These two proposals show two radically different strategies to artistically approach the Ben Franklin Parkway. For Richard Serra, it’s the global reputation of the artist that makes his work a natural fit for this global stage. For the Holocaust Memorial, a park designed pluralistically, it’s the magnitude of the event it commemorates that elevates this design for this stage. And both proposals are now on track to land on the Parkway in the next year.
Read MoreThe art produced in Philadelphia is not, for some miraculous reason, outside of the problem of the unresolved status of contemporary art. It is, rather, like art produced in so many other places, subject to the larger social-historical problem of art’s function. To begin to reimagine platforms of reception, I believe that constant reflection of the unresolved problem of the social function of contemporary art needs to be made.
Read MoreThe question in response to this is clear—to what extent is Trump’s presidency unprecedented? Does it articulate a historical break in the fabric of American politics, one that requires thousands of artists to rise up? I do not think so. Trump’s victory is a result of a process that has been forming since the end of the Cold War. It is, in a way, the inverted consequence of the conjunction of globalized financial capital with Western democracy.
Read MoreArtist-run spaces are quite creative when it comes to naming their spaces. Recall a small handful (in alphabetical order) in Philadelphia: Fjord, Grizzly Grizzly, Little Berlin, Lord Ludd, Napoleon, New Boone, Pterodactyl, Tiger Strikes Asteroid and Vox Populi. In light of these names, I think a naïve question needs to be posed: why do so many artist-run spaces organize their activities under the rubric of names that, on a formal level, have very little to do with artistic production?
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