Philadelphia Art Alliance
The Philadelphia Art Alliance at University of the Arts
In 2018, the celebrated Philadelphia Art Alliance merged with the University of the Arts uniting two century-old institutions as the Philadelphia Art Alliance at the University of the Arts.
Founded by playwright Christine Wetherill Stevenson in 1915 and located in the former Wetherill Mansion on Rittenhouse Square, the Philadelphia Art Alliance is considered one of the first multidisciplinary art spaces in the U.S. Its remarkable legacy includes presenting the work of visionary writers, composers, dancers, musicians, sculptors and architects from Igor Stravinksy and Gertrude Stein to Martha Graham, Buckminster Fuller and Diego Rivera, among many other dazzling luminaries.
University of the Arts is in the midst of envisioning and developing the next chapter of the Art Alliance as a multidisciplinary, contemporary arts forum in the heart of Philadelphia. Following its incredible history, the Art Alliance will once again be animated by leading visionaries of our time and aims to serve as a lively social hub—a living room for the arts in Philadelphia.
An exciting renovation is currently underway to update and restore the intimate gallery, performance and convening spaces of the Wetherill mansion, which was originally designed by architect Charles Klauder and built in 1906.
Upcoming Exhibitions
The School for Temporary Liveness
September 25 - October 2, 2019
Presented by the University of the Arts School of Dance, The School for Temporary Liveness reimaginines performance through the poetic frame of a school. The School for Temporary Liveness mobilizes educational structures to generate new forms of knowledge and spectatorship. Comprising three zones of encounter, audience members are invited to move between a new commission by Isabel Lewis in The Classroom; nora chipaumire's three-part live-performance album in The Library; and group and one-on-one tutoring sessions led by a host of expert-practitioners, artists, and scholars in Study Hall.
The School for Temporary Liveness has been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
Presented by the University of the Arts Rosenwald Wolf Gallery, Invisible City: Philadelphia and the Vernacular Avant-garde will highlight and explore Philadelphia’s significant contributions to visual culture in the 1950s through the 1970s in an exhibition, a publication, and performances. The project will invite audiences to envision Philadelphia as “a city of firsts,” which produced the first Pop Art exhibitions; innovations in architecture and urban planning; one of the country’s first rock music magazines, and a substantial post-war growth of art schools.
On view at the University of the Arts’ Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, Gershman Hall, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Invisible City will include works by major architects, photographers, sculptors, craftspersons, painters and conceptual artists of the period, including Denise Scott Brown, Rafael Ferrer, Ray Metzker, Ree Morton, Italo Scanga, and Robert Venturi. The exhibition will be enriched by time-based ephemeral pieces such as posters, pamphlets, and films. In examining the region’s performance art history, Alex Da Corte will reinvent Allan Kaprow's important happening Chicken at the Gershman , where it was originally performed in 1962. Invisible City builds on extensive research and website documentation that was initiated by the university’s director of exhibitions, Sid Sachs, and supported by a 2014 Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Discovery grant.
Invisible City: Philadelphia and the Vernacular Avant-garde has been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
Visitor Information
During our current renovation, we are closed to the public.
For any inquiries please contact us:
251 S 18th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
215-545-4302
artalliance@uarts.edu