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A landmark cultural event, or a charity ball that got way out of hand?
Paris, Philadelphia and the Barnes
Robert Zaller
Paris, France, is a nice place. A hundred years ago it was a major center of the art world in one of its most fruitful periods. That was a long time ago, though, and there's nothing quite as deadly as trying to recreate the avant-garde of yesteryear, the avowed purpose of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts.
It's all right in a coffee table art book. But, really— a "festival"? This seems an idea conceived in desperation and held together with embalmer's fluid.
Put another way, it's the kind of thing that happens not when individual artists come together to pay homage to distinguished predecessors, but when some cultural moneybags decides to dispense largesse for purposes of his or her own. That's what's happened in Philadelphia.
The patronne in question is the late Leonore Annenberg, who, as my BSR colleague Marshall Ledger has pointed out, put up a truly grandiose sum— $10 million— for some 135 events involving 1,500 performers to stage a big theme party for three weeks. The result looks more like a charity ball that got way, way out of hand.
My Aha! moment
The reason for the whole circus clicked for me when I saw a picture of the 81-foot-high replica of the Eiffel Tower currently installed in the Kimmel Center's atrium. Aha! I thought: They're creating a faux Barnes, and now they've put up a phony Eiffel too.
Think about it. Philadelphia, a place rich enough in history but somehow desperate for identity, has decided to reinvent itself as a "destination city" for tourists. Tourism, be it said, is not a sign of urban vitality but— dollars and cents aside— a substitute for it. A real city is a place that is happening for its residents, not casual visitors.
Of course, our civic movers and shakers see city life as an economic machine, and culture as its lubricant. If vice can grease the wheels too, so much the better, which is why the city fathers were as eager to get their casinos as the consignment of Cézannes from Merion.
What, though, has all this got to do with raising the ghost of Paris?
Self-congratulatory propaganda
Well, one frequent visitor to Paris between 1910 and 1920 was none other than Albert Barnes of Merion, who acquired all those Cézannes, Renoirs, Picassos and Matisses back then. With the Barnes museum on the Parkway scheduled to open next year, what better way to celebrate the Great Barnes Heist than by evoking the spirit of Gay Paree?
The promoters of the Festival, including the Kimmel's Anne Ewers, have been quite up-front about the connection. PIFA is the hors d'oeuvre to the main event: the opening of the new Barnes. It is for this self-congratulatory piece of propaganda that a major part of the city's art resources have been requisitioned.
If you think this is the way a great city acquires art— or uses its artists— then be my guest, stand and cheer. To me, it's a bunch of small-minded philistines putting a gloss on their vision of Philadelphia as the ultimate hick town.♦
To read a related commentary by Marshall A. Ledger, click here.
It's all right in a coffee table art book. But, really— a "festival"? This seems an idea conceived in desperation and held together with embalmer's fluid.
Put another way, it's the kind of thing that happens not when individual artists come together to pay homage to distinguished predecessors, but when some cultural moneybags decides to dispense largesse for purposes of his or her own. That's what's happened in Philadelphia.
The patronne in question is the late Leonore Annenberg, who, as my BSR colleague Marshall Ledger has pointed out, put up a truly grandiose sum— $10 million— for some 135 events involving 1,500 performers to stage a big theme party for three weeks. The result looks more like a charity ball that got way, way out of hand.
My Aha! moment
The reason for the whole circus clicked for me when I saw a picture of the 81-foot-high replica of the Eiffel Tower currently installed in the Kimmel Center's atrium. Aha! I thought: They're creating a faux Barnes, and now they've put up a phony Eiffel too.
Think about it. Philadelphia, a place rich enough in history but somehow desperate for identity, has decided to reinvent itself as a "destination city" for tourists. Tourism, be it said, is not a sign of urban vitality but— dollars and cents aside— a substitute for it. A real city is a place that is happening for its residents, not casual visitors.
Of course, our civic movers and shakers see city life as an economic machine, and culture as its lubricant. If vice can grease the wheels too, so much the better, which is why the city fathers were as eager to get their casinos as the consignment of Cézannes from Merion.
What, though, has all this got to do with raising the ghost of Paris?
Self-congratulatory propaganda
Well, one frequent visitor to Paris between 1910 and 1920 was none other than Albert Barnes of Merion, who acquired all those Cézannes, Renoirs, Picassos and Matisses back then. With the Barnes museum on the Parkway scheduled to open next year, what better way to celebrate the Great Barnes Heist than by evoking the spirit of Gay Paree?
The promoters of the Festival, including the Kimmel's Anne Ewers, have been quite up-front about the connection. PIFA is the hors d'oeuvre to the main event: the opening of the new Barnes. It is for this self-congratulatory piece of propaganda that a major part of the city's art resources have been requisitioned.
If you think this is the way a great city acquires art— or uses its artists— then be my guest, stand and cheer. To me, it's a bunch of small-minded philistines putting a gloss on their vision of Philadelphia as the ultimate hick town.♦
To read a related commentary by Marshall A. Ledger, click here.
What, When, Where
Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts 2011. Through May 1, 2011 at various venues, centered at the Kimmel Center, Broad and Spruce Sts. (215) 546-7432 or www.pifa.org.
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