Arts and Culture : In The News

Philadelphia born author David Sirota returns home to talk about his new book, Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now, according to USA Today.

PHILADELPHIA � David Sirota is tooling around his hometown, giving what he calls "his '80s tour." He points out a billboard for the Philadelphia 76ers that boasts the basketball team's logo. One recycled from the 1980s.

He then swings by the steps in front of the city's famed art institute.

"There's '80s synergy right there," he says, nodding to the 1980 statue of boxer Rocky Balboa of Rocky fame.

Source: USA Today
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The Los Angeles Times is the latest major media outlet to question the move of the Barnes Museum from suburban Merion to Center City Philadelphia.

Is the new Barnes Museum headed for disaster? Designed to house the art collection of the Barnes Foundation, with its hundreds of Cezannes, Renoirs, Matisses, Picassos and other early modern masters, a new building is under construction in downtown Philadelphia where the collection is scheduled to move from its current home in Merion, Pa. Yet serious questions remain about the rationale for the move and the museum's long-term sustainability.

Source: Los Angeles Times
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The Baltimore Sun writes about the can't-miss-this quality of this year's Philadelphia International Flower Show.

Feeling a little winter-weary? Escape from the season of snow and ice to a refreshing look at spring at "Springtime in Paris," the 2011 Philadelphia International Flower Show that begins today at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.

Featured in "1,000 Places to Visit Before You Die," Philly's flower show is a must-see for flower and garden lovers. Each year, at least 60 florists, professional landscapers and horticultural and educational organizations create breathtaking, full-scale gardens and floral displays. Many have taken as long as 18 months to prepare.

Source: The Baltimore Sun
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A new exhibit about bad guys in history at The National Constitution Center is worth flying east for, according to the Los Angeles Times.

If your knowledge of spies and terrorists is limited to the names of Benedict Arnold, Timothy McVeigh and Osama bin Laden, visit Philadelphia this spring and learn about anarchists and traitors that have haunted America since its birth.

On March 4, "Spies, Traitors & Saboteurs: Fear and Freedom in America" opens in the National Constitution Center's new exhibition space in the Center's lower level. Created by the International Spy Museum in Washington, the exhibition combines artifacts, multimedia elements and interactive exhibits to reveal tales of espionage, treason and deception in the U.S. from 1776 to today.

Source: Los Angeles Times
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Dust off that old dirigible. The first-ever Steampunk Expo comes to the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center March 5-6, according to The Princeton Packet.

Imagine a computer desk, for example, that's made from an antique organ frame with the pipes still protruding from the back. Where there used to be a musical keyboard, there now sits a computer keyboard. That's Steampunk!

Produced by Bruce Rosenbaum of ModVic (Modern Victorian) and Jeff Mach of Anachronism, the exposition, called "Back Home to the Future," presents more than 75 of the country's top Steampunk artisans and related antiques exhibitors. They will present what many are now viewing as one of the most unusual and refreshing home d�cor, fashion and lifestyle trends to come along in decades.

Source: The Princeton Packet
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In conjunction with the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, a new exhibit showcases paintings and sculptures by Marc Chagall, according to Luxist.

A new exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia explores the legacy of Marc Chagall and his artist compatriots. "Paris Through the Window: Marc Chagall and His Circle" runs from March 1 to July 10 and focuses on the work of Chagall and others in Paris in the early 1900s.

The museum website has a series of podcasts devoted to the exhibit which offer a comprehensive roadmap to all that is going on in a Chagall painting. For example, in the painting shown above, the artist's double-faced self-portrait in the lower right hand corner is a representation of the two sides of his spirit, looking back toward his homeland but also forward toward Paris, Cubism and a world of changing ideas and ideals.




Source: Luxist
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After just two paper issues, the bilingual tech and culture magazine Tek Lado is going to an online only format, according to Technically Philly.

Editor Liz Spikol, with whom we spoke last fall about the new gig, and former publisher Mel Gomez have struck out on their own, aiming to build Tek Lado as an online-only brand, grabbing the naming rights and the tek-lado.com domain.

The Tek Lado blog will still feature English and Spanish writing on geek culture, gaming, gadgets, social media and the like, the same as the magazine, but won't have to remain tied to this region exclusively.

Source: Technically Philly
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 35,000 vintage toys and trains assembled by a Philadelphia collector are to be auctioned by Sotheby'saccording to the Associated Press.
 
5,000 pieces alone fill the entire floor of Sotheby's auction house in New York, where they are on display until the end of the month.

The collector, Jerry Greene, has kept the collection in five basement rooms of his suburban Philadelphia home, Sotheby's said. He says it's now time to part with it and wants to share it with the world, but wants to find a buyer who will acquire all of it.

Known as the Jerni Collection, it is considered the largest and most comprehensive toy collection in the world, valued in the tens of millions of dollars, said Sotheby's, which is brokering the sale for Greene. It will not be auctioned.

Original Source: Associated Press
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Philadelphia singer-songwriter Jesse Teich regains vocal ability and goes on to thriving career following surgery on her vocal cords, reports CNN.

In her early 20s, the very thing most fundamental to Jessi Teich's career started to turn against her: Her voice.

The aspiring singer-songwriter, based in Philadelphia, started having pain while teaching 40 private voice students per week, in addition to singing at home for herself. She noticed she couldn't sing for as long as she used to, and lost about an octave and a half in her high range.

After many tests to diagnose her problem, including for thyroid cancer, Teich found out she had a cyst that looked like a water blister deep under her vocal fold and on the side of it.

Source: CNN
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A forgotten masterpiece is rediscovered after languishing in the bowels of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for three decades, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Most museums keep many more works in storage than they do on display. The downside of this practice: Sometimes a masterpiece gets buried--and forgotten--in the basement.

That was the case with "Twilight on the Campagna" by George Inness, who in the late 19th century rivaled his contemporaries Winslow Homer and James McNeill Whistler in fame. Then the world almost forgot him, and "Twilight," one of Inness's major paintings, languished on a storage rack at the Philadelphia Museum of Art for three decades. Ironically, the decades of neglect of "Twilight" may have saved it from being damaged by the less sophisticated restoration techniques of the past, says Mark Mitchell, head of the Center for American Art at the Philadelphia Museum.

Original Source: Wall Street Journal
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One the oldest child mummies ever is coming from Peru for an exhibition opening June 18 at the Franklin Institute, according to Andina.

A 6,420-year-old child mummy from Peru joins an astonishing collection of mummies and related artifacts in the Mummies of the World exhibition.

Mummies of the World is the first exhibition of its kind to be showcased at The Franklin Institute, portraying both naturally and intentionally preserved mummies from around the world in a never-before-seen collection unlike anything else that has ever toured the Northeastern United States.

Mummies of the World is the largest exhibition of real mummies and related artifacts ever assembled, featuring an astounding collection of 150 artifacts and real human and animal specimens from South America, Europe, Asia, Oceania and Egypt.

Original source: Andina (Peru)
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Rick Ross Signs Philly rapper Meek Mill to Maybach Music Group, reports HipHopWired.

"The Bawse" Rick Ross has announced Philadelphia's own Meek Mill as his latest signee.

The young spitter states, "coming from the bottom, 2 years ago I was in my [expletive] cell hoping I wouldn't get 20 years... now I get out and take it to the next level"

Meek became one of Philadelphia's hottest underground rap artists on an independent label in 2007.

Repping North and South Philly, he released his Flamerz mixtape series and the single, "In My Bag," broke through to radio in his hometown.

Original source: HipHopWired
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Once upon a time, men dressed like peacocks, keeping the richest colors for their own wardrobes. A colorful men's fashion exhibit is now on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A reporter for The Daily Beast dons frippery of his own.

Just days before an exhibit of Chinese artifacts opened at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, officials pulled mummies and other antiquities from public view, as reported by The Associated Press.

The artifacts were part of "Secrets of the Silk Road." The exhibit has already traveled to museums in California and Texas without issue. Visitors to the Philadelphia museum will see a pared-down exhibit.

Penn museum spokeswoman Pam Kosty said she could not offer any more information beyond a statement saying Chinese officials had requested the items not be shown. She declined to identify the officials.

The mummies are particularly fascinating because they have Caucasian features, proving that populations migrated eastward from Europe and brought their customs and skills with them.

Other artifacts include clothing, fabrics, wooden and bone implements, and even preserved foods such as a wonton, spring roll and fried dough.

Original source: The Associated Press
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Three of Philadelphia's smaller museums offer fearsome delights. In this week's Washngton Post travel section, writer Timothy R. Smith visits The Insectarium, the Mutter Museum, and The Museum of Mourning Art.

The Insectarium, a small two-story museum in northeast Philadelphia, is a local destination for birthday parties and field trips, a chance for visitors to confront their entomophobias. After you've nibbled cheddar-dusted worms and watched a cockroach race, your terrors just might vanish.

The popular Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia draws large crowds that come to see horns protruding from human foreheads, skulls cratered by syphilis and a 7-foot-6-inch human skeleton, all real-life medical oddities.

In the Philadelphia suburb of Drexel Hill is Arlington Cemetery, where a funeral home that's a replica of Mount Vernon houses the Museum of Mourning Art.

Original Source: The Washington Post
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