Philadelphia Antiques Show 2018

11 Peter Barberie, “Introduction,” in Zoe Strauss 10 Years , ed. Peter Barberie (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2012), 9. 12 Timothy Rub, “Foreword,” in Zoe Strauss 10 Years , ed. Peter Barberie (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2012), 8. 13 Peter Barberie, “Zoe Strauss Under I95,” in Zoe Strauss 10 Years , ed. Peter Barberie (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2012), 114. 14 Rub, Strauss , 8. Zoe Strauss, American, born 1970 Printed by Philadelphia Photo Arts Center Paula’s Union Hall, Philadelphia 2001 (image); 2011 (print) Inkjet print Image: 20 x 30 inches (50.8 x 76.2 cm) Sheet: 24 x 34 inches (61 x 86.4 cm) Gift of the artist and purchased with funds contributed by the Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Julius Bloch Memorial Fund created by Benjamin D. Bernstein, 2011 2011-86-104 I n Paula’s Union Hall, Zoe Strauss (born 1970) updates the Philadelphia landscape tradition. Strauss is an innovative artist, displaying a commitment to social change and sense of place in her work while also drawing on the established photographic techniques of street and documentary photography. 11 This photograph was taken for her ten-year installation project, a series of annual one- day outdoor photography exhibitions held between 2000 and 2010 under Interstate 95 in South Philadelphia. The images included in the show were a rich collection of snippets of everyday life, often featuring portraits, signs, and abstracted geometric motifs taken in the surrounding neighborhoods. 12 The colorful mosaic at the heart of Paula’s Union Hall draws to mind the historic plan of Philadelphia. The concept of the grid has strong resonance in the city, where images of William Penn’s original rectilinear plan remain familiar. Though Philadelphia has in many ways grown past Penn’s vision as it expanded and developed, the sense of linearity and attempts to rationally order its streets remain a preoccupation. The notion of the grid also subtly structured Strauss’s exhibition under I-95, with her photos shown on each side of the linearly arranged columns of the highway overpass. 13 Strauss’s works entered the Museum’s collection after a show in 2012 organized by Peter Barberie, the Brodsky Curator of Photographs, Alfred Stieglitz Center. As Director Timothy Rub wrote, “The Museum invited Strauss to present this retrospective not only because of her major accomplishment under I-95, but because we too want to have an ongoing conversation with our city about art, public life, and the Museum’s role as a civic institution.” 14 After the exhibition, the Museum’s Women’s Committee paid to make new prints of the images in the show for the collection. This gift of 170 prints significantly augmented the Museum’s holdings, adding new works by an important local artist and broadening the range of people and places whose stories are represented in them. Zoe Strauss, Paula’s Union Hall, Philadelphia W 123 W