Galleries: Art in the cells of Eastern State Penitentiary

June 19, 2011|By Edith Newhall, For The Inquirer
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By contrast, Schmidt's Cozy, in a cell directly across from Griska's, seems intended to comfort the prisoner. She, too, has reclad her interior, covering the walls, floor, and existing furniture with 25,000 yards of yarn, hand-knitting every square inch herself and transforming the cell into an invitingly woolly playroom.

You've probably seen video projections of people on walls before, making them look as though they are standing in a room with you. The actors in Handelman's Beware the Lily Law aren't engrossing because they look real (they do), but because they're so believable in their roles. In dialogue written by Handelman - also uncannily authentic-seeming - her characters relate the abuses of incarcerated transgendered people, occasionally in graphic detail. (There is a sign in the hallway noting that her piece is not appropriate for children, but more than one visitor seemed not to have read it.) This is a powerful piece that uses its space simply and effectively.

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Schaechter, who will have a major installation of stained-glass windows in 2012, is represented by a prototype for that project, a rectangular window that fits the dimension of her cell's existing skylight. In it, a pale yellow snake and a flower float in a blue background. Bathed in blue light, but leaving the cell otherwise untouched, Schaechter's meditative installation calls to mind a derelict Romanesque church.


Eastern State Penitentiary, 2027 Fairmount Ave., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. 215-236-3300 or www.EasternState.org.

Chestnut Hill group show

Chuck Connelly, the perennially outspoken painter with the storied career (Nick Nolte modeled his New York painter character in Martin Scorsese's New York Stories mainly after Connelly), has organized a group exhibition, "Out of Order," for Chestnut Hill Gallery. It's an about-face for this gallery, which until now has shown a preference for landscape painting.

All of the show's four artists are nationally known.

Harry Anderson, who lives and works in Philadelphia (as does Connelly, after many years in New York), is represented by three whimsical lamps assembled from found parts, and by a wall installation of vintage gears and wheels arranged in a grid.

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