August 29, 2018 by Mandy Palasik

Discovering Art and Architecture on New York’s Governors Island

Mandy Palasik, Artblog’s resident architect, takes a trip up to Governors Island in New York Harbor to survey the site’s innovative fusion of public art and architectural preservation. In the process, she comes away with some great recommendations for our own fair city! In addition to the work described here, readers should also check out the 11th annual Governors Island Art Fair, which opens September 1 and runs every weekend through the end of the month.

June 22, 2017 by Michael Lieberman

Big Bling, alluring and abstract, towers over the Schuylkill

Martin Puryear brings his work to the public in Philadelphia for the second time with Big Bling (2016), an enigmatic sculpture that invites speculation on the banks of the Schuylkill River.

May 19, 2017 by Dave Kyu

Proposed Discovery Center raises questions about public land and private use

Dave Kyu fills us in on the discussion at May’s Art Commission meeting, which centered on the construction of the Discovery Center in Fairmount Park. How do you lease public land for private use? Turns out, you just need a fancy new gate.

April 23, 2017 by Dave Kyu

Text-heavy Holocaust Memorial, Don Quixote plaza re-do and Discovery Center’s new design

Dave reports from the latest meeting of the City’s Art Commission. He offers a thoughtful critique of the proposed design for the new Holocaust memorial, as well as updates on plans for the Discovery Center in Strawberry Hill and the Don Quixote statue at American and 2nd Sts.

January 17, 2017 by Dave Kyu

Art Commission check-in

Dave’s check-in with the Art Commission ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous, from the upcoming transformations to the Parkway branch of the Free Library, to the future of illuminated billboards from the Philly Parking Authority.

December 21, 2016 by Dave Kyu

Art Commission Check-In

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.

November 9, 2016 by Roberta

Amanda Silberling talks about art activism and rape culture on campus

The art activist group We Are Watching was organized by Amanda Silberling and her friends at the University of Pennsylvania, where they are undergraduates. Propelled to action by an email sent by a fraternity to incoming Penn freshmen girls to come to a party and be ready to, basically, put out, Silberling and her colleagues blanketed the campus with flyers outing the fraternity for its crass invitation, with its implied embrace of rape culture.

July 17, 2016 by Hammam Aldouri

The One Percent

The question that I constantly ask myself when thinking about a phenomenon such as Percent for Art is quite straightforward: what kind of experience does public art funded by Percent for Art produce? I think this question needs to be posed whenever we find ourselves before public art, especially if one considers that, in periods of urban rejuvenation, public art will become increasingly visible.