Fall Season of Exciting Programming Launches at PAFA

A fall filled with events featuring music, art making, talks, tours, and more

PHILADELPHIA (September 11, 2017) - The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) presents an exciting schedule of public programs this fall for the public to discover new ways to explore America's first school and museum of fine arts. For a complete schedule and additional details, visit pafa.org/events. 
 
FALL 2017 SCHEDULE:
 
Visiting Artists Program: David Kassan
September 20, 12 - 1 p.m. Free
David Kassan is a representational oil painter. He combines realistic figures with abstract backgrounds. With his work, he wants to allow the viewer to transcend the paint and enter into the psyche of the subject. He attempts to preserve the nuances of the human and the truth that lies inside the subject. 
 
Points of View Speaker Series: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s with Dr. Kellie Jones 
Saturday, September 23, 2 p.m.
In her 2017 book South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s, Dr. Kellie Jones explores how the artists in Los Angeles's black communities created a vibrant, productive, and engaged activist arts scene in the face of structural racism. Jones shows how the work of black Angeleno artists such as Betye Saar, Charles White, Noah Purifoy, and Senga Nengudi spoke to the dislocation of migration, L.A.'s urban renewal, and restrictions on black mobility.

Art at Lunch: When a Print is More than a Print 
Wednesday, September 27, 12-1 p.m. Free
Curlee Holton, a prolific painter and printmaker, along with Kelli Morgan, PAFA's Winston & Carolyn Lowe Curatorial Fellow for Diversity in the Fine Arts, will discuss the legacy and history surrounding the Experimental Printmaking Institute and the implications of the print medium in the context of the collaborative process.
 
Visiting Artists Program: Elana Herzog
October 4, 12 - 1 p.m. Free
Elana Herzog creates works on paper, sculpture and installation pieces. Her work includes found objects and textiles that are re-configured to make a new image. The work is experimental process based and intuitive. She uses materials such as Afghan carpets, cardboard and other found textiles. 
 
PAFA Performances: Monument Lab Presents Promument
Friday, October 6, 7 - 11 p.m.
Celebrate all things Monument Lab and Mural  Arts Philadelphia with Promument, a night of dancing and conversation with new and old friends in PAFA's beautiful Rotunda space. Explore the Monument Lab hub in PAFA's downstairs exhibition space and enjoy an evening of music, great food and cocktails, sign-making with Steve Powers, and a few surprises.
 
Visiting Artists Program: Catherine Murphy
October 11, 12 - 1 p.m. Free
Catherine Murphy is an established American realist painter who has been creating depictions of objects, people and spaces for over 40 years. She primarily works in oil paint, and is known for her rich, detailed, close-up compositions.
 
Visiting Artists Program: Harry Roseman
October 12, 12 - 1 p.m. Free
Harry Roseman is a sculptor, draftsman and photographer. He has created numerous site-specific sculptures, abstract drawings and various photography series. His current sculptures are folded, minimal plywood. 
 
Undergraduate Open House
Saturday, October 14, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Free
Learn about PAFA's Bachelor of Fine Arts and PAFA/Penn BFA programs, tour student studios, school facilities and museum galleries, check out art making demonstrations, and receive complementary museum admission to revisit the museum after the event.
 
Visiting Artists Program: Paula Wilson
October 18, 12 - 1 p.m. Free
Paula Wilson is a mixed-media artist who uses several mediums, such as collage, painting, installation, video and various types of printmaking to create artworks that explore female persona, cultural history and identity. 
 
Points of View Speaker Series: Monument Lab Live - Hidden Histories, Missing Monuments 
Wednesday, October 18, 6 p.m.
Who do we want to honor in public space? What are the untold stories that need to be told, and who are the storytellers? This iteration of Monument Lab Live tackles these questions and more. Lineup includes Monument Lab artists Kaitlin Pomerantz and Marisa Williamson, plus Vashti DuBois of the Colored Girls Museum, Cuban-American vocalist Venissa Santí, Michael Murphy of MASS Design, and more. 
 
Art at Lunch: Beyond Boundaries: Collecting Histories and Museological Frameworks 
Wednesday, October 25, 12 - 1 p.m. Free
Curators of Beyond Boundaries: Feminine Forms, Laurel McLaughlin and Mechella Yezernitskaya, will discuss the collecting histories of The William and Uytendale Scott Memorial Study Collection of Works by Women Artists at Bryn Mawr College and The Linda Lee Alter Collection of Art by Women at PAFA. They will also expand upon their curatorial strategies for the dual-sited exhibition. 
 
PAFA Performances: Philadelphia Jazz Project 
Saturday, October 28, 2 p.m.
WRTI-FM host J. Michael Harrison this year is celebrating 20 years of his radio show, The Bridge, and to mark this important milestone, PAFA is partnering with the Philadelphia Jazz Project to present a special Hot House concert featuring Charles Ellerbe and MATRIX 12:38, hosted by Harrison. Ellerbe, one of the most powerful guitar improvisers working in music, and his ensemble MATRIX 12:38 take the stage to offer this rare concert.
 
Visiting Artists Program: Polly Apfelbaum
November 1, 12 - 1 p.m. Free
Polly Apfelbaum is an installation artist and painter, whose works are inspired by organic forms and non-representational subject matter. Her works are notable for their bright colors and hues. She works with dyed fabrics, various paints and uses sketches to map out what she will work on next. The works have noticeable Pop Art references. 
 
A Forum on Art and the Election 
Friday, November 3, 6 p.m. Free
In our current political climate, what is the role and responsibility of artists in responding to a nation divided? Join Brooke Davis Anderson, PAFA's new Edna S. Tuttleman Director of the Museum, and artists Sonya Clark and Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., for a lively community conversation that asks this question and offers a chance for artists and audiences to contemplate the wide variety of answers. The artists will discuss their own work, how politics relates to practice, and Anderson will consider how art institutions like PAFA can stay relevant with contemporary issues. 
 
Graduate Open House 
Saturday, November 4, 12 - 4:30 p.m. Free
Learn about PAFA's Master of Fine Arts, Low-Residency MFA, and Post-Baccalaureate programs. Explore the campus and interact with current students and faculty, visit students in their studios, sit in on a group critique, take part in a round table discussion, and receive free admission to our galleries after the event.
 
PAFA Performances: Sonya Clark's Unraveling
Saturday, November 4, 3 p.m. Free
In this performance, textile artist Sonya Clark invites visitors to work with her side-by-side in the museum galleries to unravel a confederate battle flag, slowly deconstructing it thread by thread over the course of an afternoon. The whole process takes months and many hands. Clark says Unraveling encourages "us to think about the complexity of what happened here in this country that gave rise to this flag. It's not easy for us to undo. It requires community and persistence."
 
Visiting Artists Program: Caroline Lathan-Stiefel
November 15, 12 - 1 p.m. Free
Caroline Lathan-Stiefel is an artist who creates large-scale sculptural installations consisting of fabric, pipe cleaners, wire, string, plastic, thread and fishing weights that have been shown in gallery and museum settings, outdoor spaces. The installations are drawings-in-space that cover, divide, encircle, and fill the spaces in which they are situated. 
 
Points of View Speaker Series: Monument Lab Live - Futures of Memory 
November 15, 6 p.m.
Philadelphia's most monumental project of 2017 concludes with a keynote conversation between Michael Eric Dyson, professor and author of Tears We Cannot Stop, and New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman, as they discuss the overarching themes and questions raised by Monument Lab, as well as the future of memory in public space.
 
Visiting Artists Program: Joshua Clayton
November 29, 12 - 1 p.m. Free
Joshua Clayton is a digital artist whose work "encompasses material artifacts and ephemeral situations; digital and analog media." Clayton creates web-based drawings, performance art and installations that address his interests in semiotics, geolocation and environmental phenomena.
 
Visiting Artists Program: Torkwase Dyson
December 6, 12 - 1 p.m. Free
Torkwase Dyson is a painter who uses distilled geometric abstraction to create an idiosyncratic language that is both diagrammatic and expressive. Dyson builds the paintings slowly, accumulating washes and configuring minimal geometric elements through a process of improvisation and reflection.