Modern Art

Eighty-nine years ago this month, Albert Coombs Barnes and his ideas about art were rejected by the city of Philadelphia more rudely and forcefully than he deserved, or could have reasonably expected. That rejection contributed significantly to the collector's estrangement from the city's cultural and educational community, and also to the public perception of Barnes as a crotchety, egotistical, and vindictive misanthrope. The catalyst for this rupture, which persisted until Barnes died in a highway accident 28 years later, was an exhibition of a small portion of his art collection at, of all places, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

A year ago, when Tyler School of Art professor Gerard Brown was asked to curate a 25-year retrospective of the Wood Turning Center, which was soon to be renamed the Center for Art in Wood, he headed for the basement of what was then the center's home, on a dead-end street at Fifth and Vine, to check out the collection. He found a lot more than the "10,000 bowls" the center's old image and origins might have suggested. "There are issues of gender and identity, pieces that have a kind of incredible sense of humor, work that has wit and charm about it, work that ties into the history of furniture and into contemporary aesthetics.

THE WINTER BLUES can sneak up on you. Some people find themselves stuck in a rut, while others dream of an exotic getaway. Animus - Philadelphia's Belly Dance Spectacular provides the perfect antidote for both. In the United States, belly dancing is usually free entertainment at an ethnic restaurant or something you'll see Shakira do (because her hips don't lie). But Animus brings the authentic dance and its traditional Middle Eastern culture and music to World Cafe Live on Sunday.

AMONG the paintings in the recent "Karmic Abstraction" show at Bridgette Mayer Gallery was a large piece by Ryan McGinness. An art-world star - the New York Times says so - his work hangs in respected institutions like the Museum of Modern Art and Spain's MUSAC. He's kind of a big deal. McGinness had other works in the show, but let's focus on one: "Untitled (Black Hole, Black 72.1). " On a black background, neon squiggles race in and out of each other as if created by some cosmic Spirograph.

By Seymour I. "Spence" Toll Born in 1874 in what is now part of Pittsburgh, Gertrude Stein was one of five children raised by middle-class Jewish parents in Oakland, Calif. She did not practice her faith after childhood, and her view of the afterlife was, "When a Jew dies, he's dead. " Physiologically speaking, she's been dead for 65 years as of today, but she remains a distinct and lively presence in our culture. This summer, for example, Stein (as played by Kathy Bates)

Michael R. Taylor, the highly regarded curator of modern art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, has been named director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. He will assume his new position Aug. 15, succeeding Brian Kennedy, who moved to the Toledo Museum of Art in September. Taylor, who was named the Art Museum's first modern art curator in 2004, said in a statement that he was "absolutely delighted" with his new position. The Hood's collection, he said, offered "exciting possibilities," particularly in the area of "student-driven exhibitions, which I believe hold the key to the museum's future success.

Michael R. Taylor, the highly regarded curator of modern art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, has been named director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. He will assume his new position in August, succeeding Brian Kennedy, who moved to the Toledo Museum of Art in September. Taylor, who was named the Art Museum's first modern art curator in 2004, said in a statement that he was "absolutely delighted" with his new position. The Hood's collection, he said, offered "exciting possibilities," particularly in the area of "student-driven exhibitions, which I believe hold the key to the museum's future success.

Collage looks easy, doesn't it? Just collect bits of colored paper and printed detritus, arrange them on a sturdy ground, apply paste, and quicker than you can say "recycling" you have art. Well, not always. Banal collages, like junk sculpture, are quite easy to make, as many artists continue to demonstrate. Yet when you encounter a master of collage, you realize how wide is the gap between the mundane and the masterly, and how infrequently the sublime is achieved. Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948)

Sheila Hicks is one of a small group of artists who, in our time, ennobled fiber as a high-art medium. They demonstrated that the aesthetic virtues associated with media such as painting and sculpture, and even emotion, could be expressed through objects made of fiber. Even though the 76-year-old Hicks has been working for more than a half-century and is internationally renowned, you might not have heard of her. That's probably because, though born and educated in the United States, she has lived mostly in France since 1964.

Lars Vilks, a conceptual artist from Sweden with a $100,000 bounty on his head, could be found secreted away in a room at the Rittenhouse Hotel Thursday morning, receiving carefully screened visitors from the media. Vilks is on a weeklong tour of the United States and Canada, speaking about freedom of expression. He had been scheduled to hold forth at the Union League Thursday, but late Wednesday, the event was abruptly called off. Craig Snider, a Union League member who was hosting the speaker, said that after he realized the visit would require extraordinary security measures to protect Vilks, his associates, and anyone in attendance, "I voluntarily canceled it. I was not prepared to ask the league to take that kind of risk.