- [Announcer] Production of "Applause" on Idea Stream Public Media is made possible by the John P. Murphy Foundation, the Kulas Foundation, and by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

(upbeat music) - [Kabir] Coming up, get uncomfortable with sitting as we explore a new exhibit of modern art in Oberlin.

Plus, the pride of Dayton, Paul Laurence Dunbar, is honored for his literary legacy in his hometown.

And the Cleveland Orchestra makes a Finnish connection between a young conductor and a romantic composer.

Welcome back, gang.

It's time for "Applause."

I'm your host Idea Stream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

At the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College a new exhibit centers on chairs and sitting.

Depictions of this basic part of daily life raise questions about privilege, bodies, and who gets a seat.

Step inside the gallery with the curators for a look at "Like a Good Armchair, Getting Uncomfortable with Modern and Contemporary Art."

(upbeat funky music) - The title of the exhibition, "Like A Good Armchair", is taken from a quote from the French painter, Henri Matisse in 1908 who said that, "Art should be something like a good armchair to rest your thoughts in.

Rest from fatigue."

And looking through the 20th and 21st century as art progresses through social upheavals and various social movements, we see that actually Vanguard art is most effective and productive when it challenges people to think differently, sort of shakes them out of their routines.

(funky upbeat music) The museum's collection is upwards of 15,000 objects.

The modern and contemporary collection is upwards of 5,000 objects and we have a number of armchairs by artists.

They are both statements about design and the built environment but this exhibition uses contemporary thinking around identities to reconsider them in the ways that those very ordinary objects and actions, chairs and sitting, are loaded with significance and layers of privilege and the expression of different identities.

I'm also standing in front of Andy Warhol's electric chairs and Andy Warhol famously resisted making explicitly political statements.

And so he sort of sugarcoats this really horrifying image, this image of state sanctioned murder in these candy colors.

We associate Andy Warhol with celebrity in some sense with Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor.

But in fact, in the sixties and seventies from when this series comes, he was really invested in depicting race riots, electric chairs, car crashes, plane crashes, suicides.

And so there is this darker undertone.

(upbeat music) - So this piece is by Alison Saar, it's called "Love Te".

She's thinking about this Haitian and Cuban tradition of washing one's head as a means of cleansing the spirit.

As you can see here, the person is naked.

And so this would've been done nude with other women and it was meant to be a very intimate act.

And so alongside that, you can also see these pots and I think that speaks to an expectation of domestic labor for women.

(upbeat music) - We have from the museum's African art collection a Chockwe Chief's chair, 20th century.

And this really inverts a number of stereotypes in modern art, specifically in western modern art.

And the idea that avant garde artists like Picasso were borrowing from tribal art to create cubism.

This chair turns the idea on its head because it's actually an example of African artists appropriating a European form of chair to symbolize prestige.

(funky upbeat music) - I'm an undergrad student and I don't think that many students get the chance to collaborate on an exhibition.

So I'm really grateful to Sam and to the Allen.

Something that I had noticed, there seemed to be a lack of other conceptions of sitting in Asia.

There's a tradition Asia of sitting on the floor or on mats and that is how we connect with the earth.

And so I really was hoping to see more of that represented.

And so in doing so, we had some Buddha figures that we included in exhibition, but we also dipped into the Asian collection and we found this Abena Mazao.

And the series depicts royal figures in court.

I think that it's really intimate, you know, both of their gazes demure to each other and away from the viewer and the artist, and paired with these other works, they're all very intimate.

And I really think that's transcultural and trans historical.

And I really think that it's a beautiful concept and I think that ties together the entire show.

(funky upbeat music) - I think it's pretty amazing just having started working with this permanent collection that it can actually tell these very very broad stories that range from World War I and II veterans to decolonization in diaspora to design an identity in the 1980s to gender, sexuality, disability inableism.

And so, but at the same time it is also just a chance for us to take out some artworks that people might love to see.

(funky upbeat music) - [Kabir] "Like a Good Armchair", getting uncomfortable with modern and contemporary art is on view at the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin through July 16th.

From one corner of the Buckeye State to another, we honor the literary contributions of Dayton native, Paul Laurence Dunbar.

In 2022, his hometown celebrated the 150th anniversary of his birth with the Dunbar 150 project.

Let's pay a visit to the center of the celebration the Paul Laurence Dunbar House on the west side of Dayton.

(piano playing) - I'm very passionate about working in the community and also I love history.

And so the role as project manager for the Paul Laurence Dunbar 150 ended up being something that fit me very well.

It gave me the opportunity to really interact with the community and connect the community with history, the history of Dayton through the legendary Paul Laurence Dunbar.

The Dunbar 150 is a community approach to celebrating Paul Laurence Dunbar and his life.

Special commemorations began actually in 2020 and it also continues until February of 2023.

So it's been an incredible multi-year celebration of people coming together and several projects have been created and there have been shows and performances and lectures.

So many things that have come out of this that have brought people together from all over the country.

Also introducing people to Paul Laurence Dunbar.

There are too many people in Dayton that have not heard about Paul Laurence Dunbar.

So Paul Laurence Dunbar, he was a phenomenon.

(upbeat piano music) So Paul Laurence Dunbar was born right here in Dayton, Ohio in 1872.

His parents were enslaved.

They both moved here to Ohio from Kentucky.

His father, Joshua Dunbar escaping enslavement into Canada and deciding to fight in the Civil War.

After that, Matilda Dunbar, his mother when she came to Dayton, she actually learned how to read.

So education was something that both Matilda and Joshua Dunbar were very passionate about.

When Paul Laurence Dunbar was six years old he started rhyming words and started putting poetry together and it became very evident that he was extremely talented, naturally talented in that way.

And he loved books.

A lot of people know him as a poet and he definitely was a poet.

He also wrote in several different forms including short stories, novels, musicals, and songs.

He was a writer that really, he was an artist.

He was famous all around the world.

He traveled to Europe and all around the United States.

He took part in the world's Colombian exposition in 1893.

There he met Frederick Douglass.

Frederick Douglass connected him to a lot of the pivotal figures in African-American leaders during that time.

People like Charles Young actually now General Charles Young who led the Buffalo Soldiers.

His work was appreciated and that's why he went all around the United States and the world sharing it.

- Paul Laurence Dunbar is probably the most creative, the most productive, and the most loving writer to ever be born in America.

And he was the first African-American to be accepted by the discipline of American literature.

Dunbar is our genius and I don't wanna see him covered in history.

I feel that Dunbar should be appreciated.

Cherished.

Paul Laurence Dunbar was exceptional.

He wasn't a usual person.

He was an exceptional person.

And on top of all that he had the determination to work hard at whatever he was doing.

- Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote about life.

He wrote about experiences and he wrote in the voice of people.

He wrote an African American dialect.

And in that way he just expressed the experiences that people were having.

And that included themes of love, laughter, sadness, happiness, disappointment.

He talked about issues of justice.

He spoke about religion.

He spoke about families.

He spoke about hatred as well.

He also addressed lynching which was prominent during the day.

And he spoke to empower people Through his writings he spoke to people who were like him, not too far removed from slavery, who were figuring out life as freed individuals.

He wrote to encourage them to utilize their gifts as he did.

So, the Paul Laurence Dunbar House it's the last home that Paul Laurence Dunbar lived in and he purchased it in 1904 for himself and his mother.

He had tuberculosis for years.

He needed a place to settle and he had the means to buy a nice place for himself and his mother.

It had everything that was needed and so much more.

And so this property was perfect for Paul Laurence Dunbar and something that he cherished and was able to live out a comfortable life for the rest of the time that he had.

He passed away in 1906.

- He was 33 at his death.

That house really did meet Dunbar's hopes and dreams.

The Paul Laurence Dunbar House site is the very first memorial to honor a black man in America.

- The home became a historic site in 1936.

The Paul Laurence Dunbar House historic site is located on the west side of Dayton and it's not far from the Wright Dunbar historic district.

So if visitors could take away one fact or a bit of information, I would like for that to be that Paul Laurence Dunbar was here.

Paul Laurence Dunbar was in this community and that Paul Laurence Dunbar was an incredible writer but more than anything, that he used what was inside of him and shared that with other people.

And that's something that people can be inspired to do when they visit.

- I think people like Paul are not born every day, gifted, brilliant and loving, concerned for others, helpful to others.

He had so many traits that I think they should not be forgotten.

Dunbar should be revered forever and esteemed as one of the better writers in this world, period.

(dramatic piano music) (funky upbeat music) - [Kabir] An artist from northeast Ohio is mapping the world through her colorful quilts.

On the next "Applause", meet Deb Berkebile, who went back to school to learn a new approach for an ancient art form.

Plus Cleveland painter, Mark Howard explains why he made his artistic transition to abstraction.

And then hip hop artists, Moin Collective wrap things up with an in-studio performance, all that and more on the next round of "Applause."

♪ Of 500 yards, uniformed men with machine guns stand guard ♪ ♪ knowing when it's dead when they come to your door, ♪ ♪ kick it in with a boot.

Take your children.

Once more ♪ ♪ you're living in fear when the drone drops a bomb ♪ ♪ on the neighborhood.

School lets you sound the alarm ♪ - [Kabir] Not sure if you know this, but the popular online app, Instagram is a great place to discover art.

For instance, in Columbus there's an Instagram account dedicated to spreading awareness about the art of collecting art.

It's called Columbus Collects.

(quirky music) - So I shepherd a Instagram account that's about two years old now called Columbus Collects.

This was born out of a need to use what I had at hand to help the arts.

How can we talk about the everyday person that has art in their house and help them see themselves as a collector?

I thought to myself, " have a ton of artwork in my house.

I know a ton of other people that have a ton of artwork in their house."

The first iteration was just reaching out to those people to help demystify the act of collecting art.

- So I have known Cat Sheridan for a very long time probably since I was about 10 or 11 years old.

She knows my whole family really well and knows how much we love art and we all have a lot of art.

And so she asked if we wanted to do the Instagram takeover for Columbus Collects.

(piano playing) There's a ton of family connection to most of the art that I shared because I have a lot of artists in my family and a lot of friends that are artists.

The more I started thinking about all of the things that we had, all of the pieces that we had, the harder it was to choose.

But what I really appreciated about it is, you know what constitutes art is, it's a very broad definition.

So we have, and I would say my whole family have a lot of functional art things that you use.

So my teapot, I've had since I think close to my first college graduation around 2003.

It's made by my aunt Brenda.

She makes beautiful ceramic pieces but her teapots are just amazing and just exquisite.

And yeah, we use her mugs.

They sit on the shelves with the rest of our mugs but sometimes I'm definitely intentional about using hers.

(upbeat music) So this is a really beautiful wooden box that's made out of multiple types of what, I think there's four or five.

And this was a gift from very close friend of mine, her name is Janie.

Our daughter came to us through adoption.

And so Janie was trying to come up with the perfect adoption gift for Harper and she definitely nailed perfect.

So she had her late husband's father who's a woodworker build this beautiful kind of keepsake box or a jewelry box.

It has his name on the bottom and he also puts a little penny embedded in his work.

So it's just really special and you know it just holds a lot of meaning.

They're just really dear friends and it's just such a special piece.

I honestly don't know how I ended up with this portrait.

So it's my little brother who also went to art school.

He went to Cleveland Institute of Art.

It's a self-portrait he did of himself in high school but it's totally my brother.

Like the look on the face is just my brother through and through.

And I think that's one of the things that I really like about it.

And doing it in high school is just an amazing piece.

He's just very talented.

- So each takeover is asked to have a selfie on the front end and on the back end to bookend their collection.

Just kind of give it a nice hug from both sides.

Beyond that, I'm looking for people to expand their palette and support artists, particularly local, wherever you go.

I think there's something really special about being able to link back to an experience whether it's like an art fair or you've gone on vacation and there are artisans with their tents and their wares up.

And there's something really kind of amazing about being able to collect an artist on the front end.

And so we were talking how do we kind of expand that gap?

- As a historian, I mostly worked with historical artwork.

When I took the job at Otterbine University in 2014 as a museum and galleries director, all of the artwork that we show for the most part is contemporary artists.

And so I just became much more engaged with the contemporary art scene.

(funky upbeat music) The wonderful thing about collecting contemporary art is that you have the opportunity to actually meet the artists.

It isn't transactional.

There are wonderful opportunities to have really high quality original work in a home that people connect to directly and very personally.

I think what Cat is doing to develop a culture of collecting is really important in Columbus.

She's gone one step further in showing the way in which collecting can happen by anybody.

I decided to participate after I watched all of the diversity on the Columbus Collects Instagram site.

People were excited, they were happy to share their work.

You got to hear the collector's personal stories and their connection to the artwork and I really enjoyed seeing that.

So I thought, well, I have a few pieces that would fit into this model, so I'd love to share what I have too.

(upbeat piano playing) One of the pieces that I'm most excited about having is a piece by Charles Sury, Chuck Sury which is these blue and green teapots sort of floating in space.

And it's a still from an animation.

So it's really a next step, I think in the way that artists think about space and time.

Everything about it just is, to me, is about Chuck Sury and the history of his work.

(dramatic music) One of the pieces is a watercolor by an artist who's Canadian.

Her name is Anu Vedagiri, and she works mostly in pastels doing more realistic artwork but she was working on a series with watercolor and experimenting with water reflection.

And I just love the way in which it's clearly a figural representation but I love the abstraction and how she works with abstraction and reflection in watercolor.

I find it to be just an amazing piece.

(dramatic piano music) That little work is by is Lain Singh Bangdel who's a Nepali artist.

He was really the first person, the first artist to bring modern art to Nepal.

I met him through his daughter.

We were colleagues, and I just fell in love with his work.

The piece shows a peasant figure resting with his head down kind of almost as though he's nodding, nodding off to sleep.

And I selected that piece because it reminded me of the literature.

He's also known for his novels, which speak about the ordinary person and the challenges and struggles that the ordinary person faces in the context of Nepal.

So to me, it represented more of his overall ethos.

(dramatic music) - [Cat] I think that collecting art helps people capture moments in time.

- [Janice] Anybody can collect, anybody can acquire original art.

Anyone can afford it.

- The value in collecting is giving your space warmth and giving your space meaning.

And this initiative is to really celebrate the community that comes from collecting art.

- [Kabir] Recently, the Cleveland Orchestra put the spotlight on a couple of Nordic nations with a concert featuring a pair of fins and a dane.

Here's Danish violinist, Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider performing a work by Finnish composer John Sebelius with another Finn at the podium, Klaus Makela.

(violin playing slow music) (clarinet joining slow music) (violin plays dramatic solo) (music plays faster) That's another example of Cleveland Orchestra performances available to watch on the orchestra's app Adela.

And you can watch past episodes of your favorite arts and culture program, "Applause" on demand via the PBS app.

Thanks for watching everyone.

I'm Idea Stream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia See you next time for another round of "Applause."

(violin continues playing) (joyful prelude) - [Voiceover] Production of "Applause" on Idea Stream Public Media is made possible by the John P. Murphy Foundation, the Kulas Foundation and by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.