Roberta: Hi everyone, it’s Roberta.

Ryan: And this is Ryan and this is the Midweek News

Roberta: On Artblog radio. I want to say the news. I’ve got 1, 2, 3 things and an opportunity. Does that count? That sounds great as news. Okay. Yes. So four things in Toto. First up is the Maguire Museum. Now, you may or may not be familiar with the Maguire Museum, but you ought to know about it because it inhabits the old.

Barnes Foundation Building. It’s now either owned by or run by St. Joe’s University. I’m not sure what the actual relationship is, if any, between Barnes Foundation on the Parkway and SJU. But anyway Maguire is in the old latches lane building and they’re having a show of the Keen collection, which is art by those who are institutionalized.

Incarcerated and it should be a wonderful show. They have examples of 20th and 21st century people who have found solace and salvation in making art when they’ve been institutionalized. And in fact, the name of the show is Creativity as an Act of Survival. Which I think is a beautiful title, and it is often something that people think of when they think of art.

It is an act of survival. You survive. You can’t survive without it. Actually, that opens this Thursday, five to seven on the St. Joe’s campus where the old Barnes is on Latches Lane and they’re having an art therapy workshop in March. The show is up until March 30th, so it’s all a long run. You get out to to see it and it’s free to get in, I believe.

And they have their hours listed on their website. And then there’s a film screening on March 18th of. Art and crimes By Crimes. By crimes. So this is Jesse Crime’s film about how art saved him when he was incarcerated. And these are wonderful. It’s a wonderful set of programs they’re having. There’s an illustrated catalog for the show that’s, that has a discussion by, or writings by Richard Portia, of Arcadia University Art Gallery and Alex Baker of Fleischer Olman Gallery. Very knowledgeable about this field, so that’s a really great one. I’m very much looking forward to seeing the show on the 16th when it opens. Then Black History Month at the Hyatt, the Hyatt Centric Center City. Philadelphia has a kind of.

Snappy little art program that shows up from season to season. This one is a show of about six artists, black artists, and curated by Ginger Rudolph of Haha and Haha. Ex Paradigm. Works with Paradigm Gallery and is a fabulous curator, a wonderful person. Anyway, this opens on January 23rd. With a free opening event in the Hyatt Centric, wherever that is.

I’m not even sure. Rittenhouse Square area, I believe, and it runs through mid-March, and on the opening there will be a talk with artists led by Elizabeth Wellington, who is the cultural writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Now, Elizabeth Wellington is. I’d like to say she’s one reason why I subscribed to that paper.

She’s one of the few reasons I subscribed to that paper. She’s a really good writer, very opinionated, very. On top of things and smart. So it should be a wonderful conversation. That’s this Thursday, the 23rd, six to 8:00 PM there’s also a panel on February 12th and some of the names of the artists in the show, Sean Theodore.

Fabulous photographer, Philadelphia based photographer, Jordan, plain poetry, graphic design, abstract art, Yanique Lowry, interdisciplinary artist, Emilio Maldonado, multidisciplinary artist, and Shakira Hunt. Another photographer, artist and photographer. A good lineup of artists, strong show, ginger Rudolph, Elizabeth Wellington.

Very many good reasons to go to this, and the opening on the 23rd. Next. I just wanted to mention, and we all know this, that the University of the Arts buildings on Broad Street are now up for grabs because University of the Arts is in bankruptcy and the bids are coming in and Temple University, which has a center city location right now on market and.

15th Street-ish. Put in a bid on the Terra building, which is the massive, many-story building on the corner of Broad. And I think it’s Sansom. No, it’s between Sansom and Chestnut. It’s in that block. Anyway, so they would like to take that building. I hope they get it. And they also put in a bid on the art alliance building, which is perfect for them.

It’s an exhibition and. Theater space. I did not realize there was a theater in there, but apparently there is. They would like to take that over. However, there’s a competing and Higher Bid by Alan Dom, the realtor. Real estate developer, but he doesn’t know what he wants to do with the building. He just likes it.

So he wants it. So there’s some sort of caveat in the whatever the legal materials are relating to these buildings that says that the art alliance has to remain. Educational and arts exhibiting and performance and whatnot sort of center. It cannot become condos, so we’re hoping that Temple will get both of those buildings, the Terra and the Art Alliance.

That makes a lot of sense since it had to be and there was no turning back, we want those buildings to go into good educational and art hands. That would be great. Finally, moving on, I have an opportunity, speaking of University of the Arts. Space 1026. A wonderful community gallery that’s been around since the late nineties survived a move out of Chinatown to North Broad Street where they are now.

They have an open call for anyone affiliated with University of the Arts, staff, students, faculty, to do an art show. They want you to, if you’re affiliated with University of the Arts. Submit an application, it’s due January 31st. All the work obviously will be for sale, so it’ll help you if you are in looking for that sort of support.

And the show is in February. So it sounds like a really wonderful, generous thing that’s based 10 26 is doing to help out the U Arts community, which is great. And that’s it for my roundup.

Ryan: I’m really hopeful that the U Arts buildings get repurposed for art stuff. It would change the dynamic in Center City substantially.

Roberta: Yeah, totally. No, you don’t want it to become, you know, five and under and dollar store and all of that kind of stuff. You could, I mean, that’s the worst case scenario, obviously, but yeah, if it’s the avenue of the arts, it should have arts buildings on it. It sort of stands to reason.

Ryan: I think that would be really good to keep that alive.

So hopeful. How much of Ty do you think they would move Tyler down or just portions of some of the art school? Or you think they’d move other stuff?

Roberta: Move certain departments, but not the whole school. They built a building for Tyler. Right. So galleries. So that would be giving up that building. But you know, the media lab, I think U Arts had a really deep commitment to media arts filmmaking and that kind of stuff.

The photography, I think that might, and that was in the Terra building, I believe. So that might move. But office building too, you know? Sure. A lot of what they have in the center city building right now is continuing education classrooms. They’re just classrooms. Sure. Where the faculty come in and they teach continuing ed programs, whatever it is to students who are not matriculated students.

So there’ll be some of that I would think, in the Terra building. ’cause then they would close the other building. They have a lease on it, they don’t own it. And everybody wants to own rather than lease. Right. Sometimes.

Ryan: Unless the roof is leaking.

Roberta: Yes. It depends. But I think if you’re a big business, you want to own it.

Ryan: Sure. And this is, this is a rare opportunity. These don’t happen frequently. So. It would, I can understand how other developers would want in on this. Developers center. Cities come for, grab developers.

Roberta: You want to get into the elephant in the room here and talk about the. What happened on Sunday?

Ryan: Sure, sure.

Roberta: I’m sure you all have seen on your Instagram feed or wherever you get your news feeds, threads or whatever, that the 76ers have now caught a deal with Comcast to happily build their arena in the stadium complex on all those acres of parking lots down there, which was the obvious solution, obvious to many of us.

So, hallelujah. For that to happen, it sort of, calls into question, though all the money that was spent by the city to sort of drum up support for what was going to be the arena in the fashion district. And now that is all for nothing.

Ryan: That’s pretty par for the course for a municipal government.

Roberta: Is it

Ryan: Millions of dollars to consultants for nothing.

That seems about,

Roberta: Consultants, right. That’s true. Par for

Ryan: the course. And you saw, you know, I’m not sure if you saw the Mark Zuckerberg announcement that they’re getting rid of fact checking.

Roberta: Oh yes, I did see that.

Ryan: And they’re moving to Texas. Okay, baby Elon

Roberta: Musk. Yes.

Ryan: It’s like, I’ll do whatever he does.

Like I don’t understand.

Roberta: Oh, sure you do. It’s the oligarchs

Ryan: terrible. Their

Roberta: wagons and you know, taking over.

Ryan: I guess I’m more, I, I guess I’m mostly disappointed. More than anything. Well, I’m,

Roberta: I’m happy that the 76 ERs are not going. That’s true. Devastate Chinatown. That is a really good thing. And Wash West, it would’ve been not good for both of those communities and Absolutely.

And an arena only lasts 30 years. It’s ridiculous. At the city, it was very shortsighted in terms of planning, civic planning. That is not planning, that is just putting a bandaid on and hoping. And that’s not right.

Ryan: I, I totally agree. It doesn’t make any sense. I think that area should be built up and made into a, a hub, but for that purpose it doesn’t, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me what, why that is.

Or even like, like the casinos that they wanted to build, why didn’t they put a casino down there? Just keep, you know, keep it all together. Entertainment.. Connect the train, all the down, make sure everything is smooth and. Fast and convenient anyway.

Roberta: Well, let’s talk about septa. This is going to say septa, because SEPTA would’ve really had to take a bath on what they would’ve been up against, you know? Would’ve been difficult.

Ryan: And I didn’t understand even the proposal this to begin any sort of construction rate as the, the World Cup was coming into town and everything would be under construction. It just, there was no long term thinking in this at all. I didn’t. Couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

Roberta: I know, I know.

I had a lot of trouble too.

Ryan: Wow. Well, shall I get into my things?

Roberta: Yes, please. What’s on your list?

Ryan: So well, obviously Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Day is coming up. In the, in the next week, on the 20th is the official day. Amp is also doing some events on the 19th. Wait, so

Roberta: MLK day is on the 20th of January. Isn’t that the inauguration day?

Ryan: There’s a lot of irony happening. Wow. And the, the flags are still going to be down because of

Roberta: Carter.

Ryan: Yes. Carter. So

Roberta: Carter, yeah.

Ryan: It’s, it’s been ironic. It’s an interesting visual. So that’s coming up. So there are some events that are happening on the 19th.

So there’s a kind of a, an homage of the Black Panthers. Black Panthers were known for doing food events, so they would do a lot of the feeding the kids in the neighborhood and helping bring food before schools and. 70 years ago, AMP is doing a brunch. It’s a free breakfast for children. It’s a tribute to the Black Panther Party.

That’s from 10 to five. And then there’s following reduced rate admission to the museum that evening for other programming as well. So that’s the 19th. And then they’ll also have some things in the 20th. The temperatures look to be a bit frigid. There’s not going to be any outdoor parties of any kind that doesn’t look like I would imagine.

As far as shows that are closing soon. I know everyone’s a big fan of Michael Jackson, but another Broadway type show is MJ The Musical, which I’m not sure you’ve seen the trailers. It looks fun, it looks, it looks sillier than I would expect a Michael Jackson show to be, but I’m sure it’s amazing. I haven’t seen it yet.

That closes on the 19th. That’s at Academy of Music at Kimmel. But since that’s closing relatively soon, I thought I would also share that if, if you didn’t know about it or are interested in Michael Jackson. As most people are, but in a show specifically around that could be a lot of fun. Then my third pick is Philadelphia Center for the Book is presenting emergence that is from five to seven at Moore College on January the 18th.

That is, looks to be a really interesting show. That’s a one time event. Specifically for this. It’s a member show and it’s showcasing some of the, the work that’s happening that’s going to be at Moore College for a couple hours on the 18th. So there’s different events that they have through the year, but this is just the one one specific event.

So this is one stop shop on this one. This is called Emergence through Philadelphia Center for the Book. Those are my three picks for the week.

Roberta: Macy’s is closing.

Ryan: I heard that and I heard the is that’s not so good. I heard the organ is going to stay in place, so Oh, good. That’s interesting. The face of Center City is, is certainly in flux right now,

Roberta: especially east of City Hall.

Ryan: East of City Hall. I mean, west Is

Roberta: West feels pretty much locked in the way it has been for the last five, six years and earlier than that. But east of City Hall, it’s kind of Market Street, at any rate is.

Ryan: Market Street and even on Broad, I mean, with U Arts and whatever, I guess that’s kind of east-ish.

But it really has been vaulted, especially with the, the conversation about the stadium. That it feels like anything could happen. Yes. What do you know what they’re going to do with the, the building with that space?

Roberta: Would you want to make a I do not. I think it’s, I, I believe there’s a developer who owns it right now.

And Macy’s was leasing from them. So Macy’s pulled out. So I don’t know what the developer has in mind. I know there are historic preservation considerations for that atrium space and the, the organ, obviously. Historical and the eagle, which is this big landmark. And the building is nice. It’s a beautiful building.

Ryan: It really is.

I went to so when I was in Florida, we went to St. Augustine, which is one of the oldest cities, you know, European settlements, I should say. It was such a tourist town, tourist trap of a town. It was a bit disappointing, I guess. I don’t know what I was thinking that it was going to be, but a, you know, there’s an old fort there and a few other things.

It was a bit chilly, you know, they were having a little bit of a cold snap too, so it was only in like the mid fifties even. They were like. Putting salt down on the road, and especially if you’re, they’re not used to that kind of driving, they’re not going to do well at all.

Roberta: No, true.

Ryan: Florida’s a special place.

There’s a few quote unquote Florida man events that happen while we’re there. That just, it was so confusing. What was happening is it was, we were driving in traffic in this, there was a guy on a motorcycle at a stoplight, behaving in the most bizarre manner. It’s hard to even describe. Just like doing this weird dance and then being weirdly aggressive to the cars around him and like gesturing and flailing,

Roberta: and this is a Florida thing, you’re saying?

Ryan: Florida man is a thing. So I just assume anything that’s out of the ordinary is quote unquote Florida man.

Roberta: Oh, I’ve not heard that term. Florida man. Okay.

Ryan: Oh yeah. There’s plenty of good stuff about that for sure. This weekend I saw Urban Movement Arts. They did a presentation at Fringe Arts. That was kind of an interesting sh show.

It’s a lot of first time dancers, people just getting into dance, just kind of feeling up their body and how it moves. And it was very body positive. It was, it was a fun, exuberant show with a very lively audience. I’ve been to many shows at Fringe, but this was a super excited audience. It was a lot of fun.

Roberta: Well, was it audience participation too?

Ryan: In essence, or you dancing in your

Roberta: seats kind of bouncing up and down?

Ryan: So it feels like solid seating at, at Fringe, but it’s basically bleach, bleachers, seating, bleach. It’s bleachers. Thank you. It’s bleachers, seating, but you know, people are pounding on the, on the bleachers, you know, stomping and enjoying and getting ramped up.

And I was a little concerned that the, that the flooring was going to give way. We were going to collapse the bleachers, so. But it was a lot of fun. Very exuberant, high energy show and everybody was super happy to be there. Huh. So that was pretty good. So if you’re interested in, in dance and movement and feeling what your body can do and you have little to no experience or lots of experience, but want to get into that urban movement, arts seem to be a lot of fun.

Roberta: That’s great.

Ryan: They have two locations I think. Both on Chestnut, one’s at 21st and Chestnut, and one’s at eighth and Chestnut.

Roberta: Oh, I went to an opening at the Sketch Club. The Sketch Club on Kama Street. Which is next door or down a door or two from the Plastic Club. The 200 and 50-year-old institutions, community membership galleries in the city, the oldest ones, and a friend of mine, Debbie Dutchman.

Had some pieces. It was their members, annual members show, so it was very packed people, lots of people there supporting each other. There must, I don’t know how many members they have in there in the sketch club, but it looked to be at least 40, maybe more, which is nice. And while we were down there, Libby and I went, we wanted to walk on Kama Street in particular because that is the street that has the wooden brick pavers.

I had not walked on them and I want to say they are so comfortable to walk on. It’s a beautiful, it’s like a, you know, a wood floor in your house. And it’s so different than concrete at any rate, which is the next approximation of what you’re ever going to be walking on in a city that it just made me want to pave cities with wooden bricks, really nice surface, beautiful surface.

So that was fun. The show was nice. It was kind of a roundup of what you think of as classic Philadelphia art maybe dating back to the fifties. So figure paintings, figure drawings, portraiture landscapes. A few abstract works, and it was good to feel the energy of people making this art. It made me feel like Philadelphia’s got a lot of art makers in it.

Not only just what you see in the big major galleries or at the art museums, but there’s people everywhere making art and it’s a good thing. Hope everybody’s staying warm in this cold. It’s pretty chilly outside this week, and I think next week may be that way too. And then rain. But enjoy. Drink lots of tea and get some sleep and we’ll see you next week.

Bye.

Ryan: Bye everyone. Thanks for listening. This is Ryan. This has been Artblog’s Midweek News. See you next time. Bye.