Cheers, Allentown! Tasting with the Social Still
Start your evening at the Museum in good spirits and good friends in our upstairs Art Ways lounge. Social Still Distillery will be providing samples of some of their many varieties of spirits as well as a sample of one of their signature cocktails to kick the night off. Must be at least 21 years of age.
5:30–7:30 p.m.
Adult art workshop with Angel Suarez-Rosado
Hands-on artmaking with Easton-based artist Angel Suarez-Rosado. Discuss the importance of power objects that Angel often uses in his practice, and learn ways to transform everyday objects into artworks with profound meaning.
Shrine for the Black Madonna
6–8 p.m. Danny Simmons, Ursula Rucker, and Shrine for the Black Madonna featuring Brian TateLegendary artist, poet, activist, writer, and art collector Danny Simmons (full bio below) comes to the Allentown Art Museum! With his artwork and latest volume of poetry, The Return of 2 Dick Willie, he brings a unique evening of poetry, music, and visual art (adult content, book signing to follow). Ursula Rucker, one of the architects of Philadelphia’s poetic revival, has transfixed audiences from Tokyo to Capetown. She has worked alongside the likes of Gil Scott-Heron, Mos Def, Macy Gray, and the late great Nina Simone. Shrine for the Black Madonna, featuring Brian Tate, has been described by Vernon Reid, the founder/guitarist, of Living Colour, as the Next Sound of Rock. The band mixes furiously seductive acid-pop with bursts of dub, African metal, soul, and more, listen here.
Danny Simmons, the older brother of hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons and rapper Joseph Simmons (“Reverend Run” of Run–D.M.C.), is a neo-African abstract expressionist painter and co-founder and chairman of Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation (since 1995), which provides disadvantaged urban youth with arts access and education. As part of Rush Philanthropic, Simmons also founded Rush Arts Gallery and soon after that converted part of his loft in Brooklyn into the Corridor Gallery. Both galleries provided exhibition opportunities to early and mid-career artists who do not have commercial representation through galleries or private dealers. Along with his brother Russell, Simmons created Def Poetry Jam, which has enjoyed long-running success on HBO. In 2004, Simmons published Three Days as the Crow Flies, a fictional account of the 1980s New York art scene. He has also written a book of artwork and poetry called I Dreamed My People Were Calling, But I Couldn’t Find My Way Home. He has also published Deep in your best reflection and The Brown beatnik tomes, two additional volumes of poetry. In 2015 Simmons moved to Philadelphia and opened Rush Arts Philadelphia gallery (RAP) to further the Rush Arts mission and to begin to create a national presence for the service organization. Simmons has had his work shown nationally. Chase Manhattan Bank, the United Nations, and the Schomburg Center for Black Culture all show his work as part of their collections. The Brooklyn Museum as well as the Smithsonian African American Museum have featured his work. He is also an avid collector of African art and comic books. Simmons’s most recent book of poetry is entitled The Return of 2 Dick Willie.
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