Gobs of galleries

Philadelphia's gallery scene has grown exponentially. The old notion of the "gallery jaunt" - say, a leisurely Saturday afternoon in the galleries around Rittenhouse Square or Old City - isn't quite the main event it used to be, what with must-see shows turning up from Chinatown to Jenkintown.

Below, a sampling of fall's eclectic of ferings. I'll be back in the new year to look at spring's array.

- Edith Newhall

"WYSIWYG," after the computing acronym for "what you see is what you get," a group show of abstract photographs by James Hyde, Summer Kemick, Sungmi Lee, Avery McCarthy, Colin Montgomery, and Paul Salveson at Jenny Jaskey Gallery, Tuesday-Oct. 18; 215-543-6029 or www.jennyjaskey.com. … New York artist Oliver Herring discusses his work and his latest TASK event, TASK 2, staged at FLUXspace, at the University of the Arts Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. His new video, Hope Street Shorts, will be screened at FLUXspace Friday, Saturday and Sept. 23, 24 and 25 from 5:30 to 8 p.m., and by appointment, 508-341-4765 or www.thefluxspace.org. ... "Foreclosed," works by six photographers who construct, and later document, sculptural installations, and a site-specific work by the Japanese photographer Masao Yamamoto at the Print Center, Wednesday through Nov. 26, 215-735-6090 or www.printcenter.org.

Recent photographs by Paul Cava and David Graham at Gallery 339, Sept. 19-Nov. 8, 215-731-1530 or www.gallery339.com. ... "American Horizons: The Photographs of Art Sinsabaugh" at Haverford College's Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Oct. 3-Dec. 14, 610-896-1287 or www.cantorfitzgerald.org. ... Highly saturated, intricate drawings - collaborations with Indian artists - by Alexander Gorlizki, plus recent sculpture by Kate Moran, at Gallery Joe, Saturday-Oct. 25, 215-592-7752 or www.galleryjoe.com. ... A site-specific installation by Lisa Murch that incorporates a living wisteria vine, and color photographs of southwestern Alaska by Robert Glenn Ketchum, at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, Wednesday-Oct. 19, 215-545-4302 or www.philartalliance.org. ... "Dear Fleisher: 4 x 6 Inches of Art," a one-day exhibition and sale at the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial to benefit its programs, of works by Philadelphia artists on postcard-size paper in a range of media (each piece is priced at $50 and the participants' names are on the backs of works to keep their identities a surprise), Oct. 5 from 4 to 7 p.m., 215-922-3456, Ext. 300, or www.fleisher.org.

The drawings of painter

Alice Neel

, the best-known graduate of

Moore College of Art & Design

, make up one of two concurrent one-person exhibitions at Moore this fall celebrating the college's 160th anniversary.

Alice Neel - Drawing From Life

gathers portraits and still lifes on paper and focuses on the bold use of line that characterized Neel's work. Another icon, but in the medium of fashion design, gets her close-up in

Mary McFadden: Goddesses

, an examination of McFadden's inimitable style through her gowns, clothing ensembles and jewelry. Through Dec. 6. (215-965-4027 or

» READ MORE: www.thegalleriesatmoore.org

.)

A valentine to artists' books, the exhibition Volume Attempts: The Space of Books, organized by the Purtill Family Business, has reopened at Temple Gallery after its August vacation. Artist and writer William Pym, one of many participants (with New York gallery owner Matthew Marks, Philadelphia photographer Zoe Strauss, and others), will explain the concept of zines on Sept. 17 at 6 p.m. (A party will follow at Megawords Storefront, 1125 N. Cherry St., which has its own exhibition; www.megawordsmagazine.com.) Through Oct. 25. (215-925-7379 or www.temple.edu/tyler/exhibitions.)

Polly Apfelbaum has taken over the second floor at Locks Gallery with her four cut-velvet floor pieces that previously have been shown in galleries in London, Los Angeles, New York and India. These new single-color works - in hot pink, orange, black-and-white, and green - are large, Carl Andre-precise rectangles (and one narrow, pointy triangle) made up of those individual pieces of dyed velvet. Through Sept. 30. (215-629-1000 or www.locksgallery.com.)

As you peer into the shimmering depths of Mel Davis' paintings, you might not realize they comprise 45 layers of glazes. That long physical process and the darkness or whiteness her paintings might encompass - from an indigo blue that can pass for black to a pale blue that appears white - account for the mysterious sense of place and passage of time that emanate from them. She'll be showing new paintings at Larry Becker Contemporary Art, including several multi-panel pieces, Oct. 18 to Nov. 22. (215-925-5389 or www.artnet.com/lbecker.)

Though not well-known in this country, Philadelphia-born Salvatore Meo (1914-2004), who studied at Tyler and the Barnes Foundation, made a name for himself in Rome, where he lived from 1950 to 2000 and influenced the artists of the Arte Povera movement with his poetic assemblages of discarded objects gleaned from the streets. Sid Sachs, director of the University of the Arts' Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, has organized this first retrospective of Meo's mixed-media pieces in conjunction with New York's Pavel Zoubok Gallery and Sala 1 in Rome. Oct. 15 to Jan. 4. (www.uarts.edu. or 215-717-6480.)

Bill Scott, a Philadelphia-based artist who has shown his sublimely colored abstract paintings in Philadelphia, New York and London, among other places, has a survey of his paintings from the last five years at Swarthmore College's List Gallery. Scott, Swarthmore's 2008 Marjorie Heilman Visiting Artist, also is showing his prints in its McCabe Library. Through Sept. 28. (610-328-7811 or www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/art/list.)

There will be no shortage of the fascinating homespun art of James Castle this fall. Besides the much-anticipated retrospective opening at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Oct. 14, there will be "Castle in Context" at Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, juxtaposing Castle's drawings and found-object constructions with similarly idiosyncratic works by Forrest Bess, Charles Burchfield, Emily Nelligan and others. Through Nov. 29. (215-545-7562 or www.fleisher-ollmangallery.com.)

What better place to have a show about suburbia than in the burbs? For her group exhibition, Global Suburbia: Meditations on the World of Burbs, Sue Spaid, director of the Abington Art Center, found 14 individual artists and a national artists' collaborative who celebrate, skewer, send up and simply examine the phenomenon in photographs, paintings, sculpture, architectural projects and publications. Look for works by the Center for Land Use Interpretation, Barbara Gallucci, Fritz Haeg, Hiro Sakaguchi, Mark Shetabi, Lee Stoetzel, and others. Through Nov. 30. (215-887-4882 or www.abingtonartcenter.org.)