Pheelin’ It In Philly: A Whirlwind Tour of Philadelphia’s Bustling Art Scene

                                              By Ialexis Swerdloff

                                               April 17, 2007

 On a recent, particularly freezing weekend, I headed southwestard to see what was happening in alleged Sixth Borough, Philadelphia. As is rumored, Philly really is like one huge amalgamation of Park Slope and the Lower East Side, but cheaper — for the price of a basement apartment below a Taco Bell in East Flatbush, you can get a palatial duplex with exposed brick in a Williamsburg-like section of Philly. The real reason for my trip was to scope out the Philly art scene. Just far enough away from New York (a little under two hours) to escape its looming shadow, and close enough to absorb some of its overflow, the Philadelphia art scene is booming. Everyone I met was in some sort of art collective (or two) and wearing cool, over-sized plastic glasses. Every artist/gallery person I met seemed unironically excited about making really cool and interesting art. There were hardly any jaded eye-rolls, and not a lot of too-cool-for-school-ness that I associate with the New York art scene. Everyone seemed to be rooting for everyone else. It was very heartening. But also kind of daunting. Which is why we had the kind Move to Philly founders Kendra Gaeta and Laris Kreslins show us around. It turns out that they know everything about the Philadelphia art world. And then some. Here is how the weekend went down.  (Read full article)