Zoe Strauss: Capturing Philadelphia on film; then, Tuskegee Airman Maj. John L. Harrison

Hour 2

Philadelphia artist ZOE STRAUSS pays attention to the joy and the pain that comes with the city’s neighborhoods – the poverty, substance addiction, segregation and cultural diversity – and captures scenes many of us would never notice. Strauss was known in the art world the last decade for her annual one-day shows featuring her photography in an alternative gallery setting, underneath I-95 at Mifflin Street. Now her worldview will be shared by anyone who passes the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as a 70-foot-wide banner of one of her photographs drapes the front entrance of the museum through the winter into spring. We’ll talk to Strauss about seeing over 50 of her city-wide portraits and still-lifes blown up to billboard scale as part of the museum exhibition, and how she’s coping with going mainstream now that she’s a featured artist at one of the top art museums in the world. The exhibition, Zoe Strauss: 10 Years, runs through April 22^nd.

Then, we’ll talk to MAJOR JOHN L. HARRISON, a Tuskegee Airman and Congressional Gold Medal Recipient, who was among the first African American fighter pilots to serve in the United States Air Force in World War II.

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[audio: 012612_110630.mp3]