Philadelphia's Mural Arts Program and the representation of reality

My complaint is that the murals depend upon a formula: seen one, seen them all. My other complaint is that in copying Bob’s skies, the artist need not look directly at the actual sky, so the work becomes removed from the artist’s immediate experience.

I suspect copying Bob’s sky fits into the protocol of prison control — guards equate looking directly at the sky as tantamount to formulating an escape plan, and drawing the sky most definitely confirms that. Thus it’s best to keep prisoners looking at a representation of world instead of experiencing the world.

This informs the bias with which I think of all public murals — they’re formulaic and represent ideals with a control agenda. Perhaps my bias is harsh, so I decided to explore Philadelphia’s murals to better understand my criticism and expand my appreciation.

Hey! Dr. J!

My experience of Philadelphia’s murals has been like that of most people; the murals show up as a bit of color in my visual field and, after repetitive exposure, I start taking notice of them.

It wasn’t until Dr. J appeared that I took active notice of the murals. It was the visual aggressiveness of Dr. J standing large and frontal on a wall at 1219 Ridge Avenue, conveying a presence the other murals did not have. It mattered little I knew nothing about Dr. J; his was a presence not to be missed.

The Dr. J mural marked a change in the city’s Mural Arts Program to include professional artists like Kent Twitchell.

It is not my position to question whether the murals are art. Nor is it to evaluate whether they are good or bad; there are many impressive murals, such as the Common Threads mural at Broad and Spring Garden. My interest lies in how these murals function as art.

What do they do?

Not surprisingly, most of Philadelphia’s murals function as representations. These include representations of a particular person (like the no longer existing mural of Frank Sinatra at Broad and Wharton); a particular idea (such as the power of reading in the Secret Book at 19th and Wood Streets); a group (such as nurses in the Evolving Face of Nursing at Broad and Vine); or history (such as the History of Immigration at 2nd and Callowhill).

Implicit in such murals is a claim that they are truthful representations of their subjects. But how is that truth determined?

Unlike an artist working for a private audience, the mural artist is working in a community with many interpretations of truth. What happens to art in the democratic process of determining truth? Is truth, manifested through the mural, decided upon by a vote; by the decree of a person with the most money; by what is least offensive? Any of these guidelines makes truth suspect and the resulting mural a potential visual blemish upon democracy. How is truth reconciled in the ever-growing awareness of diversity, which suggests there is never one truth?

Consensus vs. “truth”

Usually a mural emerges from a dialogue, with the community in agreement as to what the mural will represent. While agreements can contain truths, they do not have to contain truths, and it may be a truer representation of the community to represent the conversation with its nuances and dissenters than the final agreement.

In any event, many interpretations of truth must be considered. One possible solution is to depend upon verifiable truths as presented by artifacts, such as photographs. If an image looks like the photograph, the thinking goes, it must be true. I suspect this is one reason many murals seem to have an overdependence upon the photograph as the basis of the drawing.

Take for instance, the controversy over the rendering of Frank Sinatra’s portrait. The community complained Frank didn’t look like his photograph. When representing truth, whose interpretation is more valid — the viewers’ or the artist’s?

In the case of a concept mural, which cannot rely on photographs to confirm its truthfulness, the solution is to keep the message clear and noncontroversial so that the truth it represents will not be questioned.

Representational vs. responsive

When art functions as representation, such as “Frank equals Frank,” the distance between image and understanding is narrowed and meaning remains flat. In this way, the viewer’s experience is limited to the person or object represented, or an immediate association to the person or object represented (nurses are great; community pride is good).

Some landscape murals explore space. Tish Ingersoll’s mural in Manayunk introduces the possibility of a responsive rather than representational approach to the mural. A responsive approach uses ideas not as goals but as beginnings; the idea is a launchpad that may be forgotten in the journey.

Art’s potential to be profound does not exist in its ability to depict ideas, individuals, or designs but in the ability to take the viewer beyond the represented to the unrepresented. Van Gogh does not paint a chair so we know what a chair looks like. The chair opens up the space of ambiguity: loss or hope, presence or absence; we never really know.

I wonder why there is no space for ambiguity in public murals. Among a multiplicity of truths, ambiguity is constant. Embedded into all life — rich or poor, black or white, old or young — there is no escaping the ultimate uncertainty of living.

Ambiguity is so close to everyday life, yet so far because it will not be represented. It emerges from an unknown leading to an unknown for which there are no blueprints and no clear messages. A community exploring ambiguity cannot use verifiable truths; ambiguity requires trust.

For more on the author's thoughts about the Mural Arts Program, click here.

Above right: Tish Ingersoll, The History of the Industry and Canal System of Manayunk, 1999. 4400 Main Street, Manayunk. Photo by Jack Ramsdale; courtesy of the artist.

Above left: Vincent van Gogh, Van Gogh's Chair, 1888. National Gallery, London, 1888