Good Grief!

According Good Grief’s sophisticated user preference tracking algorithm, readers who enjoy fake art reviews will also enjoy Phreaking Philly’s review of Cart, a popular BYO in Old City:

Cart is a charming, unassuming BYO that offers little in the way of interior design, but bags of potato chips clipped to its industrial-nuevo structure provide a splash of color. The menu features many comfort food standards, such as a meatball sub and a meatball sub with cheese. American cheese is .25 cents more than its parmesan cousin, but it’s worth the expenditure

Today’s arts pick is inspired by the 2005 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. These stretchy plastic bags transform a pair of feet into instant performance art.

The dueling symbolism of this piece thrusts a tremendous amount of tension onto the viewer and leaves many questions unanswered. The plastic medium evokes the material commonly used to store waste. Possibly the subject has been discarded by friends, peers, or a significant other and now wears the melancholy booties of isolation.

Or perhaps the opposite is true: the subject denies the realities of her environment, and she wears the sterile, white foot condoms to form a protective barrier between herself and the outside world.

Regardless of one’s interpretation, the message of the artist is a resounding plea to reject the ever-encroaching sterility and isolation of modern life.

Because it is a roving installation, Good Grief! cannot provide the exact location of this piece. However, you can become your own art by obtaining a pair of the white, plastic booties. Go see Pay Up, a fantastic Fringe show performed by Philly’s own Pig Iron Theatre Company, and the booties are yours to keep. Tickets are selling fast, so hurry.

Today’s art’s pick questions the role of the artist in our society.

The symbolism—namely the palette and the sword—is straightforward and represents the subject’s uncertainty and turmoil. This figure, an artist himself, faces a difficult decision: should he use his skill to create beauty, or should he wield his talent like a sword, using it to destroy the flimsy façade of a material society immersed in shallow pop culture?

The simplistic, good-versus-evil color scheme used to craft this image belies its underlying ambiguity. Not only is the role of the artist uncertain, but so is the role of the viewer. As we gaze at the painting, the smiling figure gazes back, perhaps assessing us as potential subject material and silently alluding to an impending role reversal. The mood of confusion and uncertainty is further underscored by the imprecise medium and painting technique.

Overall, this work of art, on display at Philadelphia’s Yard’s Brewery, is a valiant exploration of the artist’s psyche. Recommended.

Today’s arts pick is a masterpiece that represents some of society’s most troubling problems. Though constructed of material commonly associated with childhood and innocence, the piece is an abstraction of the segregation and bigotry that pervade our culture.

The artist has chosen an unusual medium for this picture, one originally intended to act as a harmonious, complementary mixture. However, not only are the medium’s components separated by color (a statement about our tendency to self-isolate), they are arranged in a hierarchy, with the red focal point representing the upper-strata of the privilege pyramid.

This focal point is the springboard for further deconstruction of the work. The bull’s-eye location of the central element, as well as its red, dangerous color, symbolize the fragility of the hierarchy as the outer circles grow in number and power. The center cannot hold, and it is only a matter of time before the components decompose into their initial, heterogeneous condition.

This brilliant work of art is on display at Cereality, on the 3600 block of Walnut Street in Philadelphia. For more information about the gallery, please visit Mr. Scott Blankbaby.

I’m in Montana, and Good Grief! is in re-runs. This is my favorite arts pick because the comments are hysterical. Read the comments!

Today’s arts pick is an extremely dark and haunting piece. The predominant theme of the installation is, of course, the angst of modern day isolation. By depicting a common article that is well-known as half of a pair, the artist ensures that his work immediately evokes a sense of ambiguous disconnection. The viewer is instantly drawn into the piece and compelled to explore its context.

How did the subject become separated from its match? Was it a voluntary parting, or was the pair forced apart by a power beyond its control? Was the split abrupt and unexpected, or was it gradual?

The artist deliberately leaves these questions unanswered, allowing the viewer to progress and contemplate the piece’s more troubling concepts. Though it is portrayed as proud and erect, stoically accepting an unpaired status, it’s painfully obvious that the subject is useless without its counterpart. Furthermore, the still image captures the scene at an unidentified moment in time, supplementing the overall mood of loneliness with a hint of perpetuity. How long has the subject been in its current abandoned state, and how much longer must it endure?

Until the subject is reunited with its match, this installation, brilliantly displayed in a dingy, subterranean gallery, will be showing in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia.

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This week’s arts pick highlights society’s obsession with mobility and the resulting eradication of privacy and traditional boundaries. To portray the potential devastating consequences of our absurd fixation with mobile devices, the artist uses both location and well-chosen, commonplace materials.

First, consider the location. The piece is installed at the end of a long, dark passage, which serves as a metaphor for the most dangerous part of our collective subconscious. The idea of an open-air, itinerant toilet may seem far-fetched, but many of today’s most insidious and nefarious objects originated in the same dark recess that is represented by this alley.

Next, observe the materials chosen by the artist. The subject is a juxtaposition of two items whose invention changed the course of humankind. The toilet signifies the bodily functions that enslave a society striving for complete control and automation of its environment. The toilet is our prison. Wheels, however, connote freedom and mobility and a desire to escape the confinement of our inconvenient bodies. Escape, however, does not come without a price. The artist deliberately omits the traditional “stall,” warning us that our control and mobility mania will ultimately erode the remaining boundaries of decency, which are crucial for preserving a semblance of humanity.

This arts pick is currently located in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia. However, due to the piece’s transportable nature, its venue is subject to change without notice.

This week’s arts pick depicts a tragedy of almost unimaginable magnitude. Even a literal interpretation of this piece evokes the anger and sadness that accompany the destruction of a vessel filled with valuable fluid.

To experience the true pathos of this installation, however, viewers must transcend the literal and contemplate the subtext. Consider the medium: transparent glass. This material depicts the fleeting and fragile nature of happiness and abundance; at the same time, its transparency provides a glimpse of the soiled ground that is the final resting place of the disappearing liquid. Furthermore, the artist builds on the symbolism of the medium by shaping it into jagged shards that represent the shattered dreams of those who once tasted the sweet ambrosia contained within it.

Though the main subject of this piece is the broken vessel, the surrounding details add to the overall sense of despair. The seeping pools of liquid are bittersweet reminders of a beverage that will never fulfill its destiny. The black and broken figure symbolizes a defeated person who can no longer be whole after witnessing such a catastrophe.

This work is a brilliant piece by an obscure artist but is not recommended for audiences under 21 years of age. It can be seen for a limited time at Stoudt’s Brewing Company in Adamstown, Pennsylvania.

Today’s arts pick is an astoundingly brilliant commentary on the emptiness of pop culture. The ubiquitous subject is familiar to most people as a loveable kitty exploited to sell everything from school supplies to thongs.

But don’t be deceived by the sweet exterior, which lacks substance and depth and merely serves to conceal the despair caused by crass consumerism. The most obvious example of this hopelessness is the subject’s right ear, which has been savagely removed—perhaps as an homage to Van Gogh—but does not bleed the blood of the living. And though the vacant eyes have been pierced by instruments of illumination, they cannot be windows to an entity that has no soul. Alas, the mouthless subject must endure her abuse in silent anguish.

This piece is currently on display in a Philadelphia refrigerator. Please be advised that security is high because several visitors have attempted to remove the left ear.

Today’s arts pick is a study in hope and adaptation. The main focus is a familiar object, a provider of amusement and happiness that connotes idyllic summer days and blissful childhood memories. The subject’s color—a cool, refreshing blue—reinforces its mission by evoking the water that fills it and provides relief to wilted urban dwellers.

Sadly, the subject is a victim of circumstances beyond its control. Cruel and uncaring environmental forces have caused an inversion and drained the chamber of essential life force, rendering it useless.

A closer examination, however, reveals signs of rebirth. Though the subject can no longer provide respite on a large scale, the small pool of water collecting on its former underside demonstrates a valiant attempt to overcome the obstacles of its new position. Squirrels and pigeons can bathe where children once waded. The subject’s mission is not abandoned—no, it is merely refocused!

Wisely, the artist chose a resilient medium that reinforces the durability of the piece’s optimistic fortitude. This work is indeed a classic and will be with us for some time to come. The installation in its current form can be viewed in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia until nature causes yet another transformation.

Today’s arts pick is another outdoor installation, this one representing the downward spiral of a once-useful object into a total state of degradation.

The piece, an item designed to protect and aid vision, has been debased in a myriad of ways, and the artist uses every means at his disposal to emphasize its pitiful condition. The most obvious device is the deliberate destruction of the lenses—their shattered state is clearly an indication of the subject’s current irrelevance. The artist reinforces this technique by leaving the lens fragments inside their respective frames as a bitter reminder of a time when the subject was able to fulfill its purpose.

Just as important as the trodden lenses, however, is the surrounding canvas. If the lens fragments symbolize the subject’s unfulfilled potential, the decision to set the piece in pavement highlights its resulting insignificance. The lack of contrast between the subject and canvas—notice how some components fade into the background—ensures that the piece would be almost invisible to passers-by, except for the outlining frames.

This exhibit is on display in Philadelphia, at 16th and Fairmount.