Global Warming at the Icebox
Biographies

Cheryl Harper - Curator

Cheryl Harper has a BA in Art History from Drew University and a BFA from Temple University's Tyler School of Art, graduating summa cum laude. She holds an MFA from the University of Delaware and completed the two year Museology program at the University of Illinois. She first served as Curator for The Borowsky Gallery at The Gershman Y and then became staff curator at The Gershman Y. She has curated numerous shows, including a series of exhibitions of Israeli contemporary art which received the support of the New York and Jerusalem Israeli cultural ministries; “Not For Your Eyes Only,” a show enriching the experience of art for visually impaired audiences; and “A Happening Place”, funded by the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative. Since 2004, Harper has worked as an independent curator. www.cherylharper.com

Leslie Kaufman - Curator

Leslie Kaufman has been active in the arts for over 30 years as a sculptor, arts administrator, professor, and writer. She is a founder of Philadelphia Sculptors, and has served as it president since 1996. She is also the Director and founder of the Burlington County College Sculpture Garden in Pemberton, NJ, which has been in existence since 1988. She has taught art appreciation and foundation courses at Burlington County College and The College of New Jersey and writes art articles and reviews for Sculpture Magazine and Inside Magazine. Leslie received her MFA in the Visual Arts from Vermont College, her M.Ed. in Counseling Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia Univ., and her BA in English from Colgate University, graduating cum laude.

Adelina Vlas - Juror

Adelina Vlas, the Assistant Curator for Modern and Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, has an M.A. degree in Art History and a Curatorial Diploma in Visual Culture from York University in Canada, as well as an M.A. in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art in London where she co-curated the exhibition Public Smog and Various Small Fires. Previously, Adelina has worked at the National Gallery of Canada as a Curatorial Assistant in the Contemporary Art Department where she concentrated extensively on permanent collection displays and special exhibitions. She has written exhibition catalogue texts for Various Small Fires (Royal College of Art, 2007) and for Noah’s Ark (National Gallery of Canada, 2004). Her writings have also appeared in ArtAsiaPacific and art in culture. Fluent in English, French, Italian and Romanian, Adelina joined the dynamic and diverse department of Modern and Contemporary Art in October 2007 and since has already made herself known in the local arts community where she is active visiting studios and shows. http://www.philamuseum.org/

Featured Artists

Michael Alstad

Michael Alstad is a Toronto based artist and curator working in installation and digital media. He is a founding member of the Canadian artist collectives Year Zero One and Symbiosis. Michael has coordinated several site-specific projects in Toronto including The Bank of Symbiosis, The Hoarding Project, the Transmedia video billboard exhibitions, Teletaxi, Geostash and Terminal Zero One. His web/video/interactive works have been exhibited in several media arts festivals and online exhibitions.
http://www.year01.com/alstad/

Stacy Levy

Stacy Levy investigates water through installations and earthwork projects that explain the movement of rain and storm water in the landscape, often by making the patterns of watersheds visible. Her public commissions include those in Seattle, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and at the North Carolina Zoo. Most recently she completed Lotic Meander, a stream terrace at the Ontario Science Centre, Streamlines, in Toronto. Current projects are two tidal pieces: one the Hudson River, Tideflowers, in Manhattan and the other in Yonkers. Levy’s work has been featured at Mass MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, The Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, New York; The Institute for Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; The Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, California: Lafayette University in Easton, Pennsylvania; and at Wave Hill in Bronx, New York.
http://www.stacylevy.com/

Miguel Luciano

Miguel Luciano received his BFA from the New World School of the Arts, in Miami, FL and an MFA from the University of Florida at Gainesville, FL. His work has been exhibited internationally at The Ljubljana Biennial, Slovenia; The San Juan Triennial, Puerto Rico; and Zverev Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow, and nationally at The Brooklyn Museum, NY; El Museo del Barrio, NY; Bronx Museum of Art, NY; Exit Art, NY; Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc., NY; The Chelsea Art Museum, NY; The Newark Museum, NJ; and the Jersey City Museum, NJ. Solo exhibitions include the CUE Art Foundation, NY; Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, San Juan, Puerto Rico; Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT; and Galería Tinta Roja, Chicago, IL. Luciano has participated in the LMCC/Workspace 120 Broadway Artist Residency, the Bronx Museum of Art Artists in the Marketplace (AIM) program, and the Kitchen’s Music Image Sound Text in Community (MISTIC) Residency. He has received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Award Grant, NYFA award for painting and two Artists and Communities Grants from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (MAAF). His work is featured in the permanent collections of The Brooklyn Museum, NY; El Museo del Barrio, NY and the Newark Museum, NJ. www.miguelluciano.com

Chicory Miles

Chicory Miles received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After graduating, she was awarded an internship in the Kohler Arts/Industry residency program where she created a body of work drawing on sources ranging from mythology and early medicine to contemporary developments like cloning and genetic engineering. She moved to San Francisco and worked at the Exploratorium, a museum of science, art, and human perception. She received her MFA in Sculpture from California College of Arts. Her work has been exhibited nationally in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Berkeley, New Orleans, Atlanta, Mobile, Florida and New Jersey. She was featured in the 2007 “Florence Biennale” in Florence, Italy. She recently curated Fictional Science, an exhibition that opened in SoHo, New York and Maiden Louisiana which opened in conjunction with the International Sculpture Center’s Symposium in New Orleans. Chicory currently teaches in the School of Art at Louisiana State University.

Shai Zakai

Photographer and an ecological artist, director and founder of "The Israeli Forum for Ecological Art", Shai Zakai creates installations and multi-media to react upon ecological and environmental issues. She is involved in public art that includes reclamation and/or responses to damaged areas. Zakai works as a lecturer and curator of photography and eco-art, and she owns the Photography and Eco-art Centre. Zakai is the author and photographer of 'Faces and Facets' (1994 ), which represented Israel for its 50th anniversary in the U.S.A.; winner of the second Biennale prize for photography at the Ein Harod Museum of Art (1988); and winner of the "Artist-Teacher Prize" for 2000-01 from the ministry of Science and Culture. Her ongoing eco-art project "Concrete Creek 1999-2002" has been presented and exhibited in U.S.A., Germany, South Africa, Japan and Israel. Zakai has exhibited in some 40 group and 21 solo exhibitions.
http://www.eco-art.co.il/cv.asp?CL=ENG

Juried Artists

Ten international artists have been selected by Adelina Vlas, Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Cheryl Harper, Independent Curator, to complement the works of the featured artists.

Gerald Beaulieu
Andrew Chartier
Yi-Chuan Chen
James Hayes
Michael Hernandez
Guy Laramee
Jason Lee
Elizabeth Mackie
Ben Pinder
Ralf Sander