Jane Irish talk at PAFA this Friday

You are invited to a talk and reading at the with Jane Irish, W.D. Ehrhart,hosted by Academy Curator of Modern Art, Robert Cozzolino


At the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
June 6, 2008 at 6 p.m.
Morris Gallery, Historic Landmark Building (Broad and Cherry, Philadelphia)

In conjunction with exhibition:

Spot Check : Academy Contemporary (runs through June 8)

Since 2004 the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts has set aside a portion of its acquisition funds to purchase work by emerging artists. This Morris Gallery focus installation spotlights over a dozen objects that have entered the Academy’s collection through the Contemporary Art Development Fund. Spot Check: Academy Contemporary will showcase art that engages in a wide range of current practices.

Upcoming, in conjunction with this exhibition, there will be an artist talk on Friday, June 6 that will occur on Academy First Fridays, and will start at 6 p.m. in front of the artist's work in the Morris Gallery. Academy Curator of Modern Art, Robert Cozzolino, artist Jane Irish, and poet W.D. Ehrhart (who will also read) will discuss the work together offering a dialogue about issues or questions that the piece provokes. Attendees will be able to ask questions and engage in a conversation, about Vietnam Veterans Against the War, poetry, painting, resistance, and history.

Friday, June 6: Jane Irish
Dewey Canyon III, 2003
Varnished egg tempera and gouache on linen; 116 x 65 inches
Contemporary Art Development Fund, 2004.25

This painting was begun in January 2003, completed in August 2003. Composed of paintings within a painting, like a play within a play, Dewey Canyon III includes smaller paintings, an inventory of heroic protest of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. These six paintings are set within a large image (allegorical) of wealth and opulence depicting a Robert Adams Rococo type interior composed by the artist from several images of high style décor.