, Mr. Netsky has been pursuing his career as a professional artist, and in 1995 received the Pew Fellowship in the Arts. He currently teaches at The University of the Arts and Philadelphia University. Mr. Netsky has had solo exhibitions of his work at Philadelphia’s Institute of Contemporary Art and several galleries in Philadelphia and New York City. His work is in the collections of The Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Johnson and Johnson Collection and many private collections.
Artist Statement
My painting after Monet’s Haystacks came about as a response to the medium the work is made from. These sequins or "billboard flickers" as they are called, first captivated me when I would see them on billboards, usually en route from Philadelphia to Atlantic City - commonly used on billboards advertising Atlantic City casinos. The flickers would shimmer and glow from the movement of the air and the reflection of the sun, and I always said to myself that if I could find the materials the billboards were made from, I would use them to interpret Impressionist paintings like Monet’s Water Lilies, Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, or Monet’s Haystacks. I did find these materials, and Monet’s Haystacks is one of my favorites. These pieces belong in a public space because they need light and movement to "activate" them, and I am thrilled this piece has found a permanent home at the Kimmel Center.
Elizabeth Osborne
Title: Oracle 1
Media: Oil on Canvas
Size: 63" x 63"
Location: Tier 2, North
Biography
Elizabeth Osborne was born in Philadelphia in 1936. She attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania and was awarded several prestigious fellowships. In 1963, Osborne received a Fulbright Scholarship allowing her to travel and study in Paris. Exhibiting regularly since the early 1960s, Osborne has had more than twenty-five solo shows in Philadelphia, New York, and Washington DC. Her work is included in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; and the Delaware Art Museum. Her work has been included in many national group exhibitions, and she has received numerous awards, including the Ford Foundation Purchase Prize. Osborne has taught painting and drawing at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts since 1963 and is a visiting faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, University of the Arts and the University of Arizona.
Artist Statement
The painting Oracle I is part of an ongoing series of works that I began in Oracle, Arizona in the late 1990s. The expansive terrain and huge sky near the Catalina foothills captivated me and I have explored both on canvas and on foot this magnificent desert land with all its thorny and rocky trails covered with parched branches, broken stones and desert remains. The saturated color and overlapping geometry are characteristic of these works and contrast greatly to my more detailed and muted Maine paintings. Oracle I was completed in my Philadelphia studio from site studies in 2003-4.
About the Kimmel Center
Kimmel Center, Inc., a charitable, not-for-profit organization, owns, manages, supports and maintains The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, which includes Verizon Hall, Perelman Theater, Innovation Studio and the Merck Arts Education Center. Kimmel Center, Inc. also manages the Academy of Music, owned by the Philadelphia Orchestra Association. The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts and the Academy of Music serve as home to eight Resident Company performing arts organizations, including The Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Ballet, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, American Theater Arts for Youth, PHILADANCO, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and Peter Nero and the Philly Pops®. Kimmel Center, Inc.’s mission also includes arts in education, community outreach and a rich diversity of programming through its Kimmel Center Presents and Broadway at the Academy series of performances.
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