Experience the 20/20 Photo Festival this September in Philadelphia, a month-long celebration exploring the evolution of technology in contemporary photography.  The festival showcases artists and cultural institutions reflecting the collaborative spirit of the city.  Attend captivating exhibitions, engaging artist talks, and a vibrant photo book fair against the backdrop of Philadelphia's historic streets. On September 7th, Cherry Street Pier in Old City sponsored by Unique Photo hosts a day of free festivities.  Explore numerous photography exhibitions and events across the Philadelphia region throughout September.

As the risks associated with climate change grow globally and locally, artists are exploring diverse methods to widen climate communication beyond the written word of scientists and journalists. The upcoming exhibition Risky Beauty: Aesthetics and Climate Change will showcase artwork in different media that draws in viewers with its sensual beauty, while stimulating awareness and changing perceptions. The exhibition will challenge viewers to consider how their aesthetic experience of nature might change in light of the scientific consensus about the validity of the climate crisis, the known societal forces that hasten environmental degradation, and the impact of climate change in their personal environments.

A solo exhibition by the renowned Philadelphia artist, Arlene Love, will be presented at the Interactive Museum for Contemporary Art. The exhibition will feature Love’s pioneering sculpture in resin, feminist works in leather, figurative drawing, and photography spanning an accomplished career over 70 years. Love’s fascination with the figure and how it articulates the physical, erotic, and political, has held her attention since creating her very first sculpture. Inspired by the language of feminism as well as her own challenging life experiences, Love’s work reveals strength and vulnerability through the depiction of the corporeal in the throes of intimacy, violence, joy, and sorrow.

Amie Potsic:  Seeker is a solo exhibition highlighting the contemporary artist's feminist photography created while backpacking alone for one year in India and Israel at the age of 23.  Defying the stereotype of the heroic male photographer, Potsic traversed the Negev Desert and scaled the Himalayas with her Hasselbald camera and 100 rolls of film.  Through a female gaze, she documented visual splendor, human dignity, and the role of women in their communities.  Her lens revealed a multifaceted experience of the depth of ritual and resilience of tradition in the eastern and western Holylands.  This exhibition presents the artist's original photographs as well as mixed media works, memoir, and a monograph created through decades of reflection upon female empowerment, gender politics, and religious patriarchy.  The exhibition will be curated by Christopher Brown and will be accompanied by public receptions and artist talks.  The show will be on view January – March 2024. 

The process of capturing a photograph reconnects one to the intricate web of the surrounding natural world. Slowing down to think about how objects, light, people, and nature interact, allows us to delve into our planet's beauty and inherent fragility.  This year’s 20/20 Photo Festival programming explores how The Natural World influences a photographer's vision through exhibitions, artist talks, a photo book fair, workshops, and more.  A full day of events will take place at Cherry Street Pier in the historic Old City neighborhood on Saturday, September 30th, 2023, along with many photography exhibitions throughout the fall in the Philadelphia region.

Amie Potsic:  Forest Light & Twilight, is a new site-specific installation and featured installation of the 20/20 Photo Festival. Coming to the Cherry Street Pier in September 2023. Forest Light and Twilight is an interactive installation by Amie Potsic that conjures the enchanted feeling of walking through the woods under the forest canopy in order to inspire environmental awareness.

Soft Girl Era breaks down assumptions that black women are bound to adhere to this style of representation, this way of life, that the only means of strength are a rigid exterior. The Soft Girl Era movement challenges notions of race and beauty, and gender and power to suggest a softness derived through an aesthetic that projects overt femininity: pastel colors, a playfulness and above all, self-driven empowerment acquired through self-awareness, a confidence to set boundaries, acceptance of a slow and purposeful life, and the adoption of a work life balance.

Revisiting the Family Album: Stories That Bind Us is a virtual exhibition featuring artwork by Alexander Artway from June 6 - December 31, 2023. This online exhibition is about our families, whether chosen, by blood or by proximity. These human stories, memories, and histories comprise the past, present, and future of lives lived and projections of what may be.

Featuring Artwork by Donald E. Camp

Taking a Line for a Walk is an exhibition of artwork united by line as a formal and conceptual element. Spanning a diverse array of media, rich with associative qualities, the artwork consists of sculpture, assemblage, painting, and ceramics. However, each artwork can also be seen as drawing in space. Beginning with a chosen material, be it pipe cleaner, clay, plastic, or acrylic, each artist allows for the form and meaning to meander and fuse, becoming something spectacular and unique, always with an eye to the linear quality of the composition.

Ubuntu Fine Art Gallery proudly unveils Synergy, an inspiring photography exhibition by Steven CW Taylor that delves into the complexity of cultural diversity and addresses the pressing issue of social justice. This captivating collection brings together two remarkable yet complementary bodies of work, illustrating the power of unity and the significance of documenting transformative moments in our time.

Pandemic Flowers: A Bicoastal Conversation is a two-person exhibition which features the botanical paintings of Pia De Girolamo and the photographs of Laurel Termini. De Girolamo’s paintings were inspired by Termini’s photographs of plants in the Huntington Gardens in Los Angeles near her home during the pandemic. Termini took these photographs with an iPhone and originally posted them to Instagram. Her photographic prints retain the same square format typical of that social media site. De Girolamo’s interpretations were created thousands of miles away in her studio just outside Philadelphia. They range from small paintings of a few specimens to large, colorful groupings of plants and flowers rendered on a variety of square and rectangular canvases and panels.

Four artists who are concerned about the ecological future of our country and planet have created Our House is on Fire, an exhibition focusing on current ecological crises. Linda Dubin Garfield, Pamela Tudor, Judith Brodsky, and Elsa Wachs create works that inspire discussion and concern about preserving the health and safety of our planet.

As the risks associated with climate change grow globally and locally, artists are exploring diverse methods to widen climate communication beyond the written word of scientists and journalists. The upcoming exhibition Risky Beauty: Aesthetics and Climate Change will showcase artwork in different media that draws in viewers with its sensual beauty, while stimulating awareness and changing perceptions. The exhibition will challenge viewers to consider how their aesthetic experience of nature might change in light of the scientific consensus about the validity of the climate crisis, the known societal forces that hasten environmental degradation, and the impact of climate change in their personal environments.

Lost Light Luv is an experiential exhibition and book release celebrating photographer Leah Macdonald's legacy project encompassing thirty years of analog photography and master printing.  Inspired by the female figure and the challenges women face, her work is emotionally charged, visually dynamic, and intensely personal.  To create her visual world, Macdonald utilized the historical 4x5 view camera, Type 55 Polaroid film, and silver gelatin prints created in a traditional wet darkroom.  Each photograph in Lost Light Luv is created to be a unique monoprint, a singular glimpse into the complexity of power, femininity, and beauty.  Macdonald will present her new book, original monoprints, and a darkroom installation, revealing a behind the scenes view of the interpersonal and photographic.

Woodlands Memories is a new group exhibition at Borrelli’s Chestnut Hill Gallery featuring the work of Michael Adams, Nancy Agati, John A. Benigno, Linda Dubin Garfield, Anne Leith, and Amie Potsic.

Transcending the limitations of the photographic medium, John Singletary creates multi-disciplinary installation experiences. Photographs are animated through synchronized state-of-theart organic LED panels, which serve as large format electronic canvases. Included in the exhibition is Anahata, an immersive experience that explores human relationships and their connection to the divine. Using an open-spectrum camera in a purpose-built, UV light studio, choreographed movements by dancers were captured to produce dream-like images steeped in archetypal symbolism, mythology and mysticism.

A Path Ahead features artwork by Laurence Salzmann, Amie Potsic, Katie Tackman, Milton Lindsay, and M.K. McManus. This public art exhibition is presented at Wiota Street Garden, an urban farm and vegetable market in West Philadelphia, to share a multiplicity of perspectives through photography and connect with the vibrant local community. The Garden Party and Reception is open to all and will feature light refreshments alongside the weekly vegetable market in this beautiful, green oasis in Philadelphia.

As the risks associated with climate change grow globally and locally, artists are exploring diverse methods to widen climate communication beyond the written word of scientists and journalists. The upcoming exhibition Risky Beauty: Aesthetics and Climate Change will showcase artwork in different media that draws in viewers with its sensual beauty, while stimulating awareness and changing perceptions. The exhibition will challenge viewers to consider how their aesthetic experience of nature might change in light of the scientific consensus about the validity of the climate crisis, the known societal forces that hasten environmental degradation, and the impact of climate change in their personal environments.

Garden is a solo exhibition of new work by Pia De Girolamo, presented by Cerulean Arts Gallery. Created in isolation during the pandemic, the show features botanical paintings De Girolamo painted in Philadelphia in response to a fellow artist's Instagram photographs of the Huntington Gardens in Los Angeles. The paintings are the result of a cross-country and cross-pandemic collaboration focused on healing.

The SPACE Art Gallery welcomes Chuck Kelton. Through his exploration and love of the photographic process, he works inside his darkroom transforming light, black and white chemicals, and paper into rich abstract landscapes full of fire and mystery. Describing his approach as “calligraphy with chemistry,” Chuck Kelton’s cameraless photography invites us into his romantic world which is delicate and composed.

Amie Potsic Art Advisory is a promotional partner for this exhibition.

On the two-year anniversary of the pandemic, RA Friedman’s exhibition The Trouble I've Seen: Drawings from The COVID-19 Portrait Project seeks to honor and memorialize the thousands of Americans lost to the virus. The exhibition opens at InLiquid Gallery on February 4, with an in-person opening reception on February 10, from 6-8 pm.