First Friday

The first Friday of every month, Philadelphia comes alive with gallery openings, performances, talks and copious free booze. Check out Street’s picks for some shows to check out this Friday and beyond.

Art in the Age

116 N. 3rd St.

artintheage.com

6:00­ — 8:00 p.m.

Traditional galleries aren’t the only ones getting in on the fun ­— Old City boutique-cum-storefront art space Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction hosts exhibitions throughout the year. Browse through their selection of handprinted shirts, homemade soaps and high-end apparel and accessories while getting your visual art fix.

The store, which is committed to a local and DIY mentality has even gone as far as to acquire a farm. The 72-acre outpost in rural Tamworth, New Hampshire is manned by Penn grad Robin McDowell (C ‘08) who, before moving to the snowy wilds of the northeast, had no experience driving a tractor, cutting down trees or refurbishing a 200-year-old farmhouse. Instead, she was more familiar with the inside of an artist’s studio. McDowell combines her newfound skills with her old through this documentation of her work in this new exhibition of photographs, found objects and letterpress prints. If you’re lucky, AITA will be serving up cocktails made with their new ROOT liquor, which is only available in small batches and exclusively in the Philadelphia area.

The exhibition opens tomorrow, February 5 and runs through March 21.

Space 1026

629 N. 2nd St.

space1026.com

7:00­ — 10:00 p.m.

Font geeks and bicoastal hipsters, unite! This First Friday, Street favorite Space 1026 presents It Was Good While It Lasted, a joint exhibition by graphic design darlings Blake E. Marquis and Justin Van Hoy. Marquis and Van Hoy met six years ago at the Los Angeles-based design firm Studio Number-One, became besties, and after leaving the firm, individually established themselves as some of the hottest names in printmaking and design. Now a Brooklyn expat, Marquis has designed everything from illustrations for the Wall Street Journal (a surprising move for the perennially stuffy business rag) to posters of Margaret Cho for MySpace’s Secret Show comedy series. When he is not busy organizing This, an L.A. based artist collective, Van Hoy has published and produced books on print, designed campaigns for Mini Cooper, Obey Clothing and Atari, and acted as art director for America’s least favorite hipster photographer, the Cobrasnake.