Roberta: Hi everyone, it’s Roberta.

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

Roberta: On Artblog Radio. Where are you exactly?

Ryan: I am in Jacksonville, Florida. Trying to avoid the snow. And then yesterday was 74. Today I think we’re currently like 36.

Roberta: Wow. So. Yeah.

Ryan: Cold front across the country, I guess.

Roberta: Yeah. No, it’s, it’s really cold up here. Feels like, like seven degrees or something outside.

Ryan: Bur

Roberta: we didn’t get that much snow. You know, one and a half inches, maybe two out here in Bella, Kenwood, but not so much.

Ryan: Huh?

Roberta: I saw pictures on Instagram of kids going sledding in Clark Park. You know that wonderful bowl that you can sled down into so beautifully.

It was really thread bear. They were down to the grass.

Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. You gotta take advantage of what you can get.

Roberta: Yeah. Yes. Better than nothing, right?

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely.

Roberta: So, Florida, huh? And

Ryan: yeah, Florida.

Roberta: Did you have a good uneventful trip down? I hope you didn’t pass through any storms or anything.

Ryan: No, we, we got here Sunday.

It was uneventful and easy. Ah, I can’t

Roberta: believe that, that you have three kids in the car. Easy does not sound like three kids in a car to me.

Ryan: Well, you know, last time we did the road trip, we would call, I would call you from any random place in the Rocky Mountain area. So they’re just kinda, you know, whatever you make normal is the thing that.

They just kind of go with it. They either acquiesce or acclimate. So I

Roberta: remember when I was a kid and we took a driving trip from Milwaukee down to New Orleans where my mother’s brother was stationed. He was in the Army and for some reason they were down in New Orleans. And so we were down there for a while and in the car coming back, one of us, and I don’t remember which one, there were three kids, started showing symptoms of the measles.

Oh. And so that was the car ride on the way back. Just, you know. Not happy camping by the three kids.

Ryan: Oh man, that’s tough. Yeah. No sickness. Knock on wood. Yeah. I think the likelihood of measles is low in our house. That’s good. I think,

Roberta: yeah. This was pre-vaccine for most people, you know, back in the day.

Ryan: Yeah. So we over some of those,

Roberta: even though there weren’t vaccines, you could go like 90 miles an hour on the highways. You know, the, they, they were not really enforcing traffic laws and there were no seat belts.

Ryan: Well, we have. Traffic laws and seat belts and I was getting passed at higher speeds, so, oh my God.

Roberta: There’s

Ryan: plenty of people participating. Similar behavior.

Roberta: This is true. People like their speed.

Ryan: It takes less time when you’re going along. You know, if you’re driving in Philly, I mean, there’s no point in speeding because you know there’s going to be a traffic jam or a stoplight in, in just a minute. But when you’re, when you’re driving nine hours,

Roberta: right?

Ryan: A couple miles an hour makes a big difference. Yeah.

Roberta: S is not like a highway, like a regular highway, it’s just a traffic jam from start to end.

Ryan: Yeah. It’s a thoroughfare of. It’s a wide avenue. At least it doesn’t have stoplights, but shy of that.

Roberta: And so how long are you in Jacksonville for?

Ryan: We will leave on Thursday.

Roberta: That’s a nice time to spend.

Ryan: So, yeah, it’s, it’s always that question of when do you become the  Rotten Fish House guest. How long is too long? Checking in. So, you know, my kids have some schooling stuff to do, but they could do that from anywhere My family’s kids have regular school. It generally works out, it feels like enough time to participate in and have fun experiences without being overwhelming.

Roberta: Okay, so I’m looking at a map of Florida now, and it seems that Jacksonville is in the upper part of Florida. It’s, and it’s not exactly on the coast, the Atlantic coast. Is it inland? A little bit?

Ryan: Well, we are technically right on the river, St. John’s River, which is one I’ve been informed. It’s one of the few north-flowing rivers.

Roberta: Huh?

Ryan: Definitely doesn’t feel ocean.

Roberta: Doesn’t feel beachy.

Ryan: No, it doesn’t feel beachy, but it doesn’t feel like Philly. Separate from the ocean. It definitely feels like you could get there in just a minute if you need to. That is, but it doesn’t smell salty, but it’s so humid. Yeah, it is a big river, isn’t it?

Roberta: It looks really wide and, and then it gets very narrow at Palka looking at a map. And then seems to deposit itself into Lake George, which looks like a, a very large lake.

Ryan: Yeah. It’s, it’s, it is a pretty area. You know, it’s two hours from, say, Disney World and it’s two hours to Savannah, Georgia. So it’s, it’s an interesting little pocket of a spot.

Some natural, natural beauty around. So West is some large wildlife refuge sections that they’ve. They’ve set aside and there’s quite a bit dotted within the metro area. I think Jacksonville proper is actually one of the larger cities by land area and does feel a bit sprawly for its size population-wise.

So it doesn’t feel all that dissimilar for any other fairly new growing town.

Roberta: So are you, where do you go on Thursday then?

Ryan: Thursday we’re headed to Virginia Beach.

Roberta: Huh.

Ryan: So kind of pick a fun spot that has some interesting things along the way, some slightly different views, but also cuts our return to Philly down significantly.

So on the way here, we did it all in one shot, and on the way back we’ll split it in half. So it’s a little less exhausting.

Roberta: Yeah. Apart from snow and weather talk, you want to get into the news. Should we get into the news?

Ryan: Yeah, let’s get into the news.

Roberta: All right, so I don’t have a whole lot, but I do have something significant to tell you if you haven’t heard of it already.

And that is there’s a new quarterly art zine focused on writing and other things from marginal utility that’s. Going to drop in 2025. It’s called Teleporter. Marginal utility. Just to remind everyone was a magnificent gallery that showed a lot of very outstanding artists and held programs within the gallery.

Because the people that started the gallery also back in the day, and this might have been 2008 or oh nine, something like that. Had a magazine that they then published a newsprint magazine called Machete, and Machete was an art zine and it was written by local writers and came out. I don’t know if it was haphazard or quarterly or monthly or whatever, but it was very prolific back in the day.

And then machete tapered off and the gallery stayed. And then the gallery, I think during COVID closed and transformed itself into Two C. Bookshop, which is still in the 319 North 11th Street building run by David Depu Wolf and his wife Yuka Yokoyama. They’re back with Teleporter, which is a wonderful thing.

We need more art writing and so this is going to be a new platform for art writing. Welcome to them and can’t wait to get the first one. Can’t wait to see if you know they want to do something with Artblog.

Ryan: Yeah, that sounds great.

Roberta: Putting out a call, David, and you want to do something with Artblog? The second news thing I wanted to mention is that Sid Sachs.

Late of the Rosenwald Wolf Gallery, the long shut because of the University of the Arts Fiasco Gallery that closed when the university closed. Sid was the exhibition director for the university. He managed the Rosenwald Wolf Gallery for many, many years. With great, wonderful shows, including Women of Pop, which was a groundbreaking show about the 1960s era.

And women artists, women pop artists, and also invisible city and. Some restaging of a happening, a 1960s happening by Alex Dete at the Browski Gallery. So Sid is much missed as a local curator, as is the gallery and the art alliance where he also took over and did the art alliance shows when the University of the Arts bought that building, and that is now shut.

Of course, that’s a long preamble. Sorry to ramble like that, but Sid has a show. He curated guest curated at Haverford College Cancer Fitzgerald Gallery. It’s called Gary Kuehn. I think that’s how you pronounce the name. K-U-E-H-N in situ opens January 24th to March 7th, and the opening is Friday the 24th of January.

Four 30 to 7:00 PM and there’ll be an a talk that night at the reception. So good to see Sid out there curating. His curation is always surprising and wonderful, and I look forward to this show. Then there are two opportunities that I wanted to mention that have come up Memberships from some of the local collective galleries.

Box populi is looking for new members and a automat, also looking for new members. And box populi deadline is February 10th, and we’ll put the link to the application for that into the transcript and the automatic. Deadline is January 15th, so that’s kind of around the corner. Automat is in the crane arts building and box populi is at 3 1 9 North 11th Street.

So those are two really good membership opportunities for local artists, so you should check those out. Wonderful galleries. Other galleries may or may not be looking for members at this time of year, but we’ll let you know when they put their open calls up because it’s always good to check them out and apply.

Help the local scene, develop their gallery curating and whatnot. And that’s it for me, Ryan.

Ryan: Well that’s interesting also, did you see that the OED, the Oxford English Dictionary so gave their word of the Year?

Roberta: Oh, I did not. I missed that. What’s the word of the year?

Ryan: So the 2024 word of the Year is brain rot.

With a dash, I assume so it’s one word as opposed to two,

Roberta: maybe no dash. Maybe it’s just brain rot altogether. I could go with that.

Ryan: Yeah, so apparently, so then I was looking at it, that brain rot was coin originally coined by Henry David Thoreau.

Roberta: Oh

Ryan: yeah. Which I did not realize.

Roberta: No heavens. I think it’s really 20 20th or 21st century.

Ryan: It, it definitely, it definitely seems to apply yet again, two, 200 years later. So,

Roberta: so the question is, why did they pick it? What algorithm do they use to select the word of the year? Does that mean it was, it came, they

Ryan: vote? Yeah, they have a short list.

Roberta: Okay.

Ryan: They create a short list of words. And then they vote on, on the word of the year.

Okay. So they whittled it down to five.

Roberta: How do they make the short list? That’s what I’m trying to get at. Is it based on quantity of use or just some, oh, we think these are the words. You know, hocus pocus.

Ryan: Yeah. Not exactly sure what the criteria is for the breakdown. Get to their final choice or their final list.

But 2023, the word was swifty and 2022 was goblin mode. So brain rot seems to be kind of appropriate for those two.

Roberta: Is Swifty for the Taylor Swift movement, you think?

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely.

Roberta: Swifties were just coined as a word. Yes, I’m a swifty.

Ryan: Yeah, exactly.

Roberta: Well, that has to be based on the phenomenon. I don’t know that. Or it could have been based on word count,

Ryan: uhhuh,

Roberta: you know, from Google searches and stuff like that.

Ryan: It’s hard to say what their criteria is, but there it is. The OED Word of the year for 2024.

Roberta: Okay. Brain rot. I think we’ll have to start using that in our headlines.

Ryan: Well, it, let’s use it lightly only where it applies, or we feel so strongly I

Roberta: take advantage of it. If it’s the OED Word of the Year, I think we have to take advantage of that.

Ryan: Also, the year of the snake begins on January 29th.

Roberta: Okay,

Ryan: so that’s coming up. And so there’ll be a lot of celebrations. So part of the events that are coming up on my list are the cultural fest, the Lunar New Year that happens at Penn Museum, which is a fun show.

That’s going to be coming up on January 29th. And, and a lot of different events happening that weekend as well. So look out for those Lunar New Year celebrations. So the parties continue on. Also, speaking of like the year-end wrap up, since it’s just the be, you know, the first week. A full week of getting into January of 2025 is Spotify also announced their most streamed song of the year.

Roberta: Okay. What is it?

Ryan: It is Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish.

Roberta: Have you heard this song?

Ryan: Yes, I have. I’ve teenage children, so I, okay. I’ve heard this song. I, I may not have streamed it the 1.7 billion times that it was streamed, but it sometimes feels very, some. Yeah, so I’ve heard it a few times. Yeah. So a couple of shows that are coming up that I think are going to be interesting are all the events that are, are, are associated with the, the Lunar New Year festivals.

There’s quite a few that are going to be happening, and there will be the parade in Chinatown. There will also be all the events that will be happening at Penn Museum and in that area in West as well. And if you’re not familiar with Penn Museum, it’s 32 60 South Street. Then a couple of the shows that are coming up for some of you that may or may not know, I got my first tattoo last year.

So there’s a tattoo arts festival that’s comes up at the end of the month, January 24, the 26th, and it was, it’s really interesting that that experience, I went to Black Mo Moth in Ardmore and he actually has a. Steve Martin, not the comedian, but the tattoo artist did a great job and I, and I, I was really pleased with that experience.

Also, does gallery shows, there’s quite a bit of art. It rotates, there’s quite a different events that are happening in the parlor itself. If you are looking for other pieces of work and on your, and or on your body. Take a look at Black Mo and Ardmore. So the Philadelphia Tattoo Arts Festival is January 24th to the 26th.

So keep that in mind. Start putting that on your calendar if that’s of interest to you. Some really interesting work. Tattooing is just a, an ancient art form and it’s really interesting things that people want to put on their body or, and good, good and bad. You know,

Roberta: I live with someone who is a tattoo.

It’s not Deni, but a tattoo scoff. Scoffer. Sure. He scoffs at tattoos, and the reason is that he doesn’t see them as adornment, but as symbols. Of a life experience of some sort, and he thinks that they are, that you should just go out and have life experiences and not just put, you know, emblazon them on your body.

Just have them, I, I’m probably not summarizing this appropriately the way he would, but that’s, that’s basically his scoffing at tattoos. I don’t know, I see them as adornment. People love them. You know, jewelry is a, their body jewelry basically.

Ryan: Yeah, we should get him on the show sometime so he can, he can appropriately defend himself in some of these comments or clarify

Roberta: theme.

He’s, he can be rather, rather scoffing at just about anything. You, you name it.

Ryan: And I, I also wanted to give a shout out to a, a show that’s coming up as well. Usually I do a week of shows, but there’s a few shows that are, are forthcoming that I also wanted to mention. And at the end of the month is the quiz, professor Chow.

1. January 31st through February 6th. And that looks like an interesting show with some Hothouse members. And it looks like Bija know is in that who we interviewed last year. And so I’m, I’m curious about that show and that show only runs for a week. So take a look at that. Get your tickets now so you can get ahead of that.

So those are my, my big three things is the Lunar New Year Festivals tattoo show and the quiz, professor Chow. Take a look at those three things.

Roberta: Well, I, I just want to say that I went to New York, oh yeah. With my scoffing husband last weekend, picking out a

Ryan: tattoo?

Roberta: We went to the Metropolitan Museum and we saw two shows there. One was the painting show from Sienna 1300 to 1350. And apparently there was a lot of good work in that show. Obviously, you know, those ancient religious things were very. Beautifully painted and whatnot. And one of my favorites, and I’ll share this with you, Ryan, in case you want to see it, is a painting of Mary Joseph and Jesus as a teenager.

Jesus as a teenager. Just imagine. So those of you who have teenagers, apparently he went missing and maybe there’s a bible story about this, I don’t know. Or some sort of story he went missing upon his return. This artist painted a pa a picture of Mary Admonishing their teenage son, who she’s sitting down.

Towering over the teenage Jesus is Joseph looking down at him with really judging eyes. Just the most judging face you’ve ever seen, and the baby Jesus looking sternly ahead at his mother as if, who are you to tell me what to do. You know the teenage reaction by him. The parental reaction by the two parents is just so classic.

It. I took a picture, I had to take a picture. It’s really beautifully painted and the gold leaf all over the place. Filigree is really nice. There was also a show about the effect of Egypt on black people and black artists in particular. That was really interesting. It was really packed with people, as you can imagine, still the holiday kind of holdover, and there were several standout pieces in it.

One was a Barbara Chase rebo throne that was made out of metal, some sort of metal that was all clamped together. So beautiful piece, all brightly spot lit with a back background, black background behind it. So it was extremely dramatic. Then there was a Glenn Ligand piece that I just adored, and it was a quote from Richard Pryor who did standup comedy, of course, and was this hero.

Very wonderful person, wonderful comedian. Anyway, this is the quote from Richard Pryor that was in the Glenn Ligand piece. I went to Africa, I went to the motherland to find my roots, right? 700 million black people. Not one of those motherfuckers knew me. Oh

Ryan: Lord.

Roberta: Isn’t that great?

Ryan: That’s good.

Roberta: So, you know, parroting in a way, the going back to the motherland and actually finding nothing there for you.

Ryan: Comedy gives you a different perspective on that, on the depth of what he’s actually saying. I like it.

Roberta: That’s what art does. I mean, Richard Pryor was an artist as a comedian. He was really good. Okay. After that we went to the Morgan and we saw a show of Kafka. It was put on by the Morgan and the Bodi in library at Oxford, which has the entirety of Kafka’s manuscripts.

He only wrote three books in his very short life. He died at age 40. He was very sick his whole life while he told his best friend he wanted his manuscripts and all his materials burned. His best friend did not honor that wish and. Kept them. And ultimately, and I forget the story of how they got there.

They got into the Bodley and Library, which is the house of Kafka now. Anyway, this was a show that was quite well done, documentary, as you can imagine, photographs and whatnot. And then another show they had was about Bell Acosta Green, who was the first librarian? At the Morgan Museum, and she was a black woman from a very light black family who passed for white her whole life, pretty much.

It was, it was also very well done. She was quite a powerful woman and, you know, kind of a fem fatal and a dresser and all that. And my husband said after we saw that show, that wasn’t so satisfying. And it was like, hmm. This is not an art exhibit. You know, it’s not an art exhibit. Right. The Morgan is not an art museum.

It’s a library. So there’s a library exhibit and Oh, okay. So he was disappointed in the sort of EXI exhibition quality. But it was a really well done docu. They both were well done documentary expositions of the two individuals that they were portraying. Interesting. So I would recommend them both.

And then it made me want to read Kafka, who I’ve only read bits of, I’ve never read the whole Metamorphosis or the other, the Castle is this other one in AmeriKa with a K. So

Ryan: And the trial, I think,

Roberta: oh,

Ryan: Is that him?

Roberta: Okay. Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t remember that one being mentioned. It was just, I thought there were only three, but maybe the, the trial was in some things were left uncompleted.

Maybe that’s a, an uncompleted that someone. Finished. I don’t know.

Ryan: It was one of the posthumous works. It says so.

Roberta: Okay. So not published during his lifetime.

Ryan: Correct.

Roberta: Yeah. And that’s it for me. The New York wrap up. It was a good trip. That sounds great. Yeah. I want to say to everybody, never go to New York and be on anywhere near Sixth Avenue or Seventh or Eighth in Midtown during the holidays.

Oh my goodness. That was awful.

Ryan: I’m sure it’s packed.

Roberta: It was. So,

Ryan: yeah. Sounds like a lot. Well, I’m glad you made it back safe and sound. I’m glad you were able to make it out to Brooklyn and see the shows.

Roberta: Yes, likewise. Well, no, it wasn’t Brooklyn. I didn’t make it out to Brooklyn, sadly. Oh. It would’ve taken us from the tip of Manhattan to get to the library about 45.

Minutes to an hour to get there. Yeah. By transit, which in, you know, we were only there for two full days, so it was a little much of a day to commit. To go there. But the show that was the Baldwin, James Baldwin. Photographs from Turkey, I would still like to see it. And that is up until March.

So I’m planning to revisit to go see it. Yeah.

Ryan: That sounds great.

Roberta: Sign.

Ryan: That’s it for me. Yeah. Let’s sign off.

Roberta: Let’s do that. Thank you everybody. It’s Roberta saying bye-bye. Stay warm in the cold and cool in the warmth and come back next week.

Ryan: And this is Ryan. It’s been Artblogs Midweek news. Thanks for listening everyone.

Roberta: Bye.