Artblog Radio

Perhaps you stopped by Reading Terminal last Friday and saw the pop up bookstore on Filbert Street? Ulises is the name of the store, and Gee Wesley and collaborators are the founders. The alternative/experimental bookstore project will open a more permanent home in October in a converted garage space at 31 E. Columbia Ave. Phila 19125.

Clint Takeda and Scott Hewicker met 15 years ago when Takeda was head preparator at the ICA and Hewicker was a featured artist in Alex Baker's East Meets West exhibition. This month the two meet again in an exhibition at Grizzly Grizzly.

José Ortiz-Pagán grew up in a small town in Southern Puerto Rico where he was a skater and a fledgling grafitti artist. Fast forward a few and now, he's been in Philadelphia for seven years. The Tyler MFA in printmaking and sculpture talks about being an activist and about the political roots of his current work at the new Latino art commercial gallery, RACSO.

Lee Tusman has curated up a storm at many places in Philadelphia (e.g., Little Berlin) and elsewhere. Now, he's got a really great-sounding one-night-only performance–Room 21–he's organized in collaboration with Ars Nova and DJ Jace Clayton and the Prometheus Chamber Orchestra. I talked with Lee about the musical performance, which will take place on Saturday, September 9 at the Barnes Foundation, and asked why it's at the Barnes and is Room 21 one of the Barnes gallery rooms. Take a listen and see! Then rush out and get tickets (here: $10/$8 for Barnes members)

Earlier this year, I was invited to curate a week of content on Curate This, the peppy new online arts publication whose mission -- like Artblog's mission -- is to tell the whole wide world that the Philadelphia art scene has great art and artists. Curate This, started by writers/artists Amanda Wagner and Julius Ferraro, is now almost one year old, and I sat down with them recently to talk about how their publication is coming along and what they're excited about. Curate This is a platform for artists and writers to speak their minds about issues involved in the arts (yes, there is some complaining).

At the Barnes Foundation, Nari Ward’s direct engagement with issues of race, culture, and class in contemporary America makes for an interesting counterpoint to the African art collected by Dr. Barnes (and by the Penn Museum) in the early 20th century. Finally, the three shows of contemporary photography, textiles, and architecture that fill the first floor of the PMA’s Perelman Building leave us with lots of questions about the “Africa” in “Creative Africa.” Just how fixed is regional or even national identity for both artists and artworks that circulate widely thanks to the global art market? What makes African art African?

2016 Pew Fellow Tiona McClodden makes documentary films and videos and sculptural environments. She's also made music videos and her work is political, exploring gender, race and under-known history. In our talk she tells me about selecting Philadelphia as a place where community she found a community of black working artists. The interview was recorded live at the Galleries at Moore's radio booth on July 7, 2016.

Roberta interviews Pap Souleye Fall about his unique body suits, stitched up while he is wearing them. Pap is also a wonderful maker of sculptural installations, and he's a dancer. Give a listen!

Jamar Nicholas wears a number of hats, as do many artists. He's a teacher -- he teaches narrative storywriting at Drexel and has taught at Moore College of Art and Design and Arcadia University; he is Fine Arts Curatorial and Administrative Assistant at Arcadia University Art Gallery, and he makes his art -- drawings of narratives that become comic books about superheroes, like the Hip Hop Cop Detective Boogaloo, which ran -- daily -- in the Philadelphia Metro in 2015.

When Daniel de Jesús performs he looks just like a painting of the Virgin Mary or a statue of a saint come to life. He wears a blue silk robe and his blue and purple eye make-up runs down his cheeks like tears. His voice resounds in unison with the cello between his knees; a drum machine may keep time or offer up haunting sounds.