Celebrating October as Mural Arts Month

This week in North Philly Notes, we celebrate the 30th anniversary of Philadelphia Mural Arts with events all month long.

Each October brings Mural Arts Month, a celebration of public art from the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. This year the festivities include a diverse array of events including a photo exhibition, mural dedications, tours and artist talks centered on the theme of Art Ignites Change. Highlights include a TED-inspired event headlined by artists and activists, a block party with Philadelphia’s hottest DJ’s and a concert series featuring original music inspired by murals.
This Mural Arts Month is the capstone to the program’s 30th anniversary year, which also included the publication of a new book about the Mural Arts Program, Jane Golden and David Updike’s Philadelphia Mural Arts @ 30. The new book traces the program’s history and evolution, acknowledging the challenges and rewards of growth and change while maintaining a core commitment to social, personal, and community transformation. It’s a celebration of and guide to the program’s success, and includes essays by policy makers, curators, scholars, and educators.

Here are just a few of the ways you can join us in celebrating Mural Arts Month this year:

Photo Exhibition Reception: The border is an invitation
02 October 2014, 06:00 PM – 08:00 PM
The Lincoln Financial Mural Arts Center at the Thomas Eakins House
1727-29 Mt. Vernon Street (19130)
Mural Arts hosts an exhibition of renowned photojournalist Martha Cooper’s photographic preservation of graffiti and Steve Weinik’s documentation of psychylustro by Katharina Grosse. psychylustro is an episodic painting of massive abstract fields of color installed along passages of the Northeast Rail Corridor between Philadelphia’s 30th Street and North Philadelphia Stations, the same passages where Cooper documented graffiti before psychylustro was installed.

Presented in cooperation with Amtrak, psychylustro has been supported by: The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, National Endowment for the Arts, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Fierce Advocacy Fund, PTS Foundation, AT&T, Philadelphia Zoo, Joe and Jane Goldblum, David and Helen Pudlin, halfGenius, and The Beneficial Foundation with support for the exhibition publication from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation. Media Partners: WHYY’s NewsWorks.org, Metro Newspaper.

DesignPhiladelphia 2014: Not My Outside World
10 October 2014, 06:00 PM – 07:30 PM
Caplan Recital Hall, Terra Hall, 17th Floor
University of the Arts, 211 S. Broad Street (19107)

A conversation on abstraction and social imagination with psychylustro curator Elizabeth Thomas and artist and writer Douglas Ashford, Associate Professor at Cooper Union and former member of Group Material.

How can a train ride become a voyage of the imagination? psychylustro, a collaboration between artist Katharina Grosse and the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, is an episodic painting of abstract fields of color along the Northeast Rail Corridor’s natural and built environment that will transform over time as the elements gradually reclaim the space.

Presented as part of DesignPhiladelphia, a Center for Architecture Event. Presented in cooperation with Amtrak, psychylustro has been supported by: The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, National Endowment for the Arts, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Fierce Advocacy Fund, PTS Foundation, AT&T, Philadelphia Zoo, Joe and Jane Goldblum, David and Helen Pudlin, halfGenius, and The Beneficial Foundation with support for the exhibition publication from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation. Media Partners: WHYY’s NewsWorks.org, Metro Newspaper.

DesignPhiladelphia 2014: Southeast by Southeast Walking Tour -and- American Composers Forum: If You Could Hear These Walls Concert Series
11 October 2014, 01:00 PM – 05:00 PM
1927 S. 7th Street (19148)

Celebrate Philadelphia’s diverse and creative voices in the Southeast by Southeast Project – a collaboration between the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services, and the Refugee Mental Health Collaborative. First, enjoy a guided walking tour and book release to learn about the vibrant Burmese, Bhutanese, and Nepali communities and the community’s stunning public art. Then, enjoy a concert by the American Composers Forum featuring original music.
Presented as part of DesignPhiladelphia, a Center for Architecture Event. Project sponsors: Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services, Hummingbird Foundation, Philadelphia Refugee Mental Health Collaborative Event partner: American Composers Forum – Philadelphia Chapter Concert funded by: William Penn Foundation – Community Partners Program through a grant to American Composers Foundation

muraLAB: Live, a TED-inspired event
14 October 2014, 06:00 PM – 08:30 PM
WHYY, 150 N. 6th Street (19106)

Philadelphia is a fascinating place, with many assets, a variety of challenges and great ambitions. In order to meet the challenges facing our city, we need to connect with a diverse group of committed citizens and to nourish everything we do with imagination, creativity and collaboration. Together we can transform public spaces and community expectations, using art and design to improve Philadelphia. That is why we are expanding our muraLAB initiative with an exciting new annual event. On October 14th, please join us for muraLAB: Live, where we will hear from an inimate group of unique and creative people who understand, in their own way, the role art plays in improving the civic landscape of cities.

For thirty years, the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program has cultivated the work of artists who undertake community-based public projects, developing our own unique blend of social practice art making. muraLAB is the Mural Arts Program’s creativity hub for investigating muralism in the twenty-first century – a think-tank for advancing Mural Arts’ vision for art igniting change in communities, city systems and artistic practice. Through muraLAB, we highlight how other artists and types of institutions – artist collaboratives, museums, city agencies, universities – are developing their own social practice projects and using art to ignite change in their communities, and we build on the last 5 years of redefining, broadening and deepening the scope of our own artistic and social practice. Event partner: WHYY

Philly DJ Mural Block Party
17 October 2014, 06:00 PM – 08:00 PM
13th & Chestnut Streets (19107)
It’s an all-ages block party with live entertainment, food and fun! A line-up of the city’s best DJ’s will provide sounds, alongside the best of Scratch DJ Academy.