Arcadia Exhibitions, Spruance Gallery
3 February–17 April 2022
Arcadia Exhibitions is pleased to present Polly Apfelbaum: For the Love of Una Hale on view from February 3 through April 17, 2022. Handcrafted during an extended residency at Arcadia University, Apfelbaum’s new ceramic works will be contextualized by site-specific wallpapers and an exhibition Out of the Heart: The Life and Art of David Ellinger concurrently on view at University Commons of works by the noted Pennsylvania folk artist and antiques dealer David Ellinger (1913-2003).
Polly Apfelbaum is a multidisciplinary artist who engages art history, the applied arts, and popular culture through large-scale installations that assemble fabrics or rugs, ceramics, drawings, paintings, sculptures, found objects, and immersive color. Exploring contemporary ideas surrounding craft and gender, For the Love of Una Hale examines the early influence of Pennsylvania German craft traditions on the artist’s hybrid sensibility.
“The goal is to interpret the personal as political,” said Apfelbaum, citing her long history of working with materials associated with craft, the everyday, installation, and space of the gallery. “I'm starting to look back at my history, where the inspiration came from, and how my personal experiences relate to the complex life and work of the painter David Ellinger.”
The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of public programs and a publication featuring essays by Tessa Bachi Haas, Wayne Koestenbaum, Lisa Minardi, David Pagel, Jenelle Porter, Jennifer Sorkin, and Richard Torchia. Together with "Out of the Heart: The Life and Art of David Ellinger", an exhibition curated by Lisa Minardi, executive director of Historic Trappe, “For the Love of Una Hale” explores Pennsylvania German art and celebrates Ellinger’s multifaceted creative output as an antiques dealer, a gardener, a prolific artist, and drag show performer (Una Hale).
Major support for Polly Apfelbaum: For the Love of Una Hale and Out of the Heart: The Life and Art of David Ellinger has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage with additional support from Creative Capital.
