PhilaCulturati

Can you handle the creepy crawlies of the bug world? Back for a second year, the Academy of Natural Sciences will host Bug Fest on Saturday, August 15th and Sunday, August 16th. Visitors will see more than 50 species of live insects including battle-ready stag beetles, huge rhino beetles, toe biters (giant water bugs), camel crickets, and 8-inch-long stick insects. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania will demonstrate advances in robotics with insectlike robots, and visitors interested in starting their own collection can learn how to collect and pin insects.

There will be plenty to please visitors of all ages, including dozens of live insects, bugs to eat, insect robots, roach races, entomology talks and displays, and a buggy field trip. Yes, bugs to eat! Cajun chef Zach Lemann will cook up samples of delicious creepy crawly cuisine to sample. Not sure you can stomach it? Well there’s also a Roach Race, lectures, story-telling and more.

AND it’s all free with regular museum admission. The Academy of Natural Sciences is located at 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway. It is open M-F 10-4:30pm and 10-5pm on the weekends. Adults are $12 admission. Children and seniors are $10. Visit www.ansp.org or call 215-299-1000 for more information.

WHAT TO DO NEARBY?

Why not wash those bugs down with a margarita at The Mexican Post? Or take the family for some burritos for lunch. The Mexican Post is located at 1601 Cherry Street.

Also, the Academy of Natural Sciences also has a decent cafeteria if you’re making a day of Bug Fest and want to stay at the museum. The Academy is located on the Parkway, which is mainly a business district and many of the local cafes and lunch venues are closed on the weekends. Luckily, Rittenhouse is just a few blocks south from there, so if you’re looking for more things to do, we suggest walking down 19th Street towards Chestnut and Walnut Streets.

Wednesday, February 25th, 6pm @ Rosenbach Museum & Library, $10, 2008 Delancey Street (between Pine and Spruce). 

Dinner: Devon Seafood Grill, $10 off a purchase of $20 or more, or $20 off a purchase of $50 or more. Valid Wed through Fri, Feb 27th. 225 S 18th on Rittenhouse Sq.  To use print out coupon on PhilaCulturati homepage.

In celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday, the Rosenbach Museum & Library created 21st-Century Abe, a web project that combines historic documents, commissioned artistic interpretations, and visitor-generated content. But more importantly it’s witty, comical, artsy, snarky and intellectual. 

This Wednesday, Curatorial Assistant Kathy Haas and 21st-Century Abe Project Coordinator Nick Schonberger will be available for an in-depth walk-through of the online site and discussion on how you can be a part of the online project. Along with the site demonstration, Nick and Kathy will talk about the process of creating the site and about the relationship of art and history, modes of alternative storytelling, and the opportunities and challenges of web 2.0.!

The talk is free with museum admission ($10/$8 students) and the museum will be open on Wed until 8pm. If you have not yet had a chance to check out the historic house and especially the Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are author) exhibition, you should– it’s awesome and closes May 3rd. And be sure to check out the 21st Century Abe website (also on Twitter!).

Through Feb 1, 401 S Broad St at Pine, 215 446-3021, M-F/9-5 or while building is open, gershmany.org,

Two galleries, two exhibitions and two sets of artists combine to create one poignant experience at The Gershman Y Galleries, on Broad and Pine streets.

The exhibitions — “Beautiful Dreamers: Leo Lionni and Emanuele Luzzati,” in the Borowsky Gallery, and “RomaAmor,” in the Open Lens Gallery. These family-friendly exhibitions feature award-winning artists who inspire creativity in viewers of all ages and backgrounds.

The title “RomaAmor” is a palindrome, or a word that can be read forwards and backwards, and it mirrors the interplay of opposites presented throughout the photographic collages and digital assemblages of Joel Katz.  After winning the Rome prize from American Academy in Rome in 2002, Mr. Katz has returned to Italy on an annual basis. The draw? Mr. Katz is inspired by the alluring dichotomies witnessed in Rome: the sacred and profane, the ancient and modern and the real and fake. 

“Rome is chaos; visual chaos, architectural chaos … even the traffic is chaos,” Mr. Katz said. “Contradictions live very comfortably in Rome.”

Contradictions depicted in “RomaAmor” are exhibited as visual elements, and literary ones as well. Collaborating with Mr. Katz is Randall Couch, a distinguished poet and respected voice on contemporary poetry.

“This exhibition is unique because you have to read the work, not just look at it,” says Maurizio Longo, a cultural officer at the Italian consulate in Philadelphia.

Mr. Couch’s poetry translates the artistic themes of Mr. Katz’ work both in the poetic forms and visual layout of each stanza. By pairing different forms of poetry — word palindromes, parody in iambic dimeter, belle espionne — Mr. Couch points out a lighter, more humorous side of the contrasting facets Rome found in Mr. Katz’s photography.

Also on view is “Beautiful Dreamers,”  a fascinating collection of artwork by lifelong friends and artistic rivals Leo Lionni (1910-1999) and Emanuele Luzzati (1921-2007).

“This is probably the first time Leo Lionni and Emanuele Luzzati have been shown together in the States, even though they were lifelong friends and art colleagues,” says Miriam Seidel, curator of the Gershman Y Galleries.

Mr. Lionni, a Caldecott Honor-winning children’s author and illustrator, and Mr. Luzzati, best known for his theatrical set designs and Academy Award-nominated animated films, are both Jewish artists who fled Europe to survive the Holocaust. “Beautiful Dreamers” showcases Mr. Lionni’s original illustrations along with prints and posters of Mr. Luzzati’s work. For the exhibit, both artists take inspiration from the colors and imaginative themes of children’s literature. The playful, monochromatic forms that result contain a beauty and pleasure that sharply contrast the hardship’s of the artists’ own lives.

What to do next? The Gershman Y building is right in the center of everything, so finding something else to do should not be difficult. For starters, you’re in the University of the Arts’ campus so walk fifty steps north to the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery (333 S Broad) open Wednesday’s til 8pm. The Kimmel Center is also close by at Broad and Spruce.

19 South 22nd Street, Mütter Museum, 215 563-3737‎

When it comes to being “disturbingly informative” there’s weird and then, there’s Mütter weird. Quirky, slightly eccentric and 100% unique, the Mütter Museum is basically the Marilyn Manson of the museum world. Boasting some of the world’s strangest medical pathologies, the museum was once a surgery professor’s personal collection (aka Dr. Mütter). Building on his collection, the museum now has some 20,000 + objects including anatomical specimens preserved in fluid (think: baby in a jar), archaic medical tools (before laser surgery it was approximate-and-cut surgery) and plain old weirdness.

Want to see the world’s largest colon? A lady who decomposed into soap? Conjoined twins attached at the chest? Yeh, they’ve got that.

Well before I oversell it with tantalizing facts about the body’s abnormalities and medical wonderment, let me pass one more tidbit by you: the museum is open late every Friday evening. With normal hours of operation M-F 10 to 5, the Mutter has decided to accommodate all of the Friday weird-date-night business by staying open until 9pm.

So make a date of it! The Mütter Museum is on 22nd St between Market and Chestnut (easy access from the trolley stop at 22nd and Market). Ideas: walk a half block south to Sansom St and check out the Helium Comedy Club (2031 Sansom St.) and hit up the Rum Bar or Monkey Bar both easy-going bars with a hip vibe on Walnut St just before 20th.

315 Chestnut St., 215-925-2222, chemheritage.org

The words “chemical” and “heritage” don’t usually get us excited — and let’s face it, the combination is worse. But the Chemical Heritage Foundation, which opened the doors to its 17,000-square-foot museum and conference center in Old City earlier this month, is definitely worth a visit. Ten years in the making, this $20 million project uses contemporary art, history, current events, artifacts and technology to examine science in our everyday, beaker-phobic lives.

“A museum is a visual place, and we really wanted this one to be captivating,” says curator Erin McLeary. “Even if you don’t know what something scientific is, you’ll find it interesting here.” From birth control to computers, explosions to pasteurization, the permanent exhibit conveys the roles science has played — and continues to play — in shaping modernity. The first of the changing exhibits, “Molecules That Matter,” takes a look at 10 organic molecules that have influenced the world, including familiar faces such as nylon, DNA and aspirin. “We’re not as interested in teaching science as much as we are exploring how it occurs in our world,” says McLeary.

If the science doesn’t draw you in, the striking renovation of the First National Bank (built in 1865) is worth a look. The large arching windows let in plenty of natural light — a rarity in the museum world — and the eco-friendly construction included wall tiles and floors made from recycled materials. Then, of course, there are our favorite two words: free admission.

When Visiting: so the museum will be closed from Jan 19 – 23rd for construction. Normal hours are Monday to Friday 10-4. Not exactly conducive for a “night out” but listen up: It won’t take you more than an hour to go through the exhibits, so aim to be there around three o’clock and then march over to Second St, do some shopping and hit up the bars for happy hour! Old City is chock full of great places to go for food and libations. Some PhilaCulturati favorites include the church-turned-bar National Mechanics, a local brewery with a contemporary vibe, Triumph Brew Pub,  and the Khyber the city’s best hipster hangout.

Through Feb. 6, free, Art Institute of Philadelphia, 1622 Chestnut St., 215-405-6408

Within the mountainous archives of the City of Philadelphia’s records department and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP) lies evidence that our much-clichéd “city of neighborhoods” has major roots. The Art Institute’s “Philadelphia Stories: Yours, Mine, Ours” showcases more than 60 photographs from those archives that depict ordinary Philadelphians — immigrants, workers, neighbors, churchgoers, schoolchildren — through 150 years of history.

The exhibit reaches back to the 1860s when photography was first developing as a widespread medium.”Philadelphia Stories” is a nostalgic selection that sheds light on our foods, our cultural backgrounds, our religions and our businesses.

“It’s a good example of a wonderful collaboration among partners you wouldn’t normally think of,” says city Records Commissioner Joan Decker of her department’s alliance with HSP to dig up, digitize and upload these accounts. Already some 90,000 of the city archives’ two million photos have been posted on phillyhistory.org; HSP is in the process of compiling an interactive Web site, philaplace.org, set to launch in May. The site, of which this exhibit is a precursor, will showcase the evolution of Philly’s immigrant neighborhoods through photographs, maps, timelines, audio and visual clips, podcast tours and text.

Convenient for all those art students, the Art Institute is right near lots of fun bars and shopping. The gallery is open Monday to Thursday 9am-7pm, so we recommend hitting it up then. Nodding Head Brewery is a good place for low-key dining, great local beer in a pub atmosphere. For more upscale dining in a swank bar, try Alfa over on Walnut.