iPennsylvania Academy of the Fine ArtsCenter City
Kati Gegenheimer: We've Only Just Begun
A Morris Gallery monographic show in which Gegenheimer's vivid paintings and mixed-media works treat love, familial and romantic, as an aesthetic and political structure rather than a sentiment.
More in Philadelphia
Kati Gegenheimer took Winslow Homer's Fox Hunt, an 1893 painting in PAFA's own collection, and swapped the starving fox for her dog, Mars, out on a walk on Belmont Plateau. The crows stay. The Maine coast becomes the Philadelphia skyline, and underneath runs a wall calendar of small daily scenes: a to-do list, a bed, the back half of a horse running free.
This is her first museum solo show, in the reopened Morris Gallery. One wall holds a 15-foot painted score of the Carpenters' wedding standard, thick pink and white notes over a yellow-green field of hearts, keys and a light-blue row home. Opposite is a salon hang of hearts, keyholes and arches. You walk in on bows and flowers; Emily Logan, reviewing it for Space On Space, calls that a costume with "a political seriousness" underneath.
It's a single gallery, but Logan says the paintings "require actual meditation", so give it time. Entry comes with PAFA admission: $25, or $15 on Fridays from 5 to 8pm.
Editor's pick
Kati Gegenheimer swaps the starving fox in Winslow Homer's Fox Hunt for her own dog, Mars, on Belmont Plateau, and keeps the crows. Homer's original hangs in the same building. Space On Space said the paintings "require actual meditation".
Look for
Mars at Belmont Plateau, After Homer's Fox Hunt (Wall Calendar)
Look for the nearly ten-foot two-panel canvas where the artist's dog stands in pink-lit snow under Homer's crows, above a calendar grid of tiny daily vignettes.
We've Only Just Begun (2023-2026)
The 15-foot key painting: pink and white music notes in thick, raised paint over hearts, locks, a leaping deer and a row home, with "2024-2026" painted in the bottom right corner.
Lighting in a Box (Hope Chest)
A chest on a shaped panel with light radiating from inside it, stars, and two flowers like mouths about to kiss a yellow sun.
The salon wall
Opposite the score, heart-shaped and arched panels hang close together, including a flat painted keyhole, The In-Between, and birds that each cast a light shadow.
Palette Trim
Look down: Gegenheimer painted a custom trim along the gallery floor that ties Frank Furness's building to the paintings.
Good for
- An Hour Or Less
- Going Solo
- Locals Who've Seen It All
With kids
Children 12 and under get in free, and ages 13 to 17 pay $5.
Free in the same building
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Image credits
9
- Kati Gegenheimer: We've Only Just BegunCourtesy of Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- You Stretched Diagonally Across It: Contemporary TapestryPhoto credit: Constance Mensh.
- Botany of NationsCourtesy of Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
- Native Plants on the Parkway: A Botany of Nations GardenCourtesy of Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
- Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine ArtsDifference engine, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- The Fabric Workshop and MuseumJohn Phelan, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel Universityajay_suresh, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Vox PopuliVox Populi
- The Franklin Instituteajay_suresh via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0