Trends Reviews and Recaps

In addition to "Dali" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, "Aida" from the Opera Company of Philadelphia (since concluded), and "Treasures Revealed" at the American Philosophical Society, TRR today draws readers' attention to another hot cultural ticket, "The Silver Garden," like "Dali" on display at the Philadelphia Museum.

Donna Williams Vance writes in today's Philadelphia Daily News, "Focus is on Flora at Art Museum":

Through July 17, works by masters like Ansel Adams, Harry Callahan, Imogen Cunningham, Paul Strand, Josef Sudek, Edward Steichen[,] and Brett Weston will be on view for all to see this amazing collection of images where flowers and plants are the subjects. Joining those artists' pieces are works by internationally known photographers Tom Baril and Maria Martinez-Canas, as well as Philadelphia-area artists Andrea Baldeck and Roger Matsumoto, whose work is shown at PMA for the first time.

The artists have created a broad landscape for visitors to peruse, say curators, taking spectators to gardens and fields across the world. The approaches to photographing flowers and plants are varied and intriguing, showing some of the developmental similarities between gardening and photography.

"Both offer delayed gratification, in that the results of creative toil is usually deferred and sometimes unexpected," says curator Katherine Ware. "In the darkroom tray, a photographic image blossoms forth from the interaction of silver and chemicals as astonishingly as a bud issues from a bare twig in springtime and as magically as a stem emerges from a small, hard seed in the soil."

See you there. At some point, I suppose.