Midweek News, Whitney Museum is free, Brooklyn Rail is 24 years old, Wharton Esherick Museum exhibit, Free Library Author events, plus participatory opera at Fringe

Roberta: Hi everyone, it’s Roberta.

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

Roberta: on Artblog Radio. Ryan, I love the fall. Don’t you love the fall? It’s so crisp, and even though it’s a season where things are dying, I feel like it’s a renewal, for me. For so many years I’ve lived with an academic. We have the fall schedule — beginning of the school year — which is always a time of excitement. So, I like the fall.

Ryan: Yeah, I like the fall. My hypothesis is that people who are born in and around the fall are the big fall lovers? I dunno, what do you think about that? So, I’m born in November, right around Thanksgiving, and my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving.

Roberta: Did you get birthday presents in addition to turkeys?

Ryan: I like the food. I love the coming together. I love the drama at the table. People say, don’t talk about politics at the table, but I’m like, it is just so much. I mean, it’s how you write a story. If no one talks about anything, there’s no books written.

Roberta: Yeah, that’s true.

Ryan: But loving the fall, I don’t. It feels like death, but it’s not really death, it’s just like holding over through the winter into the spring.

Roberta: True, that’s true. If I knew more about biology, I would have the vocabulary to talk about it, but I don’t. So it’s death but it’s not, it’s quiescence. It’s sort of quieting down for the winter months.

Interesting. Well, as someone whose birthday’s in February, I do love the fall. So there goes at least your one small sample size to discount what you said.

Ryan: There we go.

Roberta: I’ve got four things I want to talk about in the news and one of them is happening today, and we’re recording this on Tuesday, but it won’t really be up on Artblog and disseminated until Wednesday or Thursday. But I’m going to mention it anyway. Even though it will be in the past. So starting out, I’m going to just barrel right into my news.

Ryan: Barrel right in there.

Roberta: All right, I will do that. A couple of New York things that struck me were the Whitney Museum has announced that they are starting free entrance for 25 and under in mid-December. This is courtesy of — and this is the real kicker — Julie Mehretu, who’s an artist who has shown at the Whitney Museum and is a trustee. She donated $2 million to the Whitney Museum specifically for this new initiative for free entrance for 25 and under. So thank you Julie Mehretu. What a standup thing to do. And I want to say way to go artist who can contribute $2 million. Right?

Ryan: Yes. That’s what I was thinking too. I saw that as well and I thought, well, that’s great. And then I saw the money. I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, that’s really interesting,’ because I feel like you don’t usually see that from, maybe specifically philanthropists or like Elon Musk is donating X amount of money to go vote.

Roberta: And that’s illegal.

Ryan: We won’t talk about his lawsuit. The District Attorney of Philadelphia just sued him, so we won’t talk about that right now. But yeah, that’s a great story. Whitney Museum.

Roberta: And the Whitney is always worth stopping by. Not that we need to tell you that. If you follow the art world you know that. Plus it’s down near the Highline. You can take a walk on the Highline, which is always a fun thing to do, except in the summer when it’s too crowded. But yeah, in the fall it would be a great time to take a walk on the Highline and go see the Whitney.

My second little news-ette is about the Brooklyn Rail, which is 24 years old this year. And you all know the Brooklyn Rail. It’s this oversized tabloid magazine in newsprint, and it must weigh five pounds. It’s very large, and they cover a lot of art. They are very wonderful at doing interviews, doing reviews, a lot stuff. And they get a lot of support. So good on them. They’re in their 24th year and they’re celebrating it with a website overhaul. They just redid their website. I guess the website has not been their primary product. Sure, the primary product is the paper, but the paper doesn’t circulate as widely as the internet does. As we all know, things on the internet go everywhere. So they overhauled it. It has a rather striking masthead at the top, which is a video that doesn’t stop moving and is very distracting. But there’s a little off button that you can click, so please, find the off button, click it off, or you’ll go crazy.

Ryan: Yeah. I guess now you wonder why Artblog doesn’t have any moving images.

Roberta: Yeah, really. We hate that (well, I hate that).

Ryan: Yeah. It is really distracting. The website feels a bit much for me. It feels too big. I mean, I guess it’s like the paper. It’s big, the paper’s big, so maybe it’s the whole vibe, but yes, it’s still beyond me. And it’s funny that they went with the 24th anniversary, a 24th birthday website. I thought it was like paper and then cotton and then leather. Like I feel like we are skipping a few. I don’t even see “website” on the 24th anniversary list.

Roberta: Well, for whatever reason, the funding was there. They did it. That’s good. Regardless of the date, they did it. I want to point out that currently, you can find on their site a really in-depth interview with Pepón Osorio and Dan Cameron, who is a curator of longstanding in the art world and has been following Pepon’s art since the 1980s, I believe he says in the interview. The interview is about Pepón’s art and artistry and focuses in particular on his current Jefferson Hospital piece, Convalescence, which we saw. Ryan and I took our students to see it. It’s a marvelous piece about the medical-industrial complex. I guess you could call it. It’s critical and forward looking about how can we change this system. I was very happy to see that article. And the founder of the Brooklyn Rail — whose signature is a pencil sketch, a very realistic pencil sketch, of each person who’s being interviewed on the Brooklyn Rail — made a very nice pencil drawing of Pepón. Phong Bui is the founder. I hope I’m pronouncing that correctly. So, congratulations, Brooklyn Rail and Pepón.

Here’s an opportunity I will throw out there for all of you woodworkers, of whom I believe we have a bunch in Philadelphia. There’s what used to be the Wood Turning Center and now is the Museum for Art in Wood. Anyway, the Wharton Esherick Museum has a call for its annual Juried Woodworking exhibit, and the deadline is January 6th, 2025. See the links list at the top for more information. The Wharton Esherick Museum is in an exurb of Philadelphia, somewhere on the outskirts, not too far to get to, and is a showpiece in and of itself just to go see it. So if you make wood furniture or wood sculpture or wood, anything, check it out. It’s a good opportunity.

Ryan: Yeah. I’ve never actually been there either. It’s just outside of Valley Forge.

Roberta: Okay. Right. Oh, geez. That’s close.

Ryan: Yeah, I think it’s pretty close.

Roberta: You could ride your bike out there.

Ryan: I think I have.

Roberta: Oh, you have to stop in.

Ryan: Yeah, I do.

Roberta: We should probably do an Artblog safari out there. That would be fun.

Ryan: I’ve reached out to them. They said to stop by anytime, so we just have to coordinate it.

Roberta: Let’s do it.

Ryan: Yeah, that’d be fun.

Roberta: Okay. Get in touch with us if you want to go with Artblog and see the Wharton Esherick Museum. Finally, I’m going to tell you about what I’m going to do tonight. This is Tuesday. October 29th, at 7:00 PM at the Free Library. I’m going to go hear an author and artist Maira Kalman, who’s a New York artist showed at the ICA in 2010, and she’ll be in conversation with Alex Connor of Commonweal Gallery.

I’m a long time admirer of Maira Kalman and I’ve got three of her books. I’m going to get another book because she’s really wonderful. She does these quirky gouache paintings of street scenes. And she has some children’s books. And here’s one that I really liked, Swami On Rye. And when she had her show at the ICA, Libby and I were invited to read one of her children’s books, “Next Stop Grand Central”, at a family reading hour. We sat up on the stage, all the families were sitting on the floor and we read the book. It was so sweet.

So, look out for things that go on at the Free Library. Absolutely. I don’t know how you get onto their author series list, but here’s the author events page on the Free Library website. They had a whole kerfuffle go on this summer, with the author events staff quitting en masse, and it was very sad. Who knows why, and I never followed up with that. But the author series is back in business (new staff) and they always have good things, and it’s worth supporting the library. A lot of the events are free. Like the Maira Kalman talk on Tuesday is free. They’re not all free, but the prices are not going to break your pocketbook. They’re in the $20 range for a ticket

Ryan: Is Commonweal doing a kid-focus thing they have coming up on November 2nd? They have Commonkids Art Morning with Adam Lovitz. It’s 8 to 10:00 AM

Roberta: Great. Yeah. Adam has two children of his own, little kids, so maybe he’s going to run the workshop.

Ryan: Yeah, I think he’s running the workshop. But I didn’t know if Alex has got a kid theme coming up. I don’t know if this was something they’re developing.

Roberta: I don’t know.

Ryan: Well ask him if you talk to him.

Roberta: Yeah, really. I will. I mean, we all love children. Children are the future and they’re not getting a lot of art in their schooling these days.

Ryan: Well now they can go to Whitney for free, so they need to stop complaining and just go to the Whitney.

Roberta: Haha, Yeah. I wonder what the PMA’s position on free tickets is. They do have “first Sunday” pay what you wish and Friday night pay what you wish There should be more free museums. Like we were talking before when you went to Washington, how all the museums, the Smithsonian museums, are all free.

And that’s the way it should be. I mean, culture belongs to the people. We need culture.

Ryan: That’s a relatively new idea. You know, the history of museums was really for academia and for research. And they’re not designed for people. But that kind of changed in the middle 19th century.

So it’s not a terribly new idea. I guess museums aren’t that terribly old to begin with.

Roberta: Yeah. I don’t know. History of museums.

Ryan: I think it was like the British and the French, once they started raping and pillaging from around the world, they had to have somewhere to put their booty.

Roberta: Yes. Private collections.

Ryan: Yeah. So I’m sure there’s a book on the history museums, where they came from and what they collected, but yeah. Obviously, they’re, they’re different now.

Roberta: Oh yeah. Very different. They all have education departments and rightly so, and do a lot of programming. You know, it’s not just come in and look at the art, but it’s come in and learn about the art –  we’ll teach you. And that’s a really good thing because people are so disconnected from culture. They’re very connected with other things, such as web browsing, sports, and food. But the connection with culture is still very split. There’s a chasm and people think it’s unbridgeable, but it’s not. Baby steps. You just have to go in.

Ryan: Yeah. And normalizing it. Like make it a part of your every day like we normalize the other parts.

Roberta: That’s true. We do normalize the other parts.

Ryan: Yeah. Which is culture.

Roberta: So what have you got this morning, Ryan?

Ryan: I went to the Big Ramp show because I wanted to see how political the Hanging the Meow Show is going to be. And it wasn’t as political as I was expecting, so that was nice. And that was a fun little playful show. If you haven’t seen that, that’s up right now at Big Ramp.

Roberta: Well, I’ve seen the, I’ve seen the photograph, I think. Chris (Hammes) put a photo on his Instagram and it looks like everything (the art) is located on the floor or at like knee level,

Ryan: Which is hilarious. And one of the cat toys is his beard. He actually shaved for this show.

Roberta: No!

Ryan: Yes.

Roberta: Tell people what his beard looked like before he shaved it.

Ryan: Well, it kind of had a bowl and then it (was long and) came to a point. It was braided at the end, So it was a perfect cat toy. Yeah, it was long. It’s a long, perfectly sized cat toy, so he put it on a string and then tied to a stick, and then it kind of just suspended there at the show.

Roberta: Oh, I love that. That’s great. Yeah. I’m not sure if I’ve actually seen him clean-shaven before.

Ryan: As far as the show being political, it was much more of a radical show, like enjoying and pleasure and playful, but it, it was also a lot of fun. It was a, it was a good show.

Yeah. So let me get into my things and, and I’ll keep this show a flowing. So there is “Fellowship” the musical, which I think sounds hilarious. There’s a couple of musical sing song events that I wanted to point out. This one is Fellowship. It’s the musical parody of the Fellowship of the Ring, and obviously that book series is one of the most popular of all time.

And then they made some very popular films on the topic, and now there’s a popular streaming show. So there’s clearly people who are interested in it. This is running November 1st through December 22nd, so plenty of time to see it. This is at Side Quest Theaters 20th and Sansom.

And that could be a lot of fun. Obviously, this week is Halloween as well, so there’s a lot of things that are happening, so I’ll try to keep it off the Thursday. So there’s a lot of things that are happening Thursday for Halloween and then throughout the weekend. Not necessarily on my list, but Fleisher Art Memorial normally has a big Dia De Los Muertos event.

So if you’re interested in Dia De Los Muertos, that’s a fantastic place to go. Consistently good, consistently great food and events at Fleisher. But that’s not going to count as my three, because I try to keep it to three. So I’m just going to mention that one and keep it as my extra.

Roberta: You’re cheating. You’re cheating.

Ryan: I’m kind of cheating. And I mentioned the Commonwealth too, which I’m not going to count as mine. Fringe Arts has a show coming up as well. “We have gone as far as we can together.” That is a participatory opera. I’m not quite sure what that would be. Made me think like of a (Jake) Jacob Collier kind of show where he gets the audience to participate in the singing, which is just a lovely time together. So I’m curious what this one’s going to be like. This is running from November 1st through the ninth. This is at Fringe Arts. So obviously Fringe is over, but Fringe Arts is hosting this, so if you are interested in singing, I’m not sure what the opera experience is going to be, but it sounds like a lot of fun.

Roberta: Well, operas always have choruses, right? So you may not get to sing on Aria. Or you could maybe. But there’s a chorus. There’s always a chorus.

Ryan: And then in, in the spirit of Halloween, there is also a mischief night portrait painting at Morris Arboretum. And I think with the fall and the Halloween coming that is going to be a lot of fun. That’s going to be on the 30th of October from 5:30 to 7:30 at Morris Aboretum. And I think the weather’s looking good. We’re setting a record for dry this month.

Even my dad who lives in in Scottsdale was like, ‘We’re talking about how dry it is in Philadelphia.’ I’m like, ‘What!?’ I know it’s dry, but it’s pretty, pretty beautiful weather. So if the weather holds, mischief night portrait painting at Morris Arboretum. It could be a lot of fun if you’re looking for a pre Halloween event as well.

Roberta: Wait, when is mischief night? Is that the night before Halloween?

Ryan: Yeah, Halloween Eve. Is that a thing? Yeah, October 30th. So those are my three things, and there are a few things that are coming up. Obviously, this is going to be First Friday, so Halloween’s the 31st of October, which means November 1st is First Friday.

So, also not on my list are — Paradigm has an opening, Arch Enemy, Third Street Gallery. None of these are on my list, but they’re all on my list. They’re also all on Artblog Connect. The following Thursday is not Second Thursday, so that is the third week of November.  So those are all available. All that information is on ArtblogConnect.

Roberta: Great. I want to sneak in another one too. I guess I’m going to go to five today. That would be five for me, but maybe it’ll be quick. There’s a new place opening in West Philly that I had heard about from Logan Cryer when Logan and I were talking once upon a time. Logan writes for Artblog and we’re friends, so they are involved in this Paulownia Projects. So Paulownia is a tree or a bush or something or other, and that’s what this new place is called. They’re having a launch event on Halloween, October 31st from five to 8:00 PM.

This is at Calvary United Methodist Church, 801 South 48th Street. They’re going to have an artist-in-residency program and it sounds really new and different and hippie. I want to say, I can’t wait to go to this place, so I may stop in on Halloween, but I think it’s open to all. Free, so stop on by if you’re out on Halloween in West Philadelphia, 48th at the corner of Baltimore, actually. Baltimore and 48th.

Ryan: And that’s from five to 8:00 PM on Halloween, correct?

Roberta: Yep.

Ryan: What, what are you dressing up as Roberta?

Roberta: Myself.

Ryan: Oh, nice.

Roberta: I am my own horror.

Ryan: Oh my goodness. That’s good.

Roberta: Anyway, well that’s about it that I have. That’s it for me as well. Okay. So let’s say toodeloo. And we’ll see you again next week, Ryan, if not before.

Ryan: That sounds good, Roberta.

Roberta: Okay. Thanks everybody for listening. It’s Roberta signing off. Bye-Bye.

Ryan:  And this is Ryan. Bye-Bye.