Check out this amaaazing flickr slideshow of Polygamist Prom, a collaborative piece by Liz Thamm, Melissa Nannen and Liv Helgesen. They used “puffy sleeves, punch, pictures and polygamy” to bring to life a bizarre prom-esque photo booth at last Friday’s Offerings opening. It’s also a pretty accurate depiction of how the whole night went down.
This was just one of the 21 groups of artists who participated in Offerings, a gigantic mega-collaboration that brought together 80 Philadelphia artists, placed them in groups of 4 with people they didn’t know or had never worked with, told them they couldn’t spend more than 50 bucks, and turned them loose to create work for our gallery. Actually, we started with 84 artists and ended up with about 72 that actually stuck with the project until the end. I think that’s a pretty good rate of retention considering how frustrating and difficult it can be to work with and agree with other humans!
Group 4 didn’t have any problems getting along with each other or figuring out what to do for the project. They totally became best buds! Aw!! Check out the family vacation shenanigans they had during their adventure in Niagara Falls (with detours in ruff buff Buffalo NY, a solar panel convention, and lots and lots of partying) Actually, they couldn’t all make the trip, so they substituted a cardboard cut-out of Todd to bring along with them. It’s so much better than Weekend At Bernie’s!
Legends of the Falls: Daniel Petraitis, Andrew Brehm, Todd Tharpe, Anthony Angelicola
Group 9, Kristen Taylor, Mike Ryan and Damien Weinkrantz, contributed a voting booth to the show, complete with printed ballots and trophy, for everyone in attendance to vote on their favorite work in the show. Kristen told me she counted the votes last night and I have a good idea of who won but I’m not gonna reveal it just yet. We’re having a 2nd Thursday reception/awards ceremony tonight from 6 to 10 so you’ll just have to come to find out……and see the rest of the work that was created for this project.
Offerings runs through June 28.
