Press: Inspiration Info and Homeland Screening

"The Maas Building is a relatively new venue in North Philly (just under a year old) and generally hosts performances and events. It just so happens to be a wonderful venue for visual art, as “Inspiration Information” proves. The ideas and methods in this show are definitely some food for thought and shed light on a variety of creative processes."

- Chip Schwartz for The Art Blog

link to full review  •  http://theartblog.org/2011/11/inspiration-information/

Still from Maria Dumlao's Untitled (2010) 

"HOMELAND, a screening curated by Jesse Pires as part of the recently ended Inspiration Information exhibit at the Maas Building, offered a thoughtfully considered program of films and videos about the power of place and its influence on one’s point of view. Human presence is elusive in these films, but each in its own turn uses sound and lonely, unpeopled landscapes to explore place as a social and personal construct. The biggest pleasure of this show is in the sum of its parts – the contemplative pace of the program encourages a reading across the four films. Viewed together, they emphasize the rewards of slowing down to take a good look at the places to which we have grown habituated, which we are complicit in constructing, and which ultimately control and define us."  

- excerpt from J. Makary's review on The Nicola Midnight St. Claire.

Link to the full article  • http://the-st-claire.com/1111/1111-review2.html

Inspiration Information at Maas

Inspiration Information
Curated by Sam Belkowitz & Alex Gartelmann

Taking its title from a song by R&B artist Shuggie Otis, Inspiration Information is an open examination of the subconscious drives that inform our making practices. What made you become an artist? What ideas are at the core of your art practice? Like Otis’s soul-driven, dreamy expression of the happiness and inspiration one can get from true love, the show looks at the myriad of ways that our artistic interests and practices are deeply woven into our lives. The exhibition uses this song as a parallel for framing personally motivated practices in art making.

Inspiration Information opens on Friday October 21 at the Maas Building, 1325 Randolph Street, Philadelphia, and runs through November 12th, 6pm. This exhibition will include video, installation, painting, sculpture, and photography. Featured artists include: Isaac Lin, Jason Musson, Sam Belkowitz, Matt Pruden, Kim Walker, Jonas Sebura, Barbara Jenkins, Joel Parsons, Corkey Sinks, David Harper, Jesse Butcher, Alex Gartelmann, Jamie Diamond, and Lee Arnold.

Staircase in the 5th Side Space

Thanks Anthony Angelicola for this amazing staircase, made from a pile of reclaimed wood that we had lying around the place. Not only does it look totally stylish, we can now get to the second floor without a ladder!  This space just became ... something.  Real good. 

For more info on Anthony, check out his website.

The icing on the cake is that we suspended the stairs from the ceiling. 

Floating stairs! Proving that magic is possible...