PAFA Launches Summer Season of Exciting Programming

A summer of events featuring music, art making, talks, tours, and more

PHILADELPHIA (July 20, 2017) -- The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) presents an exciting schedule of summer public programs for the public to discover new ways to explore America's first school and museum of fine arts. For a complete schedule and additional details, visit www.pafa.org/events.

SUMMER 2017 SCHEDULE:

Artist's Lecture with Stuart Shils: Reaching for a Flock of Canaries
Friday, July 21, 6-7:30 p.m. - FREE
Artist and PAFA faculty member Stuart Shils will discuss his work and influences. As a painter, draughtsman and printmaker, Shils has culled his subject matter from the surrounding landscape. Through a variety of artists' examples and images of his own work, Shils will demonstrate how an understanding of compositional principles can inform the way we represent the world around us.

Visiting Artist Talk: Paul D'Agostino
Wednesday, July 26, 6-7:30 p.m. - FREE
Paul D'Agostino is an artist, writer, curator and professor living in Brooklyn, where he has been organizing art exhibitions and critical discussions at Centotto Gallery since 2008. He is currently a faculty member at Parsons The New School for Design, and MFA Writing Advisor at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture.

Visiting Artist Talk: Aaron Fowler
Wednesday, August 2, 6-7:30 p.m. - FREE
Aaron Fowler, a PAFA alumnus, creates mixed-media assemblage-paintings that depict his experiences in both a personal narrative and an epic journey through contemporary America. He employs oils, acrylics and collage -- often pixilated 'photo print-outs' based on 18th-century American historical painting -- alongside objects like Adidas sneakers, CDs, T-shirts, and plastic bags. The dynamic, large-scale compositions are enacted on discarded domestic materials including shutters, mirrored doors, windows, and card tables.

Curatorial Tour: Robert Cozzolino on Subversion and Surrealism in the Art of Honoré Sharrer
Tuesday, August 8, 2 p.m.
Robert Cozzolino, co-curator of Subversion and Surrealism in the Art of Honoré Sharrer, now on view, discusses the exhibition during this walk-through tour. The wit, seduction and bite of Sharrer's mature works has been fascinating Cozzolino for a decade and led him to co-organize the exhibition with Melissa Wolfe, Curator of American Art at the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Pop-Up in the Plaza
Wednesday, August 9, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
PAFA will host another open-air pop-up market on Lenfest Plaza. The event features a variety of foods, lively music, and merchandise from the Museum Store featuring student art work, handmade jewelry, home goods, and more. Event is rain or shine.

Opening Reception: Presence (Low-Residency MFA Exhibition) 
Wednesday, August 9, 6-8 p.m. - FREE
Presence is the first annual thesis exhibition for PAFA's new Low-Residency MFA students. Art by 10 graduating students, working in painting, sculpture, and installation, will be included in the show. The pieces selected represent the culmination of 2 years of graduate study by the artists presenting their work.

Wine & Wit with Signe Wilkinson
Saturday, August 19, 2:30-4:30 p.m.
Renowned Philadelphia Inquirer cartoonist Signe Wilkinson, a PAFA alumna, has been creating political cartoons for most of her career. The first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning, Wilkinson has also published two compilations of her work and held the position of President of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. Wilkinson's cartoons are highly recognizable artistic critiques of current events and politics and her talk will put into a contemporary context the political cartoons and perspectives of artist Honoré Sharrer, now on view at PAFA.