Going “Beyond the Paint” to celebrate Mural Arts in Philadelphia

This week in North Philly Notes, we highlight events associated with the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts exhibition Beyond the Paint: Philadelphia’s Mural Arts and Temple University Press’ new book, Philadelphia Mural Arts @ 30, edited by Jane Golden and David Updike.

Art in Action: National Leaders in Art as Social Practice

February 8th, 2014 3 to 6 pm
$20/General Admission; $10/Members
Seating is limited.

Four nationally-renowned innovators in art as a social practice come together in Philadelphia to present their work for one night only. In a series of TED-style presentations, they’ll inspire you to reimagine what art can look like when whole communities get involved. Presentations by nationally-renowned presenters include:

Mark Allen, Founder of the Machine Project (Los Angeles, CA)
Jane Golden, Executive Director of the Mural Arts Program (Philadelphia, PA)
Rick Lowe, Founder of Project Row Houses (Houston, TX)
Nato Thompson, Curator at Creative Time (New York, NY)

muraLAB at PAFA

Free with a registration.

muraLab is the Mural Arts Program’s experimental creativity hub for investigating muralism in the twenty-first century. During Beyond the Paint: Philadelphia’s Mural Arts, two muraLab programs will take place inside the exhibition to explore art as a social practice.

February 5th, 2014 6pm: Jon Rubin on Contextual Practice
Artist Jon Rubin – best known for his project Conflict Kitchen – is the director of the Contextual Practice program at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Art. He recently collaborated with art consultant Barbara Goldstein on ARTPGH, a master plan for public art in Pittsburgh.

Book Preview and Signing

March 12th, 2014 6:30 to 8:30 pm
5:30 Special Ticket: $40/General Admission; $30/Members
6:30 Free with a registration

Celebrate the release of Philadelphia Mural Arts @ 30!

The book features six essays and visual documentation to illustrate the growth of Mural
Arts in scale, practice, and engagement for over thirty years. Cynthia Weiss, a renowned
art educator, and contributor to Philadelphia Mural Arts @ 30, will give a keynote address.
A light reception and book signing with Jane Golden will follow.

April 2nd, 2014 6pm: Temporary Services

Temporary Services (Brett Bloom, Salem Collo-Julin, and Marc Fischer) produce exhibitions, publications, public interventions, events, and other projects in a socially engaged practice that purposely blurs the lines between artist, activist, and enthusiast. Currently, their Self-Reliance Library is installed in PAFA’s galleries as part of the Beyond the Paint exhibition.

Community Art Days

All community art-making programs take place inside the exhibition from 12 – 3 on Sunday afternoons.

February 9 Meet artist Ernel Martinez and participate in a group art-making project.

March 9 Meet artist Eric Okdeh and participate in a group art-making project.

March 16 Join artist Josh MacPhee and community members to screen print 3 x 4 foot broadsides by hand inside the galleries.

Talks and Workshops

All talks and workshops begin at 2 pm and take place in the Hamilton Building.

February 16 Restored Spaces Mural Arts’ Restored Spaces program presents current and past projects that help to cultivate a more sustainable ethos and strengthen community. Hear from Restored Spaces founder Shari Hersh and artists who work at the intersection of art and design and the environment, including Stacy Levy and Kaitlin Kylie Pomerantz.

March 30 Mural Preservation and Restoration The process of keeping murals looking their best is not an easy one. Meet the artists who undertake this task for a presentation of the before and after effects of restoring our city’s artistic treasures and a demonstration of their materials.

Celebrating the life and legacy of Octavius Catto

Last week, the Philadelphia Freedom Festival, had a press conference announcing their seven-month project celebrating the life and legacy of 19th-century African-American civil rights pioneer, Octavius V. Catto, the subject of Daniel Biddle and Murray Dubin’s Tasting Freedom.

Of particular note is the April 30th event, Let Freedom Ring, will showcase Tasting Freedom authors Daniel Biddle and Murray Dubin.

Let Freedom Ring Scholarly Panel Discussion

April 30, 2014 | 4:00PM–6:00PM

Temple University, Mitten Hall

Live broadcast by 900AM-WURD, this engaging discussion joins a diverse set of voices from Philadelphia’s academic and activist communities to reflect on the life and impact of Octavius V. Catto. Performance by Cheyney University Concert Choir to follow.

This event is in partnership with the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection and 900AM-WURD.

Other events listed below in chronological order

Let Freedom Ring Scholarly Panel Discussion

April 30, 2014 | 4:00PM–6:00PM

Temple University, Mitten Hall

Live broadcast by 900AM-WURD, this engaging discussion joins a diverse set of voices from Philadelphia’s academic and activist communities to reflect on the life and impact of Octavius V. Catto. Performance by Cheyney University Concert Choir to follow.

This event is in partnership with the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection and 900AM-WURD.

 

PHOTO: Authors Murray Dubin and Daniel Biddle (far left) at the Press conference

Other events are posted below in chronological order

Octavius Catto Story: A Philadelphia Freedom Fighter
Connecting Arts-N-Schools

February–April 2014

These workshop/performances will be presented in four participating Philadelphia schools and integrate with the history, literature, and arts curriculum.

Workshops open to participating schools only.

Let Freedom Sing
Community Jubilee

February 22, 2014 | 2:00PM–4:00PM

Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church

Invited ministers and their choirs will participate in a church meeting revival offering a praise and worship opportunity for the entire community.

The program will consist of Negro Spirituals, sacred music born out of the African Diaspora experience, praise dancers, and special words from several special guest ministers.

Refreshments will be served after the event during a Meet & Greet with the ministers. Tours of the Richard Allen Museum will also be available.

Taste of Freedom
Catto Awards Luncheon

March 28, 2014 | 11:30AM–2:00PM

Union League of Philadelphia, Lincoln Hall

The Mann is honored to pay tribute, during Women’s History Month, to African American women who have made distinguished contributions to their professions and communities.

Freedom of Composition
Master Class

April 18, 2014 | 2:00PM–4:00PM

Curtis Institute of Music, Lenfest Hall

Music students from Philadelphia universities will be invited participants in this Master Class/Meet the Artist session facilitated by Uri Caine, the commissioned composer of the finale main stage performance.

Master Class open to participating schools only. This event is in partnership with the Curtis Institute of Music.

Let Freedom Speak — Voices of Our Children
Catto Youth Freedom Project

May 16, 2014 | 10:00AM–12:00PM

Church of the Advocate

400 Philadelphia students are invited to attend an engaging, celebratory program featuring local young spoken word artists and city-wide choirs.

This event is in partnership with Art Sanctuary’s Celebration of Black Writing and is open to participating schools only.

Freedom Rap Session
Youth Freedom Panel Discussion

June 7, 2014 | 10:00AM – 12:00PM

Crescendo Restaurant & Lounge at the Mann

Invited local hip-hop artists and scholars who have experienced & studied racism in Philadelphia will discuss how the power of music is reflected in their words. Also featuring performances by emerging young spoken word artists.

This event is in partnership with Art Sanctuary.

Sing Freedom Sing!!!
Festival Finale Concert

July 19, 2014 | 8:00PM

The Mann’s Main Stage

Premiere performance of a commissioned work by composer Uri Caine featuring The Philadelphia Orchestra, a 300-voice choir, headline soloists, and praise dancers.

Special Guest Artist Dr. Marvin Sapp

A pre-concert event on PECO Plaza will feature the “Trailblazers to Freedom Digital Interactive Media Traveling Trunk.”

Pre-concert event presented in partnership with the African American Museum in Philadelphia.

Freedom Youth Jamboree
Young People’s Concert Series

July 28, 2014 | 11:00AM

The Mann’s Main Stage

A free children’s concert featuring “Catto at the Bat,” an original “baseball en pointe” piece by The Rock School for Dance Education, and Negro Spirituals performed by the Philadelphia Boys Choir.

Four Greenfield Performance Treasures Workshops to follow featuring the Philadelphia Boys Choir.

YPCS is free and open to the public.

Riot Grrrl’s Second Act

In this blog entry, Kate Eichhorn, author of The Archival Turn in Feminism: Outrage in Order, writes about the renewed interest in Riot Grrrl music, celebrities, and histories over the past year and asks: Is it about more than nostalgia?

Carrie Brownstein, riot grrrl musician turned sketch comedian (most recently, of Portlandia fame), frequently finds herself fielding interviewer’s questions about a Sleater Kinney reunion. Over the years, Brownstein has carefully evaded the question, neither ruling it out nor confirming rumors of her former band—arguably the most successful act to come out of the West Coast Riot Grrrl music scene in the 1990s—reuniting. Brownstein’s evasion of the reunion question is not surprising. In the temporally-sensitive world of popular music, any band that “comes back” is a band who has already gone away.

Whether or not Brownstein and her former bandmates reunite in 2014, the timing couldn’t be better. Over the past twelve months, Riot Grrrl music, celebrities and histories have received a lot of airplay, screen time and ink. In March, filmmaker Sini Anderson released The Punk Singer, a biopic about Kathleen Hanna featuring new and archival footage of Hanna and her former bandmates, friends and allies. A few months later, Lisa Darms, Senior Archivist at NYU’s Fales Library & Special Collections, published The Riot Grrrl Collection. A museum-catalog-style volume focused on NYU’s Riot Grrrl Collection, the book offers fans and researchers a glimpse into some of the ‘zines, posters and printed ephemera that helped to define the Riot Grrrl movement. Then, in September, Hanna released Run Fast with her new band sporting an old name, The Julie Ruin (the band’s name references one of Hanna’s earlier solo projects).

But why Riot Grrrl again and why now? Is it, as some critics have suggested, simply about nostalgia?

Nostalgia has a bad reputation. Nostalgia is apparently not only a clever attempt to sell back to us the cultural detritus of past eras but a desire for something that never existed. And as it turns out, nostalgia is equally reviled by cultural critics (see Fredric Jameson for starters) and musicians. On the sixth track of Sleater Kinney’s final album, The Woods (released in 2005), the band belts out the following cynical lyrics,

You come around looking 1984
You’re such a bore, 1984
Nostalgia, you’re using it like a whore
It’s better than before

So has Riot Grrrl simply come around again looking, in this case, 1994?

When recently asked if she ever feels nostalgic for the 1990s, Brownstein explained, “Nostalgia is a very tricky thing. I always find that nostalgia is sort of like memory without the pain. And that’s why it feels so good to kind of bask in that, and I think it can be deceptively comforting” (Stereogum, January 6, 2014). When asked a similar question in a interview about her new album, however, Hanna was somewhat more optimistic: “If nostalgia is how people find things, that’s fine… And if people want to think it was an awesome time and they want to thank me and want to say how great I am, I’ll take it because there weren’t a lot of people thanking me and telling me how great I am at the time in a public forum” (Self-titled, December 2, 2013). What Brownstein’s and Hanna’s comments bring into relief is the complex ways in which nostalgia operates, especially when both music and politics are on the table.

When Riot Grrrl emerged in the early 1990s, many bands were still peddling their own audio cassettes off the end of the stage. The sound and style was raw and often inflected by a DIY philosophy. By the time Sleater Kinney released their final album in 2005, however, the sound and style of the bands associated with the Riot Grrrl scene had changed drastically, and many of the movement’s musicians were gaining increased recognition from mainstream music critics. If there is a demand for at least some of these musicians and bands to get back in stage, it is not necessarily driven by nostalgia for what Riot Grrrl was but rather for the music scene it eventually became.

Similarly, while interest in Anderson’s biopic or the Riot Grrrl Collection may be at least partially driven by nostalgia, there is no reason to conclude that enthusiasm for these projects is purely about a longing for another place and time. Sifting through files in the Riot Grrrl Collection, one quickly realizes that riot grrrls were not only creating a new sound and style, they were actively mining second wave feminist archives for inspiration, ideas, tactics and imagery. From clip art taken directly out of 1970s radical feminist newspapers and newsletters to song lyrics pilfered from earlier women-fronted bands, Riot Grrrl was also a savvy, sometimes ironic but respectful recycling and rethinking of past forms of feminist activism and women’s cultural production.

For all these reasons, as fans, both old and new, line up to watch The Punk Singer and dream up excuses to visit the Riot Grrrl Collection, rather than assume they are merely nostalgic for something they miss—or simply missed–perhaps we should hold open the possibility of that Riot Grrrl’s “second act” will serve as a stage for the next feminist cultural revolution.