July 2014: Matt Freedman, Patrick Kelly & Culinary Expeditions at Penn Museum

Culinary Expeditions

Art of Food — Produced by Monica Rogozinski

Culinary Expeditions is the result of a two-year collaboration between the Penn Museum staff and the Women’s Committee of the Penn Museum. This full-color publication includes photographs of food-related Museum artifacts, and sections describing foods, food-making techniques, and stories about the cultures and cultural regions represented in the Museum’s international collection: Africa and ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, Asia and the Middle East, Mesoamerica and Native America. Ten recipes from each region, including some from ancient cultures, and short essays about featured ingredients, are designed to whet appetites and draw readers into the kitchen—and to the galleries of the Penn Museum for inspiration.

Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love

Art of Life — Produced by Karen Smyles

“I want my clothes to make you smile”—that was the goal of late African American designer Patrick Kelly in creating his bold, bright, and joyful creations. Kelly achieved this on the streets, nightclubs, and runways of New York, Paris, and beyond in the heady, inventive, and often-subversive urban milieu of the 1980s. Runway of Love is an expansive retrospective showcasing some eighty ensembles that were recently presented to the Museum as a promised gift by Kelly’s business and life partner, Bjorn Guil Amelan, and Bill T. Jones. Kelly’s designs are complemented by selections from the artist’s significant collection of black memorabilia, videos of his exuberant fashion shows, and photographs by renowned artists including Horst P. Horst, Pierre et Gilles, and Oliviero Toscani.

Art of Life talks to Dilys Blum, Senior Curator of Costume and Textiles about the life of Patrick Kelly and how he became the first African American designer to be voted into the prestigious Chambre Syndicale du Pret-a-Porter des Couturiers et des Createurs de Mode, the French fashion industry association and standards organization, from his humble beginnings growing up in Mississippi. Travel back to the 80’s and experience how this one designer brought color, style and fun to the world of fashion!

The Relentless Creativity of Matt Freedman

Art — Produced by Michael O’Reilly

Matt Freedman has worked as an illustrator for THE ONION, so it is no surprise that he brings a touch of humor to what could be considered a tough read – a memoir of his time undergoing radiation and chemotherapy for cancer. He bills the book – RELATIVELY INDOLENT BUT RELENTLESS – as a “cancer journal” and it is at turns, witty, beautiful and brave. Freedman teaches in the Fine Arts Department at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and upon learning of his cancer diagnosis, his colleagues and students banded together to give him a 240 page notebook that he could fill – 4 pages a day with charming drawings and handwritten text – during the 2 months of his treatment in Boston. Josh Mosely, Professor and Chair of the Fine Arts department and himself a local independent filmmaker, was instrumental in the gift of the blank book. Freedman and Mosely both still teach and lecture and attend critiques at Penn, and Freedman still has cancer. In fact, the title of the book refers to the diagnosis of his type of cancer: it is relatively painless and slow growing, but will ultimately and relentlessly overcome him without the treatment he receives in Boston. The book details that time, and FRIDAY ARTS follows up where the book leaves off, and highlights Matt’s relentless creativity in the face of adversity.