There sure is a lot to complain about in this city. And we sure do like to complain about it. A lot. But one thing that you don’t normally hear people venting about are the city’s 3,000-plus murals, the public art works created by artists, students and ex-convicts as part of Jane Golden’s 27-year old Mural Arts Program. But in recent days, the normally immune-from-criticism organization has seen its fair share of it.
The first hit came less than two weeks ago, when the Daily News ran a piece juxtaposing Zoe Strauss’s “genius” billboards project against the city’s murals. “Until now, we have admitted this only to close friends,” it read. “But we can’t help thinking that the city is, to riff on a phrase from Councilwoman Blackwell, a little ‘muraled-out.’ We know the program run by Jane Golden is noble and good, but murals are only one dialect in the very rich language of public art, and for too long, our public art seems to have been dominated by murals.” It went on to question the value of the $1.5 million the city contributes annually (or at least that’s how much it was back in 2007-08, the last time the MAP provided an annual report) to the murals cause. Keep in mind that Mayor Nutter just announced a skimpy $500,000 to help in the pursuit of murderers.
Jane Golden fired back with a letter to the editor, titled “The City Needs Art in All Its Forms”, defending her program and explaining its critical role in the evolution of Philadelphia’s arts scene over the last three decades: “In the past 27 years, we have helped to show the dramatic impact that public art can have on neighborhoods, and we have demonstrated that Philadelphians across class, race and ethnicity want both beauty and artistic stimulation in their communities.”
But that wasn’t the end of it. On Tuesday, the February issue of Philly Mag rolled into the offices from the printer, complete with a riposte on page 14 by Dan McQuade, who asks, rhetorically, “Why Are Philadelphia’s Murals So Ugly?” He amusingly bashes some of the city’s most well-known murals (Dr. J and the poor double dutch girls!), while acknowledging some of the MAP’s social contributions.
Finally, the harshest blow came yesterday morning with a Daily News op-ed by artist Michael Macfeat, who states that the funding for the MAP (both the city’s contribution and the other $4.5 million in money it finds) “would be put to better use funding more viable and less aesthetically embarrassing cultural institutions and social programs … We do not need additional illustrations on the walls of buildings.”
Well then.
It’s no surprise that Jane Golden turned up at the Daily News headquarters on Broad Street yesterday to meet with its editorial board. Sandy Shea, the paper’s editorial page editor, tells me that the talk was “engaging and provocative.” “There’s been virtually no public conversation about public art in general and the Mural Arts Program in particular,” notes Shea. “And it seems the time is ripe for this. Based on the response on both sides we’ve gotten, it’s time for some pretty robust conversations about it.”
Last night, Golden called me at home to talk about the negative publicity. She went through a huge list of benefits that the program has brought to the city since its inception, and there have indeed been many. Kids off the streets. Blighted properties made beautiful. Graffiti prevented. Services to ex-cons.
As for the ugliness of the murals, she points out that every mural will have its lovers and haters, just like any piece of art. “Take the Rocky statue,” she says. “People tell me all the time how much they hate it. But then I ride by on my bike every weekend and see a long line of people waiting to take their photos with it. So what is that? Is it good?”
Before we got off the phone, Golden and I discussed the idea of getting McQuade and some other contributors on one of the Mural Arts Tours, which saw 18,000 participants last year. “I need to help Dan find some murals he doesn’t hate,” she quipped. This morning, I brought up the prospect of a staff tour with one of my colleagues. “Eh,” he shrugged. “I feel like I’ve kind of seen the murals.”
January 29th, 2012 at 11:12 am
Sure, her project may abate graffiti, give some temp work to ex-cons etc but who is to say we could not benefit more from spending that money wisely on a jobs program or more community services.
Honestly, how can Philly be proud of a project that it has sprinkled like glitter in its poorest neighborhood. If the civic body were truly behind the Mural Arts Program, then as Mike Macfeat has pointed out in the past, why are there not murals in Society Hill and other wealthy areas?
January 29th, 2012 at 3:33 pm
That said, I certainly don’t think murals are the only vehicle to accomplish that, and I would love to see a widespread effort to incorporate more types of art (music, dance, visual arts, etc.) into non-arts fields. To see a broader recognition that the arts are as necessary a means of communication and information-processing as science, math, language, etc.
And while the artworks produced by socially driven arts organizations may not be “fine art” at its finest, their importance is more in the process than the product. Which is perhaps why wealthy areas don’t end up with murals – because they don’t need (or think they don’t need) the community-transforming process that is the core of the program.
January 29th, 2012 at 5:40 pm
The wealthy areas do not see the murals as transforming, but as what they are — a simple band aid to cover over the numerous problems we’ve created for or allowed to fester for the poor. Problems that cannot be solved with arts — fine, integrated or otherwise. I’m all for the artworld, after all I am an artist and have worked at PMA, but am realist about the alleged power of art.
Actually, it seems rather classist to assume that tossing up a mural in a downtrodden area will help someone more than jobs, health care, decent food, mental health counseling, better transit, community-oriented cops etc. Especially when, for years, Philadelphia has been cutting its services.
January 30th, 2012 at 9:11 am
January 30th, 2012 at 11:04 pm
Instead, it’s the community engagement process, the planning that goes on for months in advance that has the potential to spark neighborhood transformation. It’s the educational programs for youth and special needs groups. It’s the activism that brings together neighbors and concerned citizens to talk about what’s happening around them, what’s important to them, what the unifying forces are. Of course murals don’t solve all of the complex problems related to poverty or violence (and of course other social service programs are equally vital), but just because Mural Arts isn’t eliminating poverty in one fell swoop doesn’t mean it’s not a valuable, necessary program or that art isn’t a powerful tool for changing neighborhoods. At its best, Mural Arts empowers neighborhoods to take responsibility for what’s happening around them, using art as an expressive tool for driving conversation.
I see this recent criticism as a sign that Mural Arts isn’t fully at its best anymore, so I hope they’ll take it seriously and start paying attention to quality over quantity, to driving meaningful, creative community engagement rather than running down some checklist of things that have worked in the past. I hope Mural Arts does some careful self-examination so that they remain relevant, vital.
January 31st, 2012 at 2:53 pm
February 1st, 2012 at 9:43 pm
@melsy11, I’m not talking about eliminating poverty in one swoop. I am talking about using the money where it would make a real difference — like in public schools or healthcare. I would love to hear how a neighborhood was truly transformed by a mural — how people begane to experience the job opportunities their grandparents and how they could get their illnesses treated affordably, how their schools were no longer falling apart. Because every neighborhood (Strawberry Mansion, Kensington, and Fishtown) I have lived in still has the same problems it has had since industry fled Philly in the second half of the 20th Century. As an artist for the last 25 years, I am curious where you have experienced “the arts (as) powerful tools for social change.” I’m all for the arts, but haven never seen them change any part of society. But I have seen people speaking up, fighting for what they believe in, and making social change. The money spent on Mural Arts, is not creating change, but it could be used as part of a safety net for the poorest among us. We owe them a decent life, not poorly painted band aids in their communities.
February 4th, 2012 at 4:56 pm
But I still think you’re undervaluing art as one of the potential tools for accomplishing social change, and you’re still judging Mural Arts by its end product (which you experience as a casual passerby) rather than by the behind-the-scenes community-building work (which people from the community remember every time they see the mural). That basic community-building could be the first step toward getting people to rally behind bigger causes of education or healthcare reform, crime reduction, etc. Not that it happens every time, but the groundwork is there.
I’m also an artist and I have worked with various social service organizations over the years. My sense of “art as a powerful tool” comes from actually creating art with underserved people and seeing for myself the way creative processes tap into some core element of being that you can’t always get to otherwise. People open up, they engage emotions they wouldn’t reveal before, they show determination and follow-through, they work together, they’re willing to consider new ideas. That’s on a one-on-one level, but I think the same things are possible on a community level. And that’s what I mean that it’s the process of making art that is more important than the product. The way Mural Arts uses mural-making as a tool to spark both individual and community engagement matters more than what the mural looks like on the side of a building. And to me, that kind of creative approach deserves funding alongside more straightforward approaches so that hopefully we create a safety net broad enough that no one falls through.
February 7th, 2012 at 11:15 pm
February 21st, 2012 at 10:41 am