ExhibitionsPrevious Exhibitions

VOX XIII: Are ‘Friends' Electric?
Juried by Aria Dean and David Hartt
July 14 - August 20, 2017 // 990 Spring Garden Street // Fri-Sun 12-6pm
Christie Neptune, Woman Standing in Spotlight, 2016
Christie Neptune, Woman Standing in Spotlight, 2016

VOX XIII: Are ‘Friends’ Electric?

Juried by Aria Dean and David Hartt

Are ‘Friends’ Electric? is Vox Populi’s thirteenth annual juried exhibition, featuring work by fifteen contemporaries selected by this years jurors, Aria Dean and David Hartt.

Special Open Hours: Fri-Sun 12-6pm

The exhibition Are ‘Friends’ Electric? investigates various forms of alienation. Many of the works take alienation as their subject, exploring a growing sense of removal from oneself and others at the hands of technology ― in the common sense as digital technology continues to grow as a mediating force, as well as in regard to the more abstract political and economic technologies that undergird these relations. Likewise, much of the work exemplifies varying approaches to and degrees of alienation in artistic production.

This exhibition, a perennial highlight of Vox Populi’s summer season, showcases a wide range of artistic practices and treatments of materials that coalesce into a panorama of the current moment. The featured artists have their roots all across the country and have been chosen from a pool of hundreds of artists who submitted to this year’s open call.

Please note that due to the recent building incident and closure at 319 N 11th Street this exhibition will be held off-site through the generous support of Arts & Crafts Holdings at 990 Spring Garden Street, with a First Friday celebration on Friday, August 4th.

You know I hate to ask
But are ‘friends’ electric?
Only mine’s broke down
And now I’ve no-one to love

—Gary Numan / Tubeway Army

Featuring works work by:

About the jurors:

Aria Dean

Dean is a Los Angeles-based writer and artist. She currently holds the position of Assistant Curator of Net Art & Digital Culture at Rhizome. Her writing has been featured in Artforum, The New Inquiry, Real Life Magazine, Topical Cream Magazine, and X-TRA Contemporary Art Quarterly. Dean has shown at Arcadia Missa (London), The Knockdown Center (NYC), and Club Pro (Los Angeles). In September, she has a solo exhibition at American Medium (NYC). She also co-directs Los Angeles gallery and project space As It Stands LA. Currently, Dean’s research, writing, and visual work explore the relationship and resonances between blackness, media, and communication and information technologies. She works primarily through text and sculpture to hypothesize an apocalyptic blackness.

David Hartt

Hartt is a Philadelphia-based artist whose work unpacks the social, cultural, and economic complexities of his various subjects. He has extensive experience using video and photography to carry out research related to vernacular cultures, anthropology, and architectural history. David is the recipient of a 2015 Foundation for Contemporary Art Grant, was named a United States Artists Cruz Fellow in 2012, and received a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in 2011. His work has been exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Museum of Art, LA><ART, Or Gallery in Vancouver, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the National Gallery of Canada. Born in Montreal, he has an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa. David currently serves as Assistant Professor of Fine Arts in the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania.


Installation Views

“Vox XIII: Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” 2017, juried by David Hartt and Arien Dean. Vox Populi at 990 Spring Garden, Philadelphia
Photos: Sharon Koelblinger