Contemporary Art

LOS ANGELES - Mike Kelley, 57, described by colleagues as an "irresistible force" in contemporary art, has died, police said Wednesday. Mr. Kelley was found at his home Tuesday, an apparent suicide, South Pasadena Police Sgt. Robert Bartl said. There was no further information on the artist's death; an autopsy was pending. "Kelley's work in the 1980s was part of how one defined the Los Angeles arts scene. He had a remarkable ability to fuse distinction between fine and popular art in ways that managed to perturb our sense of decorum," said Stephanie Barron, senior curator of modern art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. A family friend, concerned about Mr. Kelley, went to his home and called 911, Bartl said.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the controversy over the Brooklyn Museum of Art's exhibition "Sensation" is the hostility to contemporary art that it has elicited. Long after the dust settles, there will be a lingering sense that all contemporary art is offensive, even disgusting, and unworthy of our attention. What is it about our society that makes so many of us intolerant of contemporary art? Why are we so quick to condemn that which we do not understand, to dismiss that which forces us to confront disturbing issues?

Incongruity was the word University of Pennsylvania President Sheldon Hackney used, and it well captured many of the sensations at Thursday night's black-tie gathering to dedicate the Institute of Contemporary Art's new building. For, as brief speeches were made, the striking new galleries opened and dinner served, America was at war, and late arrivals at the spiffy party were bringing the news that Israel had been hit by Iraqi missiles. Incongruous perhaps, but illuminating also.

Peter P. Rosenau, 61, a patron of contemporary art who was known for the modern art that adorned his home and his droll sense of humor, died of cancer Wednesday at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. A resident of Bryn Mawr, Mr. Rosenau was president of the Puro Filter Co. of Philadelphia, which installs and services water coolers and filters. The firm was begun by Mr. Rosenau's father, Richard P. Rosenau, 50 years ago. Mr. Rosenau was born in Philadelphia and graduated from Germantown Friends School, where he was a star athlete and earned a place on the all-Philadelphia soccer team.

Contemporary art has always had a home at Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, but the gallery's reputation for bringing self-taught artists to art-world attention was clearly the deciding factor behind "Outsiderism," the group exhibition inaugurating the gallery's new quarters on Arch Street in a building next to the Fabric Workshop and Museum. (The show was also unapologetically timed to run concurrently with the Philadephia Museum of Art's "Great and Mighty Things: Outsider Art from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection.

The paintings and photographs have just arrived at the ICEBOX Project Space, on a desolate stretch of American Street in Kensington, and are stacked against walls. Unassembled sculptures crowd the floors. A young woman, one of the University of Pennsylvania MFA candidates involved in the end-of-year exhibition, is told that her installation will have to be moved. Tears ensue. A pale young man sits solemn-faced on the floor, trying to figure out how he will hang his intricate cut-paper piece on a wall that will clearly not accept pushpins.

When Claudia Gould, director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, began to look for a curator to succeed Judith Tannenbaum, who left the ICA last spring, she thought first of Ingrid Schaffner, a New York writer and independent curator with a number of exhibitions to her credit. However, Gould said, Shaffner didn't want to become involved with an institution full time, so she initially declined the offer to come to Philadelphia. When Gould's subsequent search for a full-time curator proved unproductive, she returned to Shaffner and suggested a part-time affiliation, an arrangement that suited her better.

Art Museums & Institutions African American Heritage Museum 661 Jackson Rd., Newtonville; 609-704-5495. www.aahmsnj.org . Tue.-Fri. 10 am-3 pm. The Barnes Foundation-Philadelphia 2025 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy.; 215-278-7000. www.barnesfoundation.org . Ellsworth Kelly: Sculpture on the Wall. $18; $15 seniors 65 and over; $10 students and children 17 and under. Sat.-Mon., Wed.-Thu. 9:30 am-6 pm; Fri. 9:30 am-10 pm. Brandywine River Museum Rte. 1 & Rte. 100, Chadds Ford; 610-388-2700.

Joining three long-established auction houses in conducting early May catalog sales — Freeman's, Briggs, and Rago, in order of seniority — is an auction newcomer. Beginning at 11 a.m. Saturday at the 4700 Wissahickon Ave. business complex, where it has been a retailer for a dozen years, Material Culture will present an inaugural exhibition and auction titled "New World Orders. " The 550-lot sale will feature Asian and other ethnic, folk, and "outsider" art. Presale price estimates range from about $50 to $75 for a William H. Prestele etching to $40,000 to $60,000 for a Samuel Robb cigar store Indian that was a Pine Street "Antiques Row" fixture for decades.

Carlos Basualdo, an art historian with broad international experience that includes the Venice Biennale and Documenta XI, the two most prominent exhibitions of current art, has been appointed curator of contemporary art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, effective immediately. The hiring of the 41-year-old Basualdo, a native of Argentina, completes the restructuring of the museum department responsible for modern and contemporary art. Basualdo is responsible for art from the 1960s to the present, while colleague Michael Taylor looks after modern art, roughly the first half of the 20th century.

Contemporary art has always had a home at Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, but the gallery's reputation for bringing self-taught artists to art-world attention was clearly the deciding factor behind "Outsiderism," the group exhibition inaugurating the gallery's new quarters on Arch Street in a building next to the Fabric Workshop and Museum. (The show was also unapologetically timed to run concurrently with the Philadephia Museum of Art's "Great and Mighty Things: Outsider Art from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection.

Art Museums & Institutions African American Heritage Museum 661 Jackson Rd., Newtonville; 609-704-5495. www.aahmsnj.org . Tue.-Fri. 10 am-3 pm. The Barnes Foundation-Philadelphia 2025 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy.; 215-278-7000. www.barnesfoundation.org . Ellsworth Kelly: Sculpture on the Wall. $18; $15 seniors 65 and over; $10 students and children 17 and under. Sat.-Mon., Wed.-Thu. 9:30 am-6 pm; Fri. 9:30 am-10 pm. Brandywine River Museum Rte. 1 & Rte. 100, Chadds Ford; 610-388-2700.

Over the last two years, curators J. Susan Isaacs and Maiza Hixson have transformed the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts in Wilmington into one of the most discerning venues for contemporary art in our area, identifying or addressing trends with ambitious, provocative group shows and carefully chosen solo ones. Hixson's "Young Country," the DCCA's first "satellite" exhibition, is now taking its final bow at the DCCA after opening at the Quonset Hut in Louisville, Ky., then going to University of the Arts' Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery and the Salisbury University Art Gallery in Salisbury, Md. Rural American culture and history continue to fascinate young artists, and "Young Country" takes the current pulse of a generation captivated by hobos, farm-to-table dining, obscure regional music, the Civil War, cowboys, living in the country (even when it's really Brooklyn or Kensington)

At 6-foot-4 and with the physique of a basketball star, Charles Burwell has a presence that has been known to fool clients on occasion. But his passion fills an arena of a very different kind. He lives and breathes abstract art. Burwell, 57, a Pew Fellow and longtime fixture on the Philadelphia art scene, is acclaimed for his vibrant canvasses that translate a cornucopia of colors into carefully orchestrated geometric paintings. His work is cerebral, with systems found in math and science.

Among the many cool things about the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), 50 years old next year, is . . . tea time. "Everybody on the staff alternates, and each afternoon, one of us serves tea. " That's Amy Sadao, appointed in June as the institute's director after years in the New York art community. The ICA is associated with the University of Pennsylvania, its charge to involve the public with modern and contemporary art. Sadao pours, standing in an English snack bar. A full-size replica of one, that is. In the museum.