Move over Philadelphia Museum of Art, and better luck next time, Barnes Foundation, because the hottest gallery show opening in the city this year happened at an empty cement lot in South Philly on Friday night.
This guerrilla group art show had everything: a papier-mâché alligator in pink bikini bottoms, a prognosticating crab sculpture, a puppet show, a punk band, boxed wine, and even a tray of questionably soggy shrimp (though, to be fair, it was raining).
More than a dozen artists participated in the unsanctioned show, which was attended by more than 75 people, some of whom just wandered into the free and surreal experience as they were walking down Washington Avenue.
“I think the best part about Philadelphia is that we get to be a community and I think the best part of our art is the exact same thing,” artist Gio Cullen said. “Making spaces like this that are abandoned really full of life is wonderful. This is so Philadelphia.”
Held at the empty triangle cement lot at the intersection of Washington and Passyunk Avenues that was once home to Capt. Jesse G’s Crab Shack (and is still home to its giant sign), “Imitation Crab” was the first collaborative art show held at what’s become known in select circles as “Capt. Jesse G’s Crab Shack Gallery.”
‘Am I really seeing this?’
The name was bestowed upon the lot by artist Rose Luardo, who was the first to put her art there in 2023 when she erected her Boob Garden, a furniture set covered in handmade breast plushies, in the center areola of the cement pad under the cover of night.
Since her work wasn’t signed, it took me some digging to track Luardo down back then. When we connected, our conversation brought me as much joy as her work.
“I really love that zany weird, waking LSD trip of it all, like ‘Am I really seeing this?’” she told me.
Every year since, I’ve held out hope I’ll get a message from Luardo that she’s set up another piece at the Crab Shack Gallery, and every year, she’s come through.
In 2024, it was her Rave Coffin, a casket covered in tie-dyed felt that passersby could lie down in, and last year she installed her Crab Couch at the gallery, which was a sofa Frankensteined into a giant crab.
For more than a decade, the Crab Shack Gallery lot has sat vacant, a gaping hole along a busy corridor. According to city records, it’s owned by 1100 Passyunk Partners LLC. I’ve never been able to locate contact information for the owners and they’ve never contacted Luardo or me. As far as anyone knows, neither the property owner nor the city has removed any of the pieces from the lot. They tend to remain until worn by time and weather, though the Boob Garden was vandalized after a few months.
I wasn’t sure how Luardo and the small team of artists who help her were going to level things up this year, or if they’d even try. Just as I was losing hope, in late October Luardo sent me a flier for the “Imitation Crab” show.
“Oh shell yes!” I thought.
‘The coolest place’
As I approached the gallery Friday night, I was surprised to see it buzzing with life and lights (“We had to get generators. We didn’t know how to even start the generators!” Luardo told me.)
My attention was immediately captured by an 8-foot blue cloth displayed in a corner, with the outline of a couple holding hands on it. Artist Mercedes Tien, 23, of West Philly, told me it was a cyanotype of her and her boyfriend lying on his roof together. A recent graduate of Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Tien said this was her first art show outside of school.
“It’s the first art show I’ve seen that really takes in the setting, like the actual lot itself,” she said.
Tien was right, people leaned into the crab theme with crab sculptures, hats, and shirts, and artists like Cullen, 24, of Northern Liberties, and their best friend, Bridge Veix, 28, also made found-object sculptures with things they collected from the lot, like rocks, glass, bricks, and weeds.
“We started looking around and realizing how much awesome material is here and then we kind of just started filling the space,” Veix said. “Art in a public space is really special because it’s full access for everyone. So even if you’re walking by, you get to be a part of it and interact with it and there’s no payment. There’s just enjoyment.”
Iris Brenneman’s sculpture, The Blue Crab Magi, featured a large, blue crab on a pedestal and blue tarps on the ground flowing toward it like a river. Where the two met, dozens of plastic balls, each with a word like “artistry” or “longevity” written on it, were gathered into a pile. A sign above the balls read: “The Magi says — pick your gift.”
Brenneman, 64, a therapist by trade, dressed for the opening in a classy black evening gown and white coat. She’s been a fan of the Crab Shack Gallery since the Boob Garden and her son helped organize the group show.
“I try to support everything they do and I think the Crab Shack Gallery is the coolest place,” she said.
Steven Gulotta, 34, and Allana Wooley, 33, who live a block away from the lot, are also big fans of the gallery.
“I walk by this lot basically every day and it’s got a lot of beauty in its decrepitness. Then stuff pops up randomly like the Boob Garden, the Rave Coffin, and the Crab Couch and makes it even more interesting,” Gulotta said.
Inspired by the Crab Crouch, earlier this year Wooley and Gulotta made a small, red papier-mâché Crab Cat and put it in the gallery without telling anyone. Luardo heard about it, tracked the two down, and invited them to participate in the group exhibit.
In less than a month, Gulotta and Wooley made a second Crab Cat much larger in size, about six feet tall, for the show.
“This is a dream come true,” Gulotta said. “I love this lot.”
‘The ultimate solution’
The exhibit, which also featured a puppet performance and a punk band, was the brainchild of Luardo’s niece, Ingrid Koppich. The event was spearheaded by Koppich and her friends, Max Brenneman and Val Roberta, who’ve helped Luardo set up her previous installations.
“I wanted to take on the Crab Shack because I just moved into Rose’s [old] house, which is like two blocks away, and I love this place,” Koppich said. “Every time we make something big and we don’t know what to do with it, we love putting stuff here.”
Luardo, who helped organize the show and had a set of furniture covered with fake intestines in it, agreed.
“This is like the ultimate solution for our work,” she said of the lot. “It’s dilapidated and lawless and I see freedom and I see creativity.”
“That’s how I feel about Philly overall,” I said.
Philadelphians’ ability to create beauty in the empty and broken corners of our city never ceases to amaze me and the freedom this city offers us to be creative weirdos is never lost on me.
As I stood in the gallery Friday night, I was struck by something I don’t see often anymore: Nobody was on their phone. Nobody was livestreaming. Nobody was doing this for likes.
They were doing it for the sake of art, and for the sake of Philly, and it was beautiful, in a way that only an empty lot suddenly filled with life can be.
While some of the pieces were removed after opening night, many remained at the Crab Shack Gallery as of Monday, where they will continue to surprise and delight those who happen upon Philly’s quirkiest gallery.