PASC | The Philadelphia Avant-Garde Studies Consortium
  • Home | About
  • Projects | Events
    • Upcoming >
      • Past recommended events
    • Avant Green
    • Absurd
    • Illuminating the 'Invisible City' | November 2019
    • A very nice panel on 'Dionysus' | April 2019
    • The 'Vivifying Current of Science' | December 2018
    • Apolitical, My Ars! | December 2017
    • RE: ACT | March 2017
    • Re: Actions | December 2016
    • Locating the Avant-Garde | October 2015
    • Philadelphia à la Pataphysique | March 2014
  • Interviews | Blog
    • Metafiction by Matt Madden | October 2021
    • Matt Madden's EX LIBRIS | September 2021
    • Slought Statement | March 2020
    • Black Women Make Art by Janyce Denise Glasper
    • Charles Bernstein wins Bollingen Prize
    • Cheryl Harper interview by John Heon
    • Slought Post-Election Statement
    • A Necessary Luxury by Tina Brock
    • Jim Brewton by Emily Schilling
    • Workshop Series at Princeton
    • Welcome to PASC
  • Partners | Presenters
  • Calls for Papers
  • Contact us

Welcome to the
​Philadelphia Avant-Garde Studies Consortium (PASC)

PASC celebrates ’Pataphysics Unrolled, edited by Katie L. Price and Michael R. Taylor and published by Penn State University Press. The Kindle version is available here.
'Pataphysics Unrolled cover
Scenes from the book-release party for 'Pataphysics Unrolled, at Slought April 29
The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium is back! 
SEPT. 7 - 25: "The Two-Character Play" (Out Cry)
by Tennessee Williams, produced by The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium (IRC), at The Bluver Theatre at The Drake. The IRC's production of "The Two-Character Play" is a surreal, poetic fever dream featuring John Zak and Tina Brock, both of whom also direct. The Bluver Theatre at The Drake, 302 S. Hicks Street, Philadelphia (between Spruce & Pine, 15th & 16th Streets). Preview: Wednesday, Sept. 7 at 7:30 pm; opening: Thursday, Sept. 8 at 7:30 pm. Tickets here. 
During the past 18 months, The IRC created a series of interviews with creators in the Philadelphia area and around the world on Into the Absurd: A Virtually Existential Dinner Conversation. The weekly conversations debuted in June 2020 on Zoom and Facebook Live, and the 63 talks are archived on the IRC’s You Tube channel and Facebook page. Check out past episodes and pop-up talks as The IRC continues conversations in 2022.
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Graphic courtesy of the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts
Opening reception on May 19 was delightful....
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Chilling with Warhol
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Scene at the opening
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Collector Gregory McCoy among multiple Marilyns
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A few of Gregory McCoy's 300+ Marilyns
THROUGH JULY 7: Exhibitions and symposium, "Warhol @ Penn Again," curated by David McKnight, with Maureen McCormick and Reva Wolf, explores the 1965 Institute of Contemporary Art exhibition held in the Furness Building (now the Fisher Fine Arts library) at Penn, including:
  • "Marilyn Monroe: From Stage to Silkscreen," Kamin Gallery (April 18 - July 7)
  • "Out of Sight: A Discovery, a Collector, and Andy Warhol," in the Goldstein Gallery (May 18 - July 28)
  • "Translations of Warhol," Snyder-Granader Study Alcove, Kislak Center (June 20 - July 1)
  • June 24 - 25: symposium, "Translating Warhol." Inspired by Warhol’s 1968 Swedish exhibition. Details here; the symposium is sponsored by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Hybrid event. Free and open to the public with registration.
The Kamin and Goldstein Family Galleries are on the first and sixth floors of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, 3420 Walnut Street, Philadelphia. Free and open to the public (please show photo ID at entrance). Planning to visit the Penn campus in person? Read about current corona virus precautions here. ​
Click here for full list of PASC-recommended events.
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What we do 

We believe PASC is a timely initiative that will be a resource for inquiry and collaboration among like-minded scholars, curators, artists, and collectors, generating new research, exhibitions, and performances relating to local and global avant-gardes, as well as Philadelphia’s unique role in the genre.

Who we are

CO-DIRECTORS
John Heon
David McKnight
Michael Taylor

STEERING COMMITTEE
Tina Brock
Christiana Dobrzynski
Cheryl Harper
Sid Sachs
Emily Brewton Schilling

ADVISORY BOARD
Charles Bernstein
Robert Cargni Mitchell
Matt Neff
Katie Price
Jean-Michel Rabaté
​Mari Shaw

Join us

​If you're interested in participating in PASC or would like to recommend individuals or institutions to be included, please contact us or email pascinitiative [at] gmail.com.

A resource for scholars, curators, artists and collectors 

The Philadelphia Avant-Garde Studies Consortium (PASC), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is a network of educational and cultural institutions and associated scholars, artists, curators, and collectors who combine expertise and resources to foster the advanced study of avant-garde movements and promote related special collections, exhibitions, and performances in the greater Philadelphia area and Delaware Valley region.
Locating the Avant Garde PASC
"Locating the Avant-Garde," PASC's inaugural annual symposium, October 2015
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“Ad Absurdum: The Politics and Poetics of Absurdity in Avant-Garde Art and Thought” online, December 2020

Support for projects and collaborations

Artists of all types who have strong local connections and whose works or archives are in collections in the region are important elements of PASC’s focus. These include, among others, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Morton Schamberg, Charles Sheeler, Thomas Chimes, James Brewton, David Lynch, William Carlos Williams, H.D., Ezra Pound, and Harry Mathews. Likewise, certain fields such as literature, the visual arts, theater, film, music, and architecture are central, as are movements or groups such as Dadaism, Surrealism, Futurism, Fluxus, Oulipo, and the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets.
Brewton Archive at UPenn 1
Rare 'Pataphysics books from the James Brewton Archive ...
Brewton Archive at UPenn 2
... at the University of Pennsylvania's Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts
Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry
Original lithograph by Alfred Jarry for the 'Ouverture d'Ubu roi pour piano à quatre mains,' par Claude Terrasse (1898). Presented in 2013 to the Kislak Center, Penn Libraries, by John Heon.

Interdisciplinary focus

Given the deeply interdisciplinary nature of so many avant-garde movements, other fields not usually considered are pertinent, such as the medical humanities, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and the history and sociology of science, to name a few. Similarly, although PASC’s main focus is on avant-gardes in Europe and North America, it is not limited to them; the increasingly global nature of avant-garde art and culture requires a global perspective.
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"Apolitical My Ars" symposium, 2017
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"RE: ACT" with PASC and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, March 2017
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"Re: Actions," PASC's second annual symposium, December 2016
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Cover of the program for "Pataphysics Then and Now" conference in Philadelphia, March 2014
Copyright 2022, The Philadelphia Avant-Garde Studies Consortium, a Pennsylvania-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Thank you for visiting.
All rights to creative work reproduced on these pages are retained by the individual creators.
Suggestions or issues with the website? Please send us an email, pascinitiative [at] gmail.com, with "website" as the subject.
  • Home | About
  • Projects | Events
    • Upcoming >
      • Past recommended events
    • Avant Green
    • Absurd
    • Illuminating the 'Invisible City' | November 2019
    • A very nice panel on 'Dionysus' | April 2019
    • The 'Vivifying Current of Science' | December 2018
    • Apolitical, My Ars! | December 2017
    • RE: ACT | March 2017
    • Re: Actions | December 2016
    • Locating the Avant-Garde | October 2015
    • Philadelphia à la Pataphysique | March 2014
  • Interviews | Blog
    • Metafiction by Matt Madden | October 2021
    • Matt Madden's EX LIBRIS | September 2021
    • Slought Statement | March 2020
    • Black Women Make Art by Janyce Denise Glasper
    • Charles Bernstein wins Bollingen Prize
    • Cheryl Harper interview by John Heon
    • Slought Post-Election Statement
    • A Necessary Luxury by Tina Brock
    • Jim Brewton by Emily Schilling
    • Workshop Series at Princeton
    • Welcome to PASC
  • Partners | Presenters
  • Calls for Papers
  • Contact us