Hidden City’s new book, PHILADELPHIA IN COLOR, 1950-1990 – Kickstarter

Sean Lugo @ Paradigm – See our video with Sean 9 Lugo

Bartram’s Garden loses financial grant

Yikui (Coy) Gu @ The Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA)

The Wilma Theater presents ‘Archduke’ by Rajiv Joseph

Forensic Beauty by FineArt XRAY Photographer Nick Veasey @ Morton Contemporary Gallery

Mythical Creatures: China and the World @ the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival of Greater Philadelphia!

Roberta: Hi everyone, it’s Roberta.

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

Roberta: on Artblog Radio.

Okay, so I have 1, 2, 3, 4. Four things, and I’m going to end on a down note. So before Warren, sorry, everybody. First I want to talk about Hidden City. Our friends at Hidden City Philly, which is another publication online that talks about historic buildings in Philadelphia, and their preservation, is supportive of preserving Philadelphia’s history.

They are launching a Kickstarter campaign for a book that they’re putting together. It’s called Fill in Color. Philadelphia in color, 1950 to 1990, and they are looking for citizen input and citizen photos. So if you were here between 1950 and 1990 and have color photos of street scenes in Philadelphia cars, people, how they looked, how they addressed, they would love to submit to have you submit your photos and we’ll put in the link to where to submit.

And if you want to contribute to that. A book campaign, it’s going to come out as a book in who knows when, but sometime in the future they’re looking for $30,000 to make their book. So it’s a heavy lift and you can, you know, opt in at their Kickstarter page at various different levels of things that you’ll get for your pledge.

They’re already up to a, a third. Almost a third of the ways. So that’s good. because they just launched it on Friday. So bravo to them and I’m sure they’re going to make it and it’ll be a great book. Everybody’s going to want this book. Next I want to say Sean Lugo, who we met at the art market has a show opening on April 4th, which is Friday and running through the month of April. And this is a show of his art. Sean makes art with a sort of signature. A teddy bear character that appears in everything, whether it’s female or male, or both. And these are going to be riffing on the illustrations of Norman Rockwell.

Okay? Who, if you think about Norman Rockwell, he was very much about the everyday American. He would do images of. A little boy getting his hair cut, crying in the barbershop. So there’ll be something about a barbershop and, but this is all through the lens of Sean’s Latino characters, so that should be a very good show to see.

And we want to support Sean. We’re very happy for him. He’s been showing at Paradigm for a number of years. They love him there too. So shout out to Sean and we’ll see you at the opening. We hope. Another congratulations to Rutgers Camden’s Steadman Gallery. They have a wonderful art gallery in Rutgers Camden, which is the Rutgers University’s Camden site.

They’re 50 years old. They’re celebrating their 50th anniversary, and congratulations to them. They have a show up and it’s through April 10th at Bartram’s Garden. This is the down note, I’m sorry to say. Lost their $500,000 grant from the EPA for tree planting in their quadrant of West Philadelphia where they were going to hire the students.

High school students from the local high school to plant trees and put raised bed garden plots in people’s backyards. This was one of the EPA slash doge cutbacks, so we’re very sorry to. Here. This Bartram’s garden does a lot of good in West Philly. They have, they’re free, you can walk around. They have educational programs.

They have done the tree planting before, courtesy of the EPA, but not this year. Hopefully this will get reversed. We have no idea, but it’s sad news. And I’m sorry to end on that sad news, but I’m going to turn it over to you, Ryan. You’re going to bubble us up. Bubble us up.

Ryan: We are getting into first Friday, so Sean Lugo’s show is coming on first Friday, so there’s a lot of openings and events that are happening in Old City. And in the month of April, every Sunday, Walnut Street from broad to 19th will be closed to car traffic again as well. 18th Street from Locust to Chestnut will be closed.

So there’s quite a bit of pedestrian mobility during that time through. That’s through the month of April every Sunday. So don’t, yeah. So take advantage of that. All the stores will be open and there’ll be a good time to. They have different events going on. There’ll be music and festivities and that leads you right down to Rittenhouse Square there as well.

So that is on the calendar. Make sure that you take advantage of that. Hopefully the weather also accommodates that. Last week I also talked about putting together a newsletter list, and so I thought that would be funny to have like a dozen or so newsletters. And I ended, I ended up with about 120. Which seems like a lot you think.

But anyway, I fell down a rabbit hole and I couldn’t find my way out. I didn’t know when to stop. That is the

Roberta: trouble with the internet.

Ryan: It is, but so I haven’t looked at all of them. They will be added to the links in the show, peruse with Care. I know we talked about Substack last week and the potential if, and several of these are Substack related, so.

Be, be forewarned. Many of them are self-managed, some are done through other organizations, but there’s some good ones. There’s some interesting ones. Many I’m sure you’ve heard of already. But then there’s a whole group that I’m, hopefully you’ll be surprised by. And also Artblog has two newsletters that we also run.

Artblog itself has one, and ArtblogConnect has one. Ours goes out Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. So if you want to sign up for those as well, those continue to be popular. And then finally, getting to my three that I wanted to shout out this week. So we’re getting through fairly theater week, but I have gotten a lot of feedback that they’d like getting notice a couple weeks in advance.

So I wanted to give a couple week notice for a show that’s coming up April 25th at Morton Contemporary. It’s a, it’s an interesting show of. Of X-ray photography by Nick Vei. He’s a British x-Ray photographer who does some, it has some very fun, playful images that come out from his x-ray work, take on photography and just kind of keeping in on that play.

But also interesting CFEVA, the Center for Emerging Visual Artists is having an opening on April 24th. It’s called, it’s not a lie. If you Believe It works by Yi gu. Koi gu. It is the artist reception that’s going to be at CFEVA again on April 24th from five to seven. That looks like a another fun, interesting show, seeing a lot of variety of of work that has been done.

And then my theater pick for the week. Obviously, the theater week is coming. It is happening. And a show that’s opening at the Wilma is the Archduke by Rajiv Joseph that opens April 15th. And the Wilma again and again puts out amazing work and the, the shows are such a high production value you, you’re really going to enjoy anything you see there.

And I think this would be really interesting in another show as well. So those are my three picks for the week, plus the Rittenhouse Road closures. That I think would be really worth doing. Plus the newsletter stuff. We will see what’s up for coming up next week. Obviously the second Thursday. As well. So that’s my list.

Roberta: I forgot to say one thing. Oh, I, I want to sneak someone in here, something in here. And this is for your dreamers out there who want it to be really nice and warm. Think May the buds of May, the darling buds of May, May 31st is Philly Porch Fest. In West Philly, there are going to be 400 free shows on 190 plus resident porches throughout the neighborhood on that Saturday, May 31st.

So we’ll closer to the day we’ll remind you of this, but Porch Fest, it’s music, free music. You can, you know, take a stroll in West Philly. I’m sure there’ll be a map or something that’ll tell you how to get to where you want to go to. And it’s. It’s just a happy thought. So let’s leave it as a darling Buzz of May and Philly Porch Fest on May 31st.

That’s a good one.

Chi: Yeah, I am bringing some upcoming events in Philly. Are related to. Asian art and culture since I’m from Asia. So as we’re stepping into April, the weather is getting warmer. It’s the time to appreciate circular, the cherry blossom in a year. And the Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival is making its return to Fairmount Park on April the.

Fifth to April the sixth. It’s actually this weekend, so I’m not sure whether the podcast will be posted before this weekend. And this is the annual celebration, which is organized by Japan America, society of Greater Philadelphia, and transformed the parks into a slice of Japan, offering a lot of activities from traditional performances and cosplay fashion shows to hands-on workshops.

But it may rain this weekend, and I noticed some workshop tickets are already sorted out. So if you’re interested, be sure to check out their official website for more details and the full schedule. I want to say, I’m sorry to butt in here, but for the 250th anniversary of the United States, the Japan.

Roberta: Japan itself is going to give Philadelphia 250 more cherry trees. Nice. Yeah. I forget where I read that and I was going to mention it some other time when I found it, but there you go. More cherry trees in Philly. Yeah, because I’ve seen a lot of cherry trees. They’re blossoming. So yeah, I think it’s good to mention it.

Chi: Yeah. Anything else? Chi and I also noticed that the Philadelphia Museum of Art is hosting an exhibition titled Mythical Creatures: China and the World. So running now through June the first, so it, it, there are still two months left. So actually it explores this theme of diversity by comparing mythical s from different cultures.

So while this fantastical animals may look different, they, they serve a similar purpose to help humans make sense of the world. So I think it’s something that we still seek today. So I think if you’re interested I think you should head over to the official website and check more. Yeah, definitely.

Roberta: We’ll put those links in.

Anjali: So some recent news which is that Trump, the Trump administration has initiated major cuts to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, IMLS. So I feel like there’s just been a lot of executive orders and a lot of funding cuts, so it’s kind of hard to keep up.

So I wanted to highlight this, even though it is. A pretty big downer. And basically IMLS is the primary federal agency supporting libraries and museums across the country. And it has a budget that’s historically been larger than the NEA. And in 2024, the agency awarded around $270 million in grants that are usually reimbursements.

But on March 31st there were about 75 employees, so nearly the entire staff that were placed on paid administrative leave for up to 90 days. And so this means there’s really no one to. You know, process the grant payments to people that have already been awarded these grants. So that has like a pretty big, big impact on museums.

Like there’s a art museum in Idaho that was counting on, $10,000 for student field trips and a North Carolina museum that was counting on 23,000 for a weaving and fiber arts workshop. And other situations like that. And it’s just deeply concerning, obviously, for the future of museums and libraries in the us.

So I didn’t want to bring the downer in, but I think it is important to talk about. So, yeah.

Roberta: I agree. And of course that was in the same batch of executive orders that hit the Smithsonian Institution. Yeah. So tough times. In Washington. But on an up note, Corey Booker. Yes. His 25 hour record breaking filibuster where he actually spoke.

He didn’t just read from an encyclopedia or a dictionary, he had a speech. He just kept speaking.

Roberta: So go Corey. Yeah. We need that kind of energy. I know. 25 hours. It’s pretty amazing. Pretty

Ryan: amazing.

Roberta: I know. Yeah. Good for him. So shout out Corey Booker. Yeah,

Ryan: I don’t think I could hold it for 25 hours.

Anjali: No, definitely

not.

Ryan: That’s a, a feat in and of itself. So last week you were going to go see Y Tu Mama Tambien

Anjali: Yes.

Ryan: It was

Anjali: so good. Yeah, it was like, it’s now one of my favorite movies. Really? I think. Yes. I feel like. First of all, the cinematography was so good. And also like you’ve seen it, right?

Ryan: But not on the big screen, so you got to to see it on the big screen.

Anjali: It was just so amazing. Like, they had like voiceovers throughout, so like, even like minor characters, like they came across these pigs and you like knew what happened to the pigs in the end. And like little things like that that were really like quirky and I felt like it was so funny. But also like. Very sad.

I’m not going to give anything away, but yeah, I loved it. I don’t know. What did you think Chi?

Chi: Mm, I loved it. And actually it was my first time watching some scenes in the cinema. Because, due to some rules in China of cinema. So, because there’s no, like, it’s not stratified everyone can go to cinema to watch the movie every movie.

So it’s kind of it, it’s a pretty new experience for me to watch sex scenes. Anjali: Yeah, it was pretty explicit. Yes, for sure. And I, from the get go, yeah. And

Chi: I. Pretty I think inspired by the community because there, there was, mexican community. And LGBTQ plus community came to watch the movie and they just gathered together and I felt they laughed a lot.

They, they, they said a lot of things during the movie, so I felt really involved and engaged. So I think this kind of activity is really great for people together. Together.

Roberta: I agree. Yeah. That’s great. So this was a special screening for, or was it open to the public? It’s, I think it’s open to the free screening.

Yeah. It was one of their free screening after. Okay.

Chi: Oh cool. Yeah.

Anjali: Yeah.

Chi: So everyone can come.

Anjali: Yeah. So I really want to start going to them, honestly, because it’s a fun activity.

Roberta: And so do they have a series of free films, that kind of thing? Or It’s occasionally.

Anjali: I could be wrong, but I believe what they said is that it’s like once a month or something.

Yeah. They have a free screening. All right. Well so it’s kind of first come, first serve.

Roberta: We’ll have to put the link into their website where they have their calendar and people can Yeah. Check it out.

Ryan: And this is done Societies? Yes. And which, which venue was this of theirs?

Anjali: This was the one on Chestnut and 14th, right?

Roberta: Yeah, right. Just west of Broad Street. Yes.

Anjali: Yeah, exactly. Okay. Exactly.

Roberta: Anyway, that’s the news from Artblog in our usual, form of hag higgledy-piggledy stuff and please come back next time. It’s been great having you. And this is Roberta saying bye-bye. And this

Anjali: is Angel. Thank you so much. And this is Chi. Thank you.

Ryan: And this is Ryan, and this has been Artblog’s Midweek news.

Bye-bye.