Mami Kato – Nature’s Sway @ Swarthmore’s List Gallery

Caspar David Friedrich @ The MET

Artist Talk with Juana Estrada Hernández @ The Print Center – via zoom

Katie Hudnall, The Longest Distance Between Two Points @ Museum of Art in Wood

Gizmos & Gadgets – Kathleen Studebaker @ Rosemount College’s Patricia M. Nugent Gallery

The Art of Advertising for Theatre Audiences – Grayce Carson

Li Sumpter – Escape Artist Mix Tape available at Ulises

Roberta: Hi everyone, it’s Roberta.

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

Roberta: On Artblog Radio.

Libby and I went out to Swarthmore College on Sunday and we saw the last day of the show, the solo show by Mami Kato, Japanese born Philadelphia based artist who works with fibers. Her mission is to understand things in nature, scientific things, using art making as a way to think things through scientifically.

The work is quite biomorphic and uses fibers like jute, that she buys in bulk. You can buy that in Japan and it’s sent over. She said you tear it apart, it’s fuzzy. It’s very fuzzy and white. And she made this magical installation that’s evocative of a bird’s nest or some sort of a nest and snake-y, and it goes up a wall and it’s interesting and beautiful, actually.

Snaking around the floor, the piece took up the whole space, the whole gallery space. It was really quite nice. Then she uses something called rice stalks, which you also can buy in Japan. And she goes over and gets them or brings them back or has them shipped, and she works with them, gathering them into bundles, gathering the bundles into larger bundles to create snaky biomorphic forms that interlock and interweave with each other.

And the shapes relate to internal biological processes, the atom and the cells dividing and things of that nature. Quite amazing. Very precise. Beautifully made, absolutely exquisite craftsmanship. Don’t know how in the world she does it or how long it takes her to do these very large pieces, sculptural pieces.

There was one that was so large. Andrea Packard, our friend, the gallery director out there said it came to the studio at Swarthmore in a crate that the crate was too large to get into the building. They had to take it out of the crate on the loading dock. They had to uncrate it right there and bring it in that way. The piece wasn’t made modularly, this big piece out of rice stalks. It was made as one piece, with an armature. The artist was there at the gallery when we visited. Very lovely person. And she shows at Wexler Gallery and I believe I was told that she has a show upcoming at Wexler.

That’s something to look forward to.

On Saturday, I took a day trip to New York. I wanted to go to the Met to see the Caspar David Friedrich show, The Soul of Nature. He is the soul man of the German romantic era, sort of longing for peace and quietude and nature to be your portal to that magical state.

I did get to see that. However, it was a Saturday. The show just opened recently. And the galleries were packed, so I must go back because it was really difficult to see the work and it’s a very large, ambitious show and very prescient in the wall captions. At one point there was one sub gallery in a larger exhibit that talked about how, why was this happening at this time in Germany, all this romantic expressionism of figurative landscape painting. Early works were 1820,1815. The Napoleonic Wars. Apparently, Germany wasn’t even a country back then. It was multiple little principalities that were fighting with each other all the time, and so it was very stressful times of war, full of tension and…sounds familiar, right? Like aren’t we sort of there at the moment? My sister, Cate, said, when we were looking at this show, she said, ‘Hey, look at this,’ pointing to a wall card explaining all the tumult in Germany at that time. She said, ‘I think this explains why this show is here at this particular moment.’ And I think she is right.

You know. Nature is solace for the soul. And so we all need a big dose of nature. And these paintings are beautiful, a little bit religious. He would put a cross in the middle of a landscape with the emanating gold lines coming off of it and whatnot. The explanation on the wall plaque said that a lot of this stuff he made to sell, he had patrons who were very religious. And so, okay, we’ll cut him some slack in that.

He put the crosses in the natural setting, but it was good. So I hope to go back and see that. The show’s up until May 11th. So there is time. Don’t go on a Saturday.

But before the Met, and this was my real treat. Unexpected. You know, when you have no expectations. I went to the New York Public Library because I got into town early like nine o’clock in the morning and I wasn’t meeting my sister until later.

And I said, well, what’s open at nine, 10 o’clock? So the public library is open at 10 in the morning, the main branch with the big lions out in front. I went in, it’s beautiful architecture. You just swoon over the gorgeous gilded age architecture. Opened in 1911, the Beaux Art building facade is marble.

I wanted to see what was in their gallery. They have a gallery called The Polonsky Exhibition, with their Treasures, in which, among other things, they have a Gutenberg Bible, the Bill of Rights, all kinds of manuscripts, like handwritten and typed manuscripts by James Baldwin and Tom Wolfe, the Bonfire of the Vanities original manuscript. I mean, it’s a library. They house archives — Shakespeare’s first Folio, Virginia Wolf’s walking stick. I don’t know how they got that. I suppose a lot of these are donated. I can’t imagine they have people out there trolling for things, but who knows?

Ryan: A walking stick is a funny thing to have in their collection.

Roberta: Yeah. They have a brochure of what they have in their treasured collection, but it’s not mentioned.

It’s a very nice, large exhibition space. And interestingly enough, I saw people going in and out of another door that was coming out of this space, and they were going into the gift shop! Look at the space of the Gift shop and the space of the Treasure’s exhibition. They are exactly the same square footage. That’s a generous amount of space for the gift shop. But I’ll tell you, I went in, I bought, I conquered at least part of the gift shop because it was great. It had everything from small things that cost $2, like they had pencils, right? Every museum has pencils with their name on it.

Nice, beautiful pencils. And then next to the pencils, they had a little rubber hand, a tiny little rubber hand, one in black, one in white, that would slip onto the eraser head so that if you were a child of about seven years old and brought this pencil to school and were writing with it, that little hand would wiggle in the air as you were writing.

I thought that was hilarious (don’t judge). I bought one for my grandson. Lots of beautiful scarves, beautiful books. I bought a book called The Grilled Cheese Cookbook, I thought that was pretty hilarious. It’s an actual recipe book for grilled cheese sandwiches.

I highly recommend a trip to the free and open New York Public Library on 42nd Street. It’s a blast. You’re going to like it. You’re going to love the Treasures. There was an Albrecht Durer, like 25 or 28 piece 200-piece woodcut print that had been made by Albrecht Durer and his studio. You could see where they lined up the segments. So a massive amount of work  — 2 years of work — was put into this and it took up a whole wall. It was in a glass case, magnificent. The image look looks like a church was made on commission from Emperor Maximilian. It is in fact called, “The Triumph of Maximilian (Triumphal Arch)’ 1799. The piece is “imperial propaganda with complicated icoonography alluding to the emperor’s ancestry, lands, accomplishments, deeds, talents and interests,” according to the information. So I felt delighted to stumble into the Treasures and be delighted by the treasures.

Anyway, that was my weekend. How was your weekend, Ryan?

Ryan: My weekend was fine. A lot of the same. A lot of getting out. Nothing particularly spectacular like in, it was a lot of kid time. So Rhys’s birthday is Tuesday the 25th.

Roberta: Happy Birthday Rhys!

Ryan: And so happy birthday Rhys! He turns 11 today, so it was all birthday party and getting together and kids hanging out till the wee hours, so Wonderful.

Roberta: Wonderful.

Ryan: Yeah, they had a great time.

Roberta: Very good. I’m glad to hear it. And did you take them bowling or something like that or was it a house party?

Ryan: This weekend it’s a house party. And then next weekend there were a few people that were out of town and a couple kids that were sick. So we are also going to do another thing next weekend.

Roberta: So the party continues.

Ryan: Party continues. It’s always a good time to get out and get connected. You know, it looks a little bit warmer so people maybe will be happy about all that.

Roberta: Shall we segue into the news?

Ryan: Yeah, let’s move our way into the news.

Roberta: Alright, so I have one, two, oh, not so much today. Three things. Alright! The first I’m excited about is we got a note from Li Sumpter, an artist and Afrofuturist. She is dropping a new artist Mixtape Volume Five Home World/Other Worlds at Ulises Books this Friday, 6 to 8:00 PM So this mixtape is a six episode pilot podcast with a full-color zine companion, and some of the people that she has interviewed on the podcast series are
Andrea “Philly” Walls @urbanarchivist
Malkia Okech @ostrogothz
Rashid Zakat @rashidzakat
Tshay @studiotshay
Pap Souleye Fall @papsouleye00
Shanti Mayers @aroundthewaycurls / @thesablecollective
So that sounds really great. And who doesn’t want a full color zine to go along with their podcast? So yeah.

That’s this weekend 6 to 8:00 PM at Ulises. I hope to get over there. Who knows? I always have hopes. Then this is for the far distant future. PNC Arts Alive has now decided — at least for this year, not clear how many years — they are going to help sponsor CFEVA’s Open Studios in the fall.

That’s always in October. Open Studio Tours, POST, Philadelphia Open Studio Tours are usually in October on two different weekends. In previous years, CFEVA has asked for a registration fee from artists to participate in POST. This year. PNC Arts Alive has generously agreed to underwrite the cost of artist registration.

In previous years, CFEVA says they have had 250 artists participating and they’re hoping they have a whole lot more this year. So that’s very good news for all the artists that have wanted to participate but haven’t been able to for financial reasons. So, Bravo. I’m really glad to hear that.

On the sad news front, we have another death.

Winters are hard for people of a certain age. Richard Flood died. Many will remember him as the former curator at the New Museum. He was age 81, and our friend Sid Sachs, formerly of University of the Arts, wonderful curator, artist, Philadelphia area, contemporary art historian. I would really grant him that title and give him a position if I was the City of Philadelphia. If I was Cherelle Parker, I really would.

Sid said, and I’m quoting from Sid, who wrote to me, “Richard was from Philadelphia. Published the Arts Exchange. Before moving to New York, he curated a show at Moore College when Elsa Longhauser first went to Moore back in the day, and apparently Richard and Elsa had worked together in New York at Protetch/ McNeil Gallery, which was Hank McNeil. Richard Flood also worked for Barbara Gladstone, who happened to go to Rosemont College.”

Now that’s a lot of Philadelphia art history in that little paragraph. Thank you, Sid Sachs, for letting us know.

And that’s it for me. Over to you, Ryan.

Ryan: Okay. We are coming to the end of February and we’re going to be moving into March, and that means spring. So hopefully Spring does happen. I’m really hopeful there’s not switches or changes.

I’m just saying speak to the universe, hope for the best. But still there are a lot of great openings. There’s a lot of events that are closing. Things are about to switch up. Next, the 7th of March is first Friday, so that’s a week and a half away. But there are some really interesting shows that are opening on that first Friday, and I thought I would start by thinking about that week ahead rather than the week upcoming since our podcast released Wednesday.

I would think the week ahead, but one show that I did want to shout out is opening on the 27th and it runs through March 30th. It’s called Gizmos and Gadgets at Rosemont College (see link above), as you mentioned it, as well. It looks really fun. I was just thinking about my son, Rhys would totally be into that.

He got a 3D printer for his birthday. And it’s just printing up a storm. It’s a lot of fun. And they’re really interesting cool things that he’s making. So I think this is something that he might be interested in. Rosemont College is 1400 Montgomery Avenue in Rosemont, PA. They’re having a reception Saturday, March 1st from three to 6:00 PM This is, again, it’s called Gizmos and Gadgets, and the artist is Kathleen Studebaker.

So if you’re interested in that take a look. And all of these listings are in Artblog Connect as well, so you’ll, you’ll see them as well. I don’t normally shout out artist talks, but the Print Center has had consistent, really interesting artists come in and do a talk. So I just wanted to shout them out on March 6th.

The Print Center is hosting Juana Estrada Hernandez. She has a current exhibit that’s running through April 5th. So this is a specific conversation that they’re having and some of these are available online as well, so via Zoom. So take a look at that. And that is free. All of the programs are free. You just need to register for those. March 6th at 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM. (see link at the top)

I was also really interested in Museum for Art in Wood’s First Friday opening. They are doing a opening for Katie Hudnall, The Longest Distance Between Two Points. Some of the press pictures look really interesting. Kind of excited to see that one. They do some really interesting things over there at Museum for Art in Wood. They have an interesting space that I think lends itself to interesting results.

And I guess that’s my three, but there are a couple other things that I wanted to shout out real quick. Just that, so, you know, they’re coming, I’m trying not to see a lot of Shakespeare this year. I don’t know if that’s necessarily a thing, but Lantern Theater is doing Much Ado About Nothing that’s ongoing right now through the middle of March.

Arden Theater is doing August Wilson’s King Hedley II and I noticed that there were a few other places around the country that are doing that. I don’t know if it’s an anniversary or something, but it might be related.

A friend of Artblog Grayce Carson is doing a marketing and advertising informational talk at Temple coming up on March 3rd. (see link at the top)

So if you’re interested in theater and advertising, and want to get into that or need help with that, titled The Art of Advertising for Theater Audiences. So she works in marketing and helps a lot of theaters with pr, marketing, social media.  And it is really helpful. It’s specifically marketed or pointed to marketing professionals, board members, and leadership teams for small midsized theaters.

But if you’re, if marketing is something that you need help with, this might be a great way to go as well. So shout out to that. That is Monday, March 3rd from 6:30 to 8:30 at Randall Theater, which is 2020 North 13th Street. So that’s my three plus three = six. It still counts. I’m stuck. Going to count as three, three plus three.

Roberta: Good. Well, I love the fact that this last person you mentioned, and I, I’m taking notes here. Did what, what’s her first name?

Ryan: Grayce.

Roberta: Oh, Grayce.

Ryan: It’s G-R-A-Y-C-E.

Roberta: Okay, Grayce. Got it. Carson. And she’s doing this out of the goodness of her heart.

Ryan: Yeah, so she does a lot of theater work. I interviewed her recently and she is part of Paper Doll Ensemble and so they recently did some readings and they have a show coming up for Fringe.

This is someone that I think has been long connected to the theater environment in Philadelphia and likes it, loves it, wants to keep it going and amplifies it and is willing to share her time and expertise. So it’s pretty special.

Roberta: Very nice. Yes, it is special. I agree…We should probably wrap it up?

Okay. I want to remind everybody about the economic boycott on Friday, February 28th to sort of push back and resist. There are other boycotts, and I don’t have them in front of me right now, but we can round them up and put them in the transcript as well. Good to be reminded that there is something you can do if you’re feeling powerless and alone at this time, because together we are powerful and something like an economic boycott can really work. Look at Caesar Chavez and the Delano grape strike and consumer boycott back in the sixties. That helped the union movement among migrant farm workers in California. And it’s brought the exploitative grape growers to their knees.

So it can, an economic boycott is a really positive way to go about resisting. Recommended, highly recommended. This is Roberta saying thanks for listening. Come on back next time. Bye.

Ryan: And this is Ryan, and this has been Artblog’s Midweek News. Thanks for listening, everyone. We’ll see you next time.

Bye-bye.