Councilmember Rue Landau and Creative Philadelphia present Transcending Uncertainty: Art Endures at Home in Philadelphia

Organized by Councilmember Rue Landau and Creative Philadelphia (formerly the City’s Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy), the show displays more than 50 works by 42 artists on the first and fifth floors of City Hall (here’s a full catalog). This has a three-fold impact. First, recent students get a chance to display what would have been their senior projects. Second, featured alumni and faculty (who have shown work from the Tate to Philly’s Colored Girls Museum, the PMA, the Barnes, and more) can showcase the creative impact of UArts on the regional and international art scene. Finally, the exhibition reflects on how significant UArts students remain to the Philly community.

Like all Philadelphians, I was surprised by the callous mismanagement of a 155-year-old institution whose closure abandoned its students, faculty, and staff. All that currently remains is a website with links to the Department of Education, and instructions on transferring credits or filing claims.

Resilient students

If my undergraduate institution had closed during my final year, I would've felt angry and embittered. But three recent students who spoke with me about their art in this show displayed more resilience, flexibility, and hopefulness than I ever possessed.

Ian McMillan remained in contact with faculty, despite the silence of UArts administrators. He transferred to Temple's Tyler School of Art and Architecture, focusing on the dual BFA and teaching certification program. His distinctive black-and-white digital photo, Save The Arts, evokes the 1970s and ‘90s while capturing the 2024 angst of UArts students finding out about the closure.

"I felt that it captured the energy of our protesting well, showing a myriad of different emotions simultaneously. It was also taken early on into the protesting, so we were all a little confused as to what the next step would be,” he said about the photo. His outlook remains assured and optimistic: “Post-UArts, I’ve been trying to stay positive, make connections with new people, and take life as it comes."

“A devastating experience”

Nijah Blanton also successfully transitioned to Tyler and will graduate on time in Spring 2025. She's grateful that Temple honored her UArts scholarships and eased the "added stress of transferring." She appreciates her new school for being "welcoming, supportive, and understanding." But she admits the closure was difficult: "when it suddenly shut down was a devastating experience. It felt like an immense loss. I truly went through a long period of mourning and I miss it there constantly ... everything was gone in an instant."

While remaining in contact with friends and faculty, she was grateful that remaining UArts staff kept them updated on retrieving their belongings and understanding legal proceedings. Her de-saturated oil painting There you are again... evokes melancholic carnival-like nostalgia, reflecting her "artistic journey and studies” before the sudden closure.

Artists over profit

Tenara Calem, who has work in the show, feels lucky that her MFA program was with Pig Iron Theatre Company before its UArts partnership. Like Philly FatCon and numerous other organizations, Pig Iron is owed a significant amount of money from UArts. According to Calem, UArts owed Pig Iron $300K at the time of the closure, and “to this day, our MFA program is THE ONLY degree program at UArts that was not offered a teach-out plan."

She eloquently details the emotion she experienced during an increasing communication black hole. "We had been alerted that the university filed for bankruptcy and that our Google accounts will soon be closed. No one works there anymore in order to communicate with us—it's currently a ghost town being run by a consultant company.” She ran into a security guard acquaintance who told her he still works in the same building, but “his job is so sad and empty now that he's protecting a building with no purpose."

As a current Philly resident, Calem hopes to remain in the area, but admits she's still upset: "Despite my commitment to this city, the actions of the UArts board/leadership resulted in an unprecedented school closure and mishandled scramble which leaves a bad taste in my mouth.” She feels strongly that it’s reflective of an ongoing pattern in academic art focusing on “profit” over artist security. But, like her peers, she reflects on her durability and strength: "Individually, artists are well equipped and capable of pivoting, adjusting, reshaping, and moving with the flow of disruption and uncertainty. "

Her Idiot in Trash digital photo reflects individuals I’ve seen throughout Philly culture. She feels the "fateful, rollicking qualities present on [the subject’s] face reflect exactly how I have been feeling over the last six months: like an idiot, stuck in a trash situation, but having the skills to play and get myself out of it."

Impressive, diverse, colorful

At Transcending Uncertainty, I was impressed by the artistry of faculty, alumni, and very recent undergraduates. I loved the racial and cultural diversity of the artists. And I loved the price of admission: free (up the Parkway, the PMA costs $30).

Earthier, more muted pieces are on view on the first floor, with larger and more colorful pieces on the fifth. Outside Creative Philadelphia’s first-floor office, an exhibition box contains animalistic images. Chase Brown's ceramic Death Mask features naturalistic objects including a skull, a honeycomb, wood, and antlers with quartz. Heather Steen's alabaster Tooth feels unnaturally lifelike in its grayish white tones. Shari Tobias's whimsical and joyful mixed-media Petal includes numerous shells and bubble eyes simulating a fish to emphasize environmental concerns. Rebecca Hoenig's watercolor Philly Block Party and her self-portrait with mask are imbued with warmth and rainbows, signaling hope.

On the fifth floor, you will find McMillan, Blanton, and Calem's pieces along with even more colorful pieces and tongue-in-cheek commentary on the university’s closure.

Multi-media highlights

David Idowu's museum-worthy oil canvas Oga Saheed gorgeously features a man within the African diaspora. The geometrical rainbow textures upon the face, the demarcated lips, the teeth, the wrinkled fingers holding the nub of a cigarette, and the object inside his coat (reflecting his interior self?) are beautiful. Jason Chen's evocative hand-woven archival pigment print coming to an end is a recreated puzzle with pieces of the human subject missing, reinserted in the wrong place, or incorrectly duplicated.

Harris Fogel's playful digital print Sandy with UArts Book portrays his cat reading the university’s guide to success after graduation. Lucky Marvel's May Daze, Early June video diary chronicles the events between May 31 and June 7, 2024. It’s a subtle commentary on Trump’s politics, police presence, students in despair, and support shouted from city sightseeing bus-tour guides and students on school buses. In the exhibition catalog, Marvel writes "The videotape threads together the sudden closure of UArts, fragments from CCJ’s Community of Images exhibition, a trip to the Mahoning Drive-in, and miscellaneous MiniDV observations distilling personal loss and uncertainty amongst my peers and professors."

Other highlights include Betty Heredia's chaotic Training Day, Sean Brian's canvas digital print reflecting Puerto Rican culture, Jessica Barrera's acrylic on canvas incorporating a multicolored ocean while speaking to her Mexican heritage, and Isabella Khan's photo documenting transnational, transracial adoption.

I would have liked to see work from less advanced artists, like UArts underclassmen. One of the students I spoke to mentioned that they had heard about this program through social media, so perhaps the outreach was lacking.

Visiting City Hall

The art on view is brilliant, but City Hall is not the best or most accessible gallery. The first-floor display case is slightly dim. And it’ll be tough for working folks to visit: City Hall is open 9am-5pm Monday through Friday, and it’s not like entering a gallery.

You must find the northeast entrance and go through security, which includes showing ID, an x-ray for your belongings, removing your belt and watch, and a body wand. To access art near the Creative Philadelphia office (Room 116), security needs to buzz you in again. And you need to take an elevator to see the art displayed around City Council rooms 505 and 582. But despite these snags, it's a joy to see this excellent art for free.

I am grateful for the collaboration between Creative Philadelphia, Councilmember Landau, and her cultural liaison Lauren Rinaldi (juror and co-curator of the project) to honor UArts creators. I don’t want these artists to believe Philadelphia has forgotten them. The UArts community has contributed to our arts landscape in countless ways. I hope these students, faculty, and staff have found new creative and academic homes and that they continue to grow and flourish, even though their home institution did not.