Roberta: Hi everyone, it’s Roberta.

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

Roberta: On Artblog Radio. Ryan, you’re on the road…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.

Ryan: Cold front across the country, I guess.

Roberta: Yeah. It’s really cold up here. Feels like seven degrees or something outside.

Ryan: Brr

Roberta: we didn’t get that much snow. You know, one and a half inches, maybe two out here in Bala Cynwyd, but not so much. 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. The snow was really “thread bare.” They were close to the grass.

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

Roberta: Yes. Better than nothing, right?

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely.

Roberta: So, Florida, huh? And did you have a good uneventful trip down? I hope you didn’t pass through any storms or anything.

Ryan: No, we got here Sunday. It was uneventful and easy.

Roberta: Ah, I can’t 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, I would call you from any random place in the Rocky Mountain area. So they’re just kinda…whatever you make normal is the thing that they just go with. They either acquiesce or acclimate.

Roberta: That’s amazing. I 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.

Not happy camping by the three kids or the parents.

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

Roberta: This was pre-vaccine for measles, way back in the day.

Ryan: Yeah. So we’re over some of those,

Roberta: Also back in the day… there weren’t vaccines, and there weren’t highway speed limits. You could go like 90 miles an hour on the highways. And there were no seat belts in the cars.

Ryan: Well, we have traffic laws and seat belts and I was getting passed at higher speeds.

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 just a minute. But when you’re, when you’re driving nine hours, a couple miles an hour makes a big difference.

Roberta: The Schuylkill (expressway) is not like a highway, like a regular highway, it’s just a traffic jam from end to end.

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

Roberta: And 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 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. 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. I’ve been informed it’s one of the few north-flowing rivers. Jacksonville definitely doesn’t feel ocean.

Roberta: Doesn’t feel beachy.

Ryan: No, it doesn’t feel beachy, but it doesn’t feel like Philly — Separated by an hour or more from the ocean. It definitely feels like you could get there in just a minute if you need to. That is, it doesn’t smell salty, but it’s so humid.

Roberta:  (looking at the map) It is a big river. It looks really wide and, and then it gets very narrow farther downstream (upstream?). And then seems to deposit itself into Lake George, which looks like a very large lake.

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

Some natural, natural beauty around. To the West are some large wildlife refuge sections that 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.

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

Roberta: Where do you go on Thursday then?

Ryan: Thursday we’re headed to Virginia Beach, Va — fun spot that has some interesting things along the way, some slightly different views, but also cuts our return to Philly down significantly.

On the way to Jacksonville, 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: So, Ryan, apart from snow and weather talk, should we get into the news?

Ryan: Yeah, let’s get into the news.

Roberta: All right, 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 arts criticism from Marginal Utility that’s going to drop in 2025. It’s called Teleporter. Marginal Utility, just to remind everyone was a magnificent gallery in the 319 N. 11th building that showed a lot of outstanding artists (e.g. Scott Kip, Abigail DeVille, Jayson Musson) and held programs within the gallery.

And they also had a newsprint magazine, Machete – an art zine written by local writers and came out periodically. (I don’t know if it was haphazard or quarterly or monthly or whatever). But Machete was prolific and they hosted discussion groups as well.

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 Dempewolf 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 they want to do something with Artblog.

Ryan: Yeah, that sounds great.

Roberta: Putting out a call, David and Yuka, do 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, now  shut because of the University of the Arts Fiasco, has a show coming this month that he guest-curated for Haverford College’s Cantor FItzgerald Gallery. The show is titled, Gary Kuehn: In Situ. and opens January 24th to March 7th, with the opening on Friday the 24th of January, 4:30 to 7:00 PM, and there’ll be 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.

Let’s take a moment to remember how great Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery was, and how wonderful Sid’s curating of that space was: Seductive Subversion: Women of Pop, a groundbreaking show about the 1960s era women pop artists; Invisible City which sadly went up right during lockdown in 2020 and was closed. Some re-staging of a 1960s Alan Kaprow happening, “Chicken” by Alex Da Corte at the Borowsky Gallery. Sid is a much-missed Philadelphia curator, as is the gallery he director and the Art Alliance exhibition space which he also took over when the University of the Arts bought that building. All gone, now, those galleries. That wonderful curating.

Meanwhile, here are two opportunities that I wanted to mention that have come up for memberships from some of the local collective galleries.

Vox populi is looking for new members and Automat, also. The Vox Populi deadline is February 10th, and the Automat deadline is January 15th, so that’s kind of around the corner. Automat is in the Crane Arts building and Vox Populi is at 319 North 11th Street.

Wonderful galleries – check it out. 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 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 brainrot altogether. I could go with that. (actually they have it as two words – brain rot)

Ryan: Yeah, so apparently brain rot was coined originally by Henry David Thoreau.

Roberta: Oh

Ryan: yeah. Which I did not realize.

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

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

Roberta: 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 by popular vote? Or something else…

Ryan: They have a short list. They create a short list of words. And then they vote 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 sociological judgment, ‘Oh, we think these are the words.’  You know, a kind of hocus pocus.

Ryan: Yeah. Not exactly sure what the criteria is for the breakdown to 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 in sync with 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 Taylor Swift phenomenon (the Eras tour etc…her extreme popularity). I don’t know, or it could have been based on word count, numbers of 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.

Roberta: I think we should 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: That’s coming up. And so there’ll be a lot of celebrations. 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 — on January 29th. And a lot of different events happening that weekend as well. So look out for those Lunar New Year celebrations. The parties continue on.

Also, speaking of the year-end wrap up, 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’ve heard this song. I may not have streamed it the 1.7 billion times that it was streamed, but yeah, I’ve heard it a few times.

A couple of shows that are coming up that I think are going to be interesting are the events associated with 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 3260 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 comes up at the end of the month, January 24 – 26th. And I went to Black Moth in Ardmore, and Steve Martin, not the comedian, but the tattoo artist did a great job and I was really pleased with that experience.

Black Moth 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 or on your body. Take a look at Black Moth 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 an ancient art form and it’s really interesting things that people want to put on their body.

Roberta: I live with someone who is a tattoo…not denier but tattoo scoffer. 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 you should just go out and have life experiences and not just emblazon them on your body.

Just have experiences that are real, not that are meta, like a tattoo is a meta experience. I’m probably not summarizing this correctly the way he would, but that’s basically his scoffing at tattoos. I don’t know, I see them as adornment. People love them. Jewelry is adornment, and they are 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: hmm. He can be rather scoffing at just about anything. You, you name it, haha.

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 forthcoming that I also wanted to mention. And at the end of the month is The Quiz Professor Chow. January 31st through February 6th. And that looks like an interesting show with some Hothouse members. And it looks like Bija is in that — who we interviewed last year. And so I’m curious about that show, and that show only runs for a week. Get your tickets now so you can get ahead of that.

So those are my, my big three things: the Lunar New Year Festivals; tattoo show; and The Quiz, Professor Chow.

Roberta: Well, I, I just want to say that I went to New York, oh yeah. With my scoffing husband last weekend. 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 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 legend. He went missing and upon his return, the artist, Simone Martini, painted a picture of Mary admonishing their teenage son, 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. The parental reaction by the two parents. It is just so classic.

There was also a show about the effect of ancient Egypt on Black people and Black artists in particular. That was really interesting. the show was really packed with people, as you can imagine, still the holiday kind of holdover, and there were several standout works in it.

One was a Barbara Chase Riboud throne that was made out of metal, some sort of metal pieces all the same, that was all clamped together. All brightly spot lit with a black background behind it. It was extremely dramatic and it stood at the entrance to the show. Then there was a Glenn Ligon piece that I just adored, and it was a quote from Richard Pryor who did standup comedy, of course, and was this hero to many for “telling it like it is.”

Very wonderful comedian. Anyway, this is the quote from Richard Pryor that was in the Glenn Ligon 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!”

Ryan: Lord.

Roberta: Isn’t that great?

Ryan: That’s good.

Roberta: So, you know, parodying 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.

After that we went to the Morgan Library and we saw a show of Franz Kafka. It was a documentary exhibit put on by the Morgan and the Bodleian 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, but Kafka’s papers got into the Bodleian Library (and some to the Morgan). Anyway, this was a show that was quite well done, documentary, as you can imagine, photographs and whatnot.

Another show at the Morgan was about Belle Dacosta Green, who was the first librarian At the Morgan, and she was a black woman from a very light-skinned black family who passed for white.

This exhibition was also very well done. Green was quite a powerful woman — she bought works on behalf of Morgan who had confidence in her — and, you know, she was a fashion plate of the times.

After we saw that show, my husband indicated that the exhibits weren’t so satisfying. And I mentioned that they were not art exhibits (although we have seen art exhibits there — Hans Holbein, Walton Ford, e.g.) But the Morgan is a Library and the Morgan is not an art museum. And what we saw were two wonderful library exhibitions. 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 works, The Castle is this other one in AmeriKa.

Ryan: And The Trial, I think,

Roberta: oh,

Ryan: Is that by him?

Roberta: Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t remember that one being mentioned. I thought there were only three books, but maybe The Trial was left unpublished when he died? Maybe someone published it after he died. 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: And that’s it for me. The New York wrap up. It was a good trip. I want to say to everybody, never go to New York and be 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.

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, I 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 or more, by subway. We were only there for two full days, so it was a little much of a day to commit to go there. But the Brooklyn Library show, James Baldwin: Turkey Saved My Life. Photographs from Turkey, I would still like to see it. And that is up until March. I’m planning to revisit to go see it.

Ryan: That sounds great.

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.