This week, GBH Executive Arts Editor Jared Bowen joins the Morning Edition team to discuss a new exhibit at Harvard Art Museum, two shows that take on the complexities of motherhood and where you can find art for free.
Prints from the Brandywine Workshop and Archives: Creative Communities
On view at the Harvard Art Museum through July 31
A new exhibit at the Harvard Art Museum looks at the Brandywine Workshop and Archives' effort to bring artists into the printmaking realm in Greater Philadelphia. BWA, a nonprofit cultural institution committed to creating an environment for artists from diverse backgrounds, has expanded over time to include international artists in their printmaking residency.
"We see this exhibition of just this vast array of artists, artists who we wouldn't necessarily know. They're early on in their career and were very early on in their career, when they went to Brandywine, to very famous artists like Howard Dean Pindell, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar," says Bowen.
BONUS! Harvard Art Museums at Night begins TONIGHT — Thursday, April 28 — and will be held the last Thursday of each month. The free event features all the art you've come to expect along with food, drinks, student-led tours and DJs.
“Too Fat For China”
Playing at the Mosesian Center for the Arts in Watertown on April 29 & 30
“This is your chance to see this show before it goes to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which is one of the great avenues for theater for people who are crafting projects," Bowen says.
"Too Fat For China" is a show by Phoebe Potts that takes audiences through her journey to motherhood as she tries to adopt a baby in China. The show's name is derived from Chinese restrictions on the weight of mothers who adopt Chinese children and babies.
"We find from the riotous to the raw, Phoebe Potts delivers this freshly and finely crafted track not only through the adoption process, but also through her own complicity in a world where babies are essentially ultimately bought but of course, deeply loved, hopefully at the end of the day," says Bowen.
“Black Super Hero Magic Mama”
Now playing at Rabb Hall in Boston Public Library’s Central Library through May 21
This production tells the story of a mother working through grief after her comic book loving son is shot by the police. "The actor playing the mother is Ramona Lisa Alexander, and she delivers an unbelievably palpable performance that makes it impossible to learn of another of these horrific shootings without understanding it on an even more visceral level," says Bowen.
"Prices, again, I love to talk about free. The ticket prices start at zero. So it's pay what you can," Bowen says. "I think everyone should see this."
