There might not be any more skateboarding at LOVE Park, but skaters will now be welcome at the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery (3401 Filbert St.) in Drexel University’s Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, thanks to a new exhibition opening this spring. Philly Radness: An Interactive Pop-Up Skatepark, a site-specific pop-up skate park installation featuring an immersive, sound and motion responsive projection, will transform the Gallery into a skateboarding oasis from April 5 – May 22.

Heralded as a “world-class collection of fashion and textiles” by the Wall Street Journal, Drexel University’s Robert and Penny Fox Historic Costume Collection (FHCC) of the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design has received a $2 million commitment from Robert (Hon. ’13) and Penny Fox (Hon.’13). The museum-quality collection of more than 14,000 garments, textiles and accessories spanning three centuries is one of the finest and oldest research collections in the nation.

Best known for creating a 39-panel mural out of bed sheets while serving a six-year prison sentence, Philadelphia-based artist Jesse Krimes will open Deus ex Machina, an exhibition of new work at Drexel University on Jan. 12. The exhibition will be on display through March 13 at Drexel’s Leonard Pearlstein Gallery (3401 Filbert Street) of the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design.

The Olympic Games are some of the most-watched TV events in history, with millions of viewers tuning in from around the world. On Wednesday, Oct. 21, Jim Bell, executive producer of the Olympic Games for NBC Sports, will visit Drexel University to give a behind-the-scenes look at how that coverage comes together.ell’s talk, which is co-hosted by the Rudman Institute for Entertainment Industry Studies in Drexel’s Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design and Drexel’s Center for Hospitality and Sport Management, is free and open to the public and will take place at 6:30pm in the URBN Annex Screening Room (3401 Filbert St).

Only three weeks remain to see the “enormous, beautifully detailed figurative paintings and three-dimensional installations” (Philadelphia Inquirer) of Storylines, an exhibition at Drexel University’s Leonard Pearlstein Gallery (3401 Filbert Street) in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, featuring the work of Lithuanian-born artist and illustrator Ray Bartkus. The exhibition will be on display through Sunday, May 24. The gallery is free and open to the public Tuesday – Sunday, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.

“Artists for All Seasons,” an exhibition of artwork by formerly homeless artists, will be on display at the URBN Center (3501 Market St., Philadelphia) from April 13 – 24.  

A new book by Alphonso D. McClendon, an assistant professor in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, entitled Fashion and Jazz: Dress, Identity and Subcultural Improvisation (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015), explores the behaviors, signs and meanings that defined this subculture. The book also addresses Philadelphia’s significant role in jazz history.

Storylines, a new exhibition at Drexel University’s Leonard Pearlstein Gallery (3401 Filbert Street) in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, presents the work of Lithuanian-born artist and illustrator Ray Bartkus. Creating immersive environments, Bartkus’s monumental, figurative paintings embrace and engulf viewers, projecting them into compelling, mysterious domains. Shown for the first time in the United States, much of this work has been seen internationally in Lithuania, Poland, Austria Japan and the Netherlands. The exhibition will be on display from Tuesday, April 7 – Sunday, May 24.

 

For the 12th year, the Drexel Arts Administration Graduate Association is raising money for a trip to Washington, D.C., to appeal for more public arts funding by auctioning off a variety of pieces of art.

A select handful of Drexel University’s Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design students interested in urban design will have the opportunity to generate fresh ideas and create a vision for the future of the Lehigh Viaduct, Delaware Power Station and surrounding Port Richmond area. Along with 15 students and two faculty members from Germany’s TU Dortmund University, which researches and teaches the global intersection between man, nature and technology, the students will participate in an intensive urban infrastructure planning and design process to develop concepts for repurposing this post-industrial infrastructure.

Imagine Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang as anguished teenagers. The Drexel Co-op Theatre Company will stage a production of “DOG SEES GOD: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead,” an irreverent, yet poignant drama that conceives the teenaged Charlie Brown and his friends as real people dealing with complex issues.

Amid large-scale sculptures made from recycled tires by contemporary American sculptor and printmaker Chakaia Booker, local poets will create poems, or ‘verbal sculptures,’ inspired by the themes of the artwork at Drexel University during Black History Month.