Philadelphia - Art City

I didn't really have a sense of Philadelphia beyond Benjamin Franklin and Independence Hall before we went. I had never realized that Mannequin and Trading Places were set there, and I had never read any books set there.

One book on my reading list that might have helped is Three Alexander Calders: A Family Memoir. It's not about the city, and I think a lot of it happens in New York, but each Alexander Calder has art that was referenced on our tour.

http://www.phillyhistory.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/from-sculptor-to-mobile-creator-three-generations-of-calder-artists/ 

I was most familiar with the youngest, Alexander "Sandy" Calder, known for his mobiles, but it was the grandfather, Alexander Milne Calder, who figured most in our time there. We were near City Hall, and passed around or through it every day, seeing some of the 250 figures he sculpted, including the crowning statue of William Penn which often helped us with navigation. We passed by Swann Fountain, designed by Alexander Stirling Calder, multiple times.

Knowing more about the family would have made seeing their work more meaningful, but also it might have introduced us to how rich in art Philadelphia is.

We knew about the Rodin Museum, and it was a place that we thought we might get to, though time did not allow it. There was so much more.

http://www.rodinmuseum.org/

We knew about the Rocky steps, and we kind of knew that they led up to a museum, but we did not know that the Philadelphia Museum of Art was chartered for the 1876 Centennial Exposition. that it has over 227,000 works, or that it needed an annex, the Perelman Building, to hold it all.

http://www.philamuseum.org/ 

We did not know about the mural program:

http://www.muralarts.org/collections/featured-murals

As it was, we did not have nearly enough time to do any of that justice, but it's a reason to go back. There is still a lot about the city that we haven't fully appreciated.

http://www.visitphilly.com/museums-attractions/philadelphia-museums/

Philadelphia - Zoo Art

I am a pretty big fan of both art and animals anyway, so zoo art, so frequently depicting animals, is generally something I like.

These depictions can help us get a good glimpse of shy animals, remember species that have been lost, or give us new ways of thinking about animals and their world.

At the Philadelphia view, I noticed some unusual materials in the sculptures.

 

I wasn't really sure that the they were that different at first, but then some appeared that were clearly repurposing waste into art.

A little research revealed that these were part of a special exhibit, Second Nature: Junk Rethunk. - http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2015/04/08/at-philadelphia-zoo-art-exhibit-turns-trash-into-thought-provoking-sculptures/

Even before learning about the exhibit, it was clear that the sculptures were making a point about waste, and an important one. Zoos have been incorporating more messages about conservation - of habitat and resources - and this is necessary. If we care about the animals, we must care about their homes, and even seemingly inconsequential decisions like buying snack cakes are part of the whole in terms of what happens to habitat.I appreciated this exhibit, and it's nice that the time we happened to be there aligned with its run.

Even when this exhibit is gone, there will still be art there, and it will be art that encourages appreciation of animals.

That includes one statement we completely agree with.

Philadelphia - The Philadelphia Zoo

Home to so many other innovations, Philadelphia is also the site of the nation's first zoo.

http://www.philadelphiazoo.org/

Like almost every zoo we have been to, there was a carousel, but there were also swan boats and a hot air balloon, which has been less common.

Something else that we found interesting were the walkways that kept crossing overhead. The original land set aside for the zoo doesn't really allow for expansion, so when they needed more room for their animals to explore, they found this innovative way of doing it. We saw the gorilla taking advantage of it.

Of course the real reason we go is to look at animals, and we found many.

There best exhibit may have been the primates. One thing we learned from the signage is that orangutans build a new nest every night. We have seen blankets and newspapers and other nesting materials before, but this was the first time I saw the context given.

There were also smaller monkeys, including two that were rolling around and chasing each other, which I could only capture as a blur, but this is the moment when another monkey came and told them to knock it off.

 Other animals that move around too much to get good pictures included the playful otters, but a few other animals gave me some good shots.

I love outdoor penguin habitats. I worried about the temperatures being too warm for them the first time I saw it in San Francisco, but I have seen it a few places now and it seems to work out.

Aardvarks are nocturnal.

There were two other animals whose inclusion I really appreciated. One is the Black-footed cat, the smallest African cat and possibly the cutest.

The other was the okapi. There aren't a lot of places that have them, and it was exciting to see one in person.

Overall I thought it was a pretty good zoo, and yes it is accredited by the AZA. There was something else notable about it though, and next week we will talk about that.

See you then.

Philadelphia - Old State Penitentiary

http://www.easternstate.org/

Two of the CityPass tickets had choices to make, with one being between the Eastern State Penitentiary or the Please Touch Museum. The museum had excellent reviews, but I have always found children's museums really boring, and I love old prisons.

I was partially attracted by the architecture. Built in the Gothic Revival style, there were gargoyles and turrets, though there was an interesting squareness to everything that somehow made it seem more practical and less ornate than Gothic generally is.

I think there is a basic in humans attraction to ruins, and to their glimpses of the past. Still, I was looking at things differently.

The day before we had been at Independence Hall, thinking about the country's founding, and our primary guide was a Black man. Thinking about him, and Black Lives Matter, and being in that setting, I could not help being aware of the shortcomings of a past that we tend to reverence. That feeling carried over into viewing the old prison.

It can't be a very nice life, even if you are allowed to pursue hobbies and have pets.

Some of my feelings were especially informed by our tour of Port Arthur, where the silent isolation that was intended to inspire thoughtful reflection and repentance actually produced more despair and sadness. Even though the Pennsylvania system sounds more humane than its contemporary, the Auburn system, it is still easy to doubt how much good could possibly have been done, despite what I believe were good intentions on the part of the founders.

Thoughts on prison reform aside, I feel like the attraction does an excellent job. There were informative signs and models, there was a self-guided audio tour by Steve Buscemi, and one of the most ingenious things of all (at least on this hot and humid day) was a cool room where you could rest and charge your phone. It was truly appreciated.

I am glad we visited, but it also wasn't all fun and games. There was a serious side to the trip, and there was nothing wrong with that.

It's always worthwhile to let some light in.