Art Face, Part II

When Sharan and I went to the bhangra concert at the museum, we had to buy tickets for general admission. As it turns out, though, those tickets are good for two consecutive days. So the morning after the concert, I returned the museum on my own to visit the parts that I had not seen during my first trip – namely, the galleries in facilities nearby, not in the main building.

I went first to the Perelman Center, across the street to the north of the main PMA. It is dedicated to contemporary and modern art, and generally art forms that deviate from the typical paintings and sculpture: textiles, prints, commercial art, etc. The Perelman Center is a very large, beautifully-constructed building, but does not have that much in it, and took up all of 45 minutes of my time.

Upstairs was a kid-friendly exhibition of Western children’s and adults’ fashion from the 18^th to the 20^th centuries, showing fashion changes and trends, and demonstrating that for much of the earlier years of that period children’s clothing was like adult clothing in miniature. There were a number of young boy’s dresses on display, with descriptions discussing the fact that little boys would adopt men's clothing when they "graduated" to the world of men and were no longer under the exclusive care of their mothers and the women of the family. I couldn't help connecting this exhibit to my reading of The Second Sex, and the fact that fashion would have represented a social form of "castration" - women and girls were not allowed to, or considered capable of, growing past infancy, but always remained under male guardianship.

Downstairs was a gallery of graphic design by Paula Scher and Seymour Chwast:

…and costumes by Ronald Shamask, several of which were modeled on paper origami designs:

The print gallery included this piece by Morris Graves, called The Unregimented One, which I enjoyed:

When my housemate Lena saw me pull this image up on my computer just now, she did a double-take and asked me if I was training cockroaches…

I left the Perelman Center and walked down the Parkway to the Rodin branch of the museum. It’s a beautiful space, surrounded by gardens outside, with The Thinker brooding on the steps:

…and The Gates of Hell at the entrance:

Inside is a large collection of smaller sculptures, with a whole room devoted to his studies and sculptures of Balzac. A number of sculptures contain figures that are repeated in multiple works. It was intriguing to see how Rodin recycled his figures/characters (many of whom are also present in The Gates), but did mean there was somewhat less variety in the collection.

I ended the morning by eating lunch in a nearby park… until a man approached one of the copper statues in the waterless-for-the-winter fountain and started hitting it violently in the head with a water bottle and yelling.

I left then.

Music Face

Let’s talk music.

Bluegrass:

Perhaps my new favorite thing in Philly these days is bluegrass night at the speakeasy on 45^th and Locust. “Speakeasy?” – you say. “I thought Prohibition ended in 1933!” It’s a place called Fiume, but it has no telephone, no website, and its entrance is unmarked. Essentially you have to know someone who knows about it in order to know it even exists, giving it an air of exclusivity, if not secrecy. Hence, “speakeasy”. It occupies a single tiny room, and to get in you have to pass through the Ethiopian restaurant below (called Abyssinia – on my list to try out sometime) and go up a flight of dingy stairs. Inside there’s a nice little bar, everyone is super friendly, and they sell $3 PBR, which is fantastic.

On Thursday nights at about 10 (for a $3 cover charge), a group of 4 people sets up in the window and plays bluegrass with incredible energy for a couple of hours. There’s a banjo, a guitar (the guitarist usually does vocals), a bass, and a really cool instrument I had never seen before called a dobro (here’s an example of it being played: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEOY06U6JW8). The audience crowds in – there’s only ever barely enough standing room, and you can forget about seating. When I found out that there was a no-dancing policy, I thought it was a joke… but it’s a real thing, the reason being that dancing would disturb the restaurant guests downstairs. I tap my foot, anyway. It would be impossible not to.

I’ve been to bluegrass night twice now, both times with my friend Evan, and intend to keep going. It’s something that could be done alone without feeling too much like a loser, because everyone crowds in so much that it’s hard to tell who’s there with whom, there’s no way to avoid touching basically everyone around you, so it’s hard to feel like you aren’t part of a group, and it’s so loud it’s hard to talk anyway.

Politicized folk-rock:

Rather spontaneously one night a few weeks ago, my friend Renee and I went to see Erin McKeown perform at Johnny Brenda’s in North Philly: http://www.johnnybrendas.com/. I didn’t know who Erin McKeown was, and Renee is only somewhat familiar with her, so we went without knowing exactly what to expect.

Renee and I hung out at the bar and had some good beers and a good chat while we listened to the opening performer.

The opening performer didn’t leave a very big impression on me one way or the other, with the result that I can’t remember her name.

Erin McKeown, on the other hand, had a super-energetic stage presence, and an engaging personality.

She cracked jokes, and was silly, and even performed her song “Proof” backwards… but also got serious. Her concert was meant to promote her new album, Manifestra, which she explained is about her “personal politics” – undoubtedly a left-leaning perspective, and critical of a number of long-standing U.S. policies on a number of issues from immigration to oil. The lyrics of her song “Baghdad to the Bayou” were co-authored by Rachel Maddow (whose book Drift I read this summer, and liked very much. It is a critical history of U.S. military policy and how the process of deciding to go to war has changed over time in this country.) An excerpt from this song: “who is watching the watcher? / whose hand is in the pie? / who is reaping profits / on the back of our coast lines? / for every feather oiled / for every katrina refugee / for every soldier in harm's way / we want accountability.”

Erin McKeown talked at length and very eloquently about her visit to the “wall” – a fence, really – that is being built in the desert between the U.S. and Mexico to halt undocumented border-crossings. Though she didn’t express any specific alternative action, she spoke of the need for reform in immigration policy. Immigration is an issue close to my heart, so I was grateful for the sentiments she expressed in the song she sang about her visit to the wall. Someone took a video of the performance, and posted it on YouTube!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZmSKQoKWvc.

Bhangra [Photo credits go to Sharan]:

During my last trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, described in a previous post, I learned that the museum has a fantastic set of events called “Art after 5”: http://www.philamuseum.org/artafter5/... And bhangra musician Bikram Singh, who my friend Sharan is familiar with, performed last Friday!

If you’re not familiar with bhangra, here’s a modern bhangra medley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSJCv8g_7zc. And an example of Bikram Singh’s music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBtqhVJhAoY. I am amused by the fact that he is featured riding a tractor.

Going to the PMA at night felt a little strange. The night lights gave a different view of the city and of the PMA itself than I’d ever seen.

Sharan and I arrived late for the performance, but it was definitely worth going for the final half-hour! The set-up was a little awkward, in the main atrium of the museum with the audience on the steps:

Not really the best placement for dancing, and bhangra is meant to be danced to. People were dancing at the front around the musicians, though, and Sharan and I soon joined them. It was really fun! Bikram Singh was accompanied by a guy on the keyboard, which substituted for a one-stringed instrument called the tumbi, and by two guys on the COOLEST DRUMS EVER, called dhol:

For an example of how the dhol is played: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAYbvULODh4

After the performance, I admittedly pressured Sharan into getting Bikram Singh’s autograph:

I'm sure she will treasure it for ever and always :) We then wandered around the museum for a little bit before we left, rather absentmindedly looking at the paintings - because who can calmly contemplate Impressionism when you've got bhangra beats still stuck in your head, making your foot tap?

Nature Face

Recently, my friend Maryann introduced me to the William Way Center, an LGBTQ community center with a fantastic library and a great schedule of events for the Philadelphia area: http://www.waygay.org/. I was particularly excited when I found out that they have a hiking group that gets together on the last Sunday of each month to walk the Wissahickon trail. Living in the big city, I’ve been craving some time outside, away from the urban jungle.

Maryann and I joined the hiking group this afternoon outside of a pizza place on Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill, which is generally an area considered part of the “suburbs”, but – as we found out – is actually within city limits. We also learned that the area that we hiked in is considered part of the Fairmount Park System, and that (according to one of our fellow hikers) Fairmount Park is the largest municipal park in the United States. This old map shows the park in its entirety:

Without knowing it, apparently, I explored two ends of the same park on two separate weekends: Fairmount Water Works, which I wrote about discovering in the last post, is located at the far southern end of the park, and the Wissahickon trail consists of the long, skinny northern section, shaded in with a darker color on the map above. One of our fellow hikers told me that the park was made possible in part because of the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, when development along the Schuylkill River and its tributary, the Wissahickon, was halted in an effort to prevent the spread of disease by maintaining a clean water supply for Philadelphia. I did a little bit of online research and didn’t find any information that corroborated that particular claim, but it is certainly true that the one of the purposes in creating the park was to protect the city’s drinking water.

From Chestnut Hill we walked down a few residential streets until we entered the park in the valley, which seemed like a totally different world. It is certainly a beautiful area, and we were lucky to have a day when the sun was shining and the bitter cold of the past week was somewhat broken:

Though I was expecting a more challenging hike, and this outing was more what I would call a leisurely walk, it was wonderful to be out in the open, walking in the woods along the river. The water is crossed by some beautiful old stone bridges along the way:

…and the trail itself also has some beautiful stone work:

These structures give the park a somewhat cultivated feel, like New York’s Central Park, but they are few enough that they don’t intrude too much on the sense of walking in the woods. It was certainly different than a mountain hike at home in New England, but did manage to temporarily satisfy my craving for nature.

Aside from getting in a lovely walk and learning more about Philadelphia and its history, I was also happy to meet some new people. Maryann and I were the only representatives of our demographic in the group this day, being the only women and the only people in our 20’s present, but it was admittedly quite refreshing to have the chance to talk to people from other walks of life.

I think I’ll be re-joining this group another month!

 

Art Face

Today was the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.; today was also the second inauguration of President Obama. These are two big things to celebrate.

Something significantly less important, but celebration-worthy nonetheless: today was pay-what-you-wish day at the Philadelphia Art Museum. Pay-what-you-wish day also happens on the first Sunday of each month at the PMA.

I braced myself for the cold outside and navigated a new bus route to the museum – public transportation is an adventure in itself, and something I mean to make a day-long activity out of someday. Arriving at the museum, I offered a dollar for my admission. I probably could have gotten in for free, but I had guilt.

I’m a sucker for photography, so I started out in the Honickman and Bergman Galleries on the ground floor, which has changing collections of prints, drawings, and photographs. It’s hit-and-miss; sometimes they have really cool stuff, and sometimes not so much (in my opinion). I was in luck this time; the latest exhibit is a collection of photographs by different artists at different periods, without any apparent uniting theme. It included photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, Dorothy Norman (who is a fascinating person: http://www.philamuseum.org/pma_archives/ead.php?c=NOR&p=hn), and Felice Beato (the first person to photograph a military operation in action, when he accompanied Anglo-French forces in the Second Opium War in the mid-1800s in China). There was also this photograph on display, depicting southern segregation in the 1950’s – a reminder of the reason we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr., Day:

Robert Frank. Trolley, New Orleans, 1955.

I was also struck by this image, depicting one aspect of civil strife in El Salvador in the ‘80s:

 Susan Meiselas. Soldiers Searching Bus Passengers, Northern Highway, El Salvador, 1980.

Having watched the inauguration ceremony earlier in the day, I was feeling very American; so I went next to the American Art galleries on the first floor, which emphasizes artists from Philadelphia. Thomas Eakins was heavily featured; The Gross Clinic was out, but this similar, later painting was prominently on display:

Thomas Eakins. The Agnew Clinic, 1889.

There was also a large section dedicated to American impressionists like Edmund Tarbell and Edward Redfield, who painted beautiful winter landscapes.

The rest of the museum I sort of buzzed through. I bypassed all the furniture, dishes, period rooms, and armor, as well as the “modern and contemporary art” section of the museum, since those are generally things that fail to capture my attention. I walked briskly through the “European Art” galleries, of which there are many, and paused only occasionally to note paintings that really struck me. This one amused me:

William Blake. The Nativity, 1799 or 1800.

…because that’s totally how the birth of Jesus happened. I briefly checked out the special exhibition, exploring “the interwoven lives, works, and experimental spirit of Marcel Duchamp and four of the most important American postwar artists: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg.” I quote from the museum pamphlet because I couldn’t tell you myself what it was about. I spent about 2 minutes in the gallery, during which time I took this photo, causing a security guard to magically appear at my side and sternly remind me that photographs were not permitted:

I was overwhelmed. There were a lot of people, and they were all talking in the most sophisticated terms about Art, and there was an intermittent recorded voice that uttered incomprehensible yet terrifying (loud) sounds. I left promptly, and immediately sought the outside sculpture gardens, which I had never seen:

   

I was rewarded. As I explored the gardens, I discovered the Fairmount Water Works, which I didn’t know you could walk around in, and some of the most beautiful views of Philadelphia and the Schuylkill River I’ve ever seen.

   

 The Fairmount Water Works was apparently one of the nation’s first municipal water delivery systems. Aesthetically, it’s beautiful, especially at sunset. Pictures would explain best here:

After wandering around for about an hour and feeling like I had had quite an adventure, I walked back to Center City along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway despite the cold, and getting to see these sights: