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Visual Arts

Ken Lum on art and controversy
An exhibition by Ken Lum of a purple couch with four sides and two prints hanging on the wall.

Installation view of Ken Lum’s exhibition at Magenta Plains in New York. (Image: Weitzman News)

Ken Lum on art and controversy

The Marilyn Jordan Taylor Presidential Professor and Chair of Fine Arts at the Weitzman School, who has solo art exhibitions in New York and Ontario, discusses his art and controversy surrounding it.

From the Weitzman School of Design

‘Paths to Freedom’: A new exhibit by John E. Dowell
Artist John Dowell stands in the gallery with his artworks behind him surrounded by several people.

About 100 people, including several Penn faculty, attended the opening of the "Paths to Freedom" exhibition of work by artist John E. Dowell (center).

‘Paths to Freedom’: A new exhibit by John E. Dowell

In a new Arthur Ross Gallery exhibition, Philadelphia artist John E. Dowell imagines attempted escapes by enslaved ancestors through his photographs of North Carolina cotton fields at night. “Paths to Freedom” includes 26 artworks, an installation of fabric panels, and a soundscape.
ICA, WXPN awarded Pew Center for Arts & Heritage project grants
Musicians from the Black Opry Revue performing on a porch

WXPN is partnering with the Black Opry collective to support a Black Opry residency for five emerging Black Americana musicians. (Image: Black Opry Revue, 2021, by Gabriel Baretto)

WXPN

ICA, WXPN awarded Pew Center for Arts & Heritage project grants

The Institute of Contemporary Art and WXPN have been awarded 2022 project grants from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Stuart Weitzman School of Design alumni James Maurelle, now on the faculty, and James Allister Sprang are among 12 Pew Fellows in the Arts named this year.
Exploring the depth of smell through art
Odd-shaped blocks arranged on a concrete surface

Blocks and stones, imbued with scent, are placed on a concrete step in the ICA gallery, as part of a new exhibit by artist, chemist, and linguist Sissel Tolaas.

Exploring the depth of smell through art

With “RE_______,” a fall exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Sissel Tolaas, a Norwegian artist, chemist, and linguist, the galleries put smell front and center.
Do art museums prioritize visitor well-being enough?
Two people standing in front of a wall of art. One of them is holding up a second piece of art in gloved hands. The other gestures toward the art, holding a computer or clipboard in the other hand.

Katherine Cotter and James Pawelski (not pictured) surveyed more than 200 curators, educators, researchers, security guards, exhibit designers, and others working at art museums to gauge how museums can impact visitors’ well-being.

Do art museums prioritize visitor well-being enough?

Research from the Humanities and Human Flourishing Project in Penn’s Positive Psychology Center reveals that the people working in these institutions want to see greater emphasis on human flourishing, but they feel ill-equipped to make it happen.

Michele W. Berger

Creating an artist’s book at the Common Press
two sets of arms over a hand-operated printing press, one set with gloved hands putting ink on a metal cylinder and the other placing a printing plate with an image of a tree without leaves on the flat surface in front of the cylinder

Artist-in-residence Katie Baldwin works with a hand-operated printing press in Penn’s Common Press, located in the Fisher Fine Arts Library, to print pages for her forthcoming book.

Creating an artist’s book at the Common Press

Artist-in-residence Katie Baldwin is printing a book she wrote and illustrated, inspired by a 400-plus-year-old volume in the Penn Libraries collection, sponsored by a residency with the Philadelphia Center for the Book.