Midweek News, 705 West Gallery, UArts printmaking, Woodmere expansion, We are the Seeds, Kentridge, Neue Galerie, Rent, Lady Hoofers, Young Mid Collectors

Roberta: Hi everyone, it’s Roberta.

Ryan: And this is Ryan and this is the midweek news

Roberta: on Artblog radio. I guess we should talk about what went out this morning.

Ryan: Okay,

Roberta: So we announced, Artblog announced that we are closing and we’re. Having a celebration to celebrate our 21 years plus of doing service in the community. And that’s October 23rd. And we’d like you to save that date and be there if you’ve been touched by Artblog in any way.

You’ve been interviewed by us, you’ve written for us, you’ve been at our events, our auctions, whatever. If we’ve touched you in some way, we’d love you to come to the party and celebrate with us, the wonderful community in Philadelphia.

Ryan: That sounds great.

Roberta: How are you feeling this morning, Ryan?

I’m feeling fine.

Ryan: Yeah, I’m feeling fine. How are you?

Roberta: All right. I’m tired from the trip to New York, we took a trip to New York on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Right. And it’s never a vacation when you go to a city. Yeah. You can call it a vacation, but it’s exhausting.

It’s like a race from start to finish here. Up and down, back and forth, in and out. Up steps, down steps. It’s a rigorous workout, going to museums and whatnot, but we had a good time. We saw the Jack Whitten exhibit at MoMA, which is a fine, really good retrospective of all of his work.

Wonderful stuff. We went to. Where else did we go? I went down to some. Galleries, Hauser and Wirth had a William Kentridge show, which was wonderful, Kentridge the South African artist who’s known for his amazing charcoal drawings, which are animated intro videos and this the exhibit was called My Life as a Teapot or something like that. Or a Coffee pot. Coffee pot. [ed note: SELF-PORTRAIT AS A COFFEE-POT] So it was a lot of, it was a fanciful video that we saw that involves some of the charcoal drawings that were animated of coffee pots turning into people, turning back into coffee pots, you know, that sort of thing. And we went to the Neue Museum, which, or Neue Gallery, which is on 86th, then 5th Avenue, I guess it is.

They had a show of pre-fascist takeover art. So, 1919 to 1933, right before Hitler took over, but it was on its way. So it was all the artists working in those years. George Gross. Otto Dick’s wonderful work. You know, the Weimar years.

Ryan: Sure.

Roberta: It was a very good show.

Ryan: Interesting.

Roberta: Yeah, that’s, that’s almost closing.

We wanted to see it before it closes at the end of this month, so if you want to see it run up there and see it won’t be there that much longer. Yeah, it’s, it’s nice. And they have this Viennese cafe that you can get coffee and, Mitch Schlager as they say, which is how the Austrian, I guess say, with cream, Mittelschlag and a strudel and all that kind of stuff. Yes. And it’s in a big, beautiful building, old building. It might be the same era building as the Frick, not as large, obviously, and not built as a museum, built as somebody’s house. And I don’t know the name of the people that were the original owners, I can’t remember, but that’s on their website.

So that was my weekend. How was your weekend?

Ryan: My weekend was good. Jack had his high school graduation and so it was good to see a lot of people I haven’t seen in a while. And some old friends. Some new friends. And my dad came out from Phoenix. To visit. So yeah, it was nice to have a good showing of people and we rented the old Rittenhouse Town village House.

Roberta: Wonderful. Tell us about that. I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard of it.

Ryan: They do some tours. It’s just the Rittenhouse family has occupied that for many, for many years. It was one of the first dwellings. In the area. I think there was eventually a paper mill over there and a few other things.

So it’s still maintained and preserved by Fairmount and some, some other nonprofits that helped run and manage that area in that space. I

Roberta: keep thinking about Rittenhouse as the square and not that there was a family

Ryan: Yeah. But there was

Roberta: indeed a family.

Ryan: Right on that little creek before it gets to.

Wis Hicken. Yeah, so it was a good time, busy, lots of family, lots of connect and connections. So it was good, but

Roberta: Good

Ryan: Also a lot, but good.

Roberta: Excellent. Yeah. And congratulations to Jack on graduating. That’s really a big step.

Ryan: It is. So, College of the Atlantic is next for him, so he is very excited about that. And so he reports August 30th

Roberta: coming up, coming up soon.

Ryan: That is coming up very soon. Be so what’s on his

Roberta: agenda until he leaves for school? Is he actually done with his coursework and all that?

Ryan: He’s not, he’s got, a few more weeks left. So he’s taking CCP classes as he has for a year and change. So this is last semester at CCP, obviously.

And then, he’ll transfer whatever. But he didn’t do like, there was issues. If he took too many classes, he’d become a transfer student, which he didn’t necessarily want to be, let’s say the side effects or the consequences of being a transfer student versus a freshman. So we decided to go as a freshman.

So.

Roberta: I think that’s a really good decision. Yeah. I think you want to, you want to enter as a freshman?

Ryan: I think so too. Yeah. So I think he’s got a good plan there and I think he’s got it’ll be a lot of fun. And so we’re going to take a, a trip. Up, up to that area and then past it and go into, eastern south southeastern Canada, you know, and, explore those islands in that area in the warmer months.

Sounds great. Yeah. Should be a good time. Wonderful.

Roberta: I don’t have much in the way of news today, but I have a couple of things. Shall I just have at it?

Ryan: Have at it? Yeah, that sounds great.

Roberta: First off, University of the Arts faculty, printmakers, printmakers, are having a, a group exhibit. Of course the University of the Arts does not exist anymore. RIP. And so this is ex faculty, faculty from that school, and they’re having a celebration.

Of all the teaching and printmaking they did for generations of students. So it sounds like a wonderful celebration of the printmaking program at University of the Arts. Anyway, this is at a gallery up in Jenkintown called 7 0 5 West Print Shopping Gallery. I think we’ve told you about them in the past.

705 West Avenue Jenkintown. This is on it’s June, so a little bit ahead of the schedule here, June 1st from two to 5:00 PM I think that would be great. Great place to go and see all those people. If you’re a former University of the Arts faculty member, even not in the print department or a student, just check it out and go be with your community.

Secondly, Woodmere is now announcing the opening of its new building, the Francis and McGuire Hall, and they’re having a public celebration weekend. And this is really for the safe, the date ahead on your schedule. November 1st to November 2nd is their opening celebration weekend. They’ll have family events and tours, gallery talks, lectures, panel discussions, studio art classes, film and music.

This is next door, I believe, to the Woodmere Art Museum. It’s 9201, or maybe it’s a block away. 9201 Germantown Avenue. That’s where the Charles Knox Smith Hall is, which would be the original Woodmere. The Francis and McGuire Hall is 9,001, a couple blocks away, I guess, and both buildings will be open current hours, so that’s through to the public from Wednesday to Sunday, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM and current admission is $10.

Admission is always free on Sunday. And we’ll put in a link to Woodmere so you can check out. I bet they have photographs on their website of the new building. And this is their education building. They’re good for them. Yes. And congratulations for them. And I know that there was some story recently in the newspaper about them being affected by the Cuts in Arts funding.

They were expecting something from, I think IMLS, the Museum and library services program. That got in a large amount and it got paused or canceled. I forget what the terminology was, but..

Ryan: Doged!

Roberta: Yes, doged. We hate that. We are the Seeds is my last news item. Here we are. The Seeds is an organization that’s a small nonprofit that’s affiliated with Culture Works and it’s run by a person who is Native American and organizes a podcast. They have a podcast series and it’s called From Here With A View. They’re having a powwow, a Philly Powwow 2025 in September. So these are all upcoming September 20th and 21st. Currently on their podcast, they have conversation with actor Gregory Norman Cruz, and they have Mother’s Day gifts from indigenous artists.

I highly recommend that you check out their podcast and also their website and go to their powwow in September. I’ve not been to one, but it sounds like a wonderful opportunity and it it’s open to the public. And those are my three things I wanted to talk about today.

Ryan: So I have three plus a couple of honorable mentions I just wanted to throw out there. My honorable mentions are Rent is coming to Arden Theater if you haven’t seen Rent, and that’s obviously the, the Broadway Classic is coming to Arden. They’re going to do their production, which is, they’ve already extended and they’ve already sold out like the first month or near.

So that seems to be very popular. Then I also wanted to mention, lady Hoofer. I know I’ve mentioned them a few times. Over the months and years, they have a show upcoming on May 10th. That’s the Saturday at the Harold Prince Theater at the Annenberg Center, which is 36 80 Walnut Street. So if you haven’t seen them in action, they have a one day event.

They have two shows, I think. I think they have a, a matinee, which. I maybe last time I checked it was almost sold out. If it’s not sold out now and then the evening show probably has a few tickets left, but if you haven’t seen them, that’s a lot of fun. So this is my Honorable mentions. There was, there was quite a few this week, and not to mention it’s second Thursday, so there’s always things happening over in that neighborhood as well.

Friends of Artblog and Writers for Artblog are hosting. A arts photography event on May 10th. It is photograph and post, so it’s photographs and poetry interactions of photography and poetry. May 10th at Tandm Art Studio in the green line workspace that is happening from 2:30 PM till 5:00 PM again, that’s May 10th.

Apparently, a print that’s 20 feet long. Panoramic. So that should be an impressive view. Take a look at that again, that’s, that’s going to be over in West 42 18. Lancaster Green Line Workspace. My theater pick of the week is Tea for three. Lady Bird, Pat and Betty. It’s an Emmy Award-winning Elaine Broka Stars in this one person show.

And this is going to be a free show at the free library, the Parkway Central Library downstairs in the auditorium on May 17th. So not this weekend, but the following. And that’s at 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM and I really hope I can make that it’s kind of smack in the middle of the day, so it’s always hard to navigate the kids stuff, but that one looks like a lot of fun.

To see. I’d be curious what that turns out to be.

Roberta: What’s the subject of T for three? I mean, we all know the little ditty about T for two and two for Tea. And all that. But…

Ryan: First Ladies. Yeah. First ladies at the White House. So, Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon and Betty Ford. And it is a one person show.

Talking about those three women in particular. And I haven’t seen it, but I heard it was, it’s interesting. So I would, I’d be really curious to see that. Hopefully my, and it’s just a onetime show. It’s just May 17th at 3:00 PM It’s a tough one to meet, but I’ll try to get there. It’s a free show at the free library.

Good for them. Putting on another great show.

Roberta: And do you need to reserve a seat? It’s a big auditorium, so maybe you don’t.

Ryan: It is, they do not have reservations. I see. As far as I could tell, there are no tickets. It is the library. They do encourage masking. Other than that. They didn’t seem to be an Evite or a signup or anything, but double check that too.

Whatever links I have I’ll put them in there, check the links for that. And then my last one is the Wild card. This one is just this weird one that just showed up on Connect one day, and I thought it was the strangest thing I’ve heard in a while. I. And so I emailed the person who’s, who’s doing this, and they’re like, well, I’m going to keep it on the quiet, on the down low.

I’m like, okay. But anyway, so I don’t have a lot to say about this one, but it is called Young Mid Collectors Issue number one launch Party. So they’re doing a magazine and it’s going to be a digital share. Apparently they’ve, there’s like a, a JPEG of it that’s going to be scrollable. I dunno if it’s going to be a PDF as well, but it’s going to be.

At the Starbucks bathroom at ninth and South at 5:00 PM and it’s going to run for like five minutes, something like that. So it’s going to be an airdropped JPEG of some kind during this event. So the writeup is really wild, you know, they encourage you not to make eye contact with the baristas and whatever.

So anyway, it seemed pretty funny. It says complimentary hand sanitizer, which I think is really funny. The dress code is performance aware and quietly superior outfits. I mean, how do you not shout that out? So it’s hilarious. I thought that one was really funny, so I had to mention it. That’s also an art blood connect.

All of these shows and events are listed on ArtblogConnect. So if you can’t find it on the links, you’ll find it on ArtblogConnect. And those are my three plus my two honorable mentions plus second Thursday with all those openings. So that’s a lot, lots to do this week. Some coming up. Oh, the mid-career collectors is not until June 13th, so you still have a month for that.

I forgot to mention the date. Young mid collectors issue number one, launch party June 13th, 5:00 PM at the Starbucks bathroom. That’s so strange. I love it. See you there. Maybe.

Roberta: Or maybe

Ryan: not, or maybe not, but it could be funny. I’ll stand outside or I’ll order a coffee or something.

Roberta: Okay, well I don’t have very much else to say, right now. I hope everybody has a good day. Thank you for listening it. This is Roberta signing off.

Ryan: Bye-bye. And this is Ryan and this has been Artblog’s Midweek News. Thanks for listening everybody, and we’ll talk to you next week. Bye-bye.