DN Editorial: Strauss' Very Public Art

DN Editorial: Strauss' Very Public Art

Click on the above title, Strauss' Very Public Art, to access the Daily News editorial that is referenced in the following article.

Although it is great to see the Daily News endorse the work of a living  Philadelphia artist, the photographer Zoe Strauss, the most interesting part of this article is that the Philadelphia Daily News shares the concerns put forth by THE HERETICAL SOCIETY a decade ago regarding the Mural Arts Program. The final statement of the Daily News article is very similar to the last line of THE HERETICAL SOCIETY tract, the incendiary essay NO MORE UGLY MURALS.

The City of Philadelphia provides over $1,500,000.00 to the Mural Arts Program yearly yet is forced to cut back funding to libraries and  social programs. This situation is untenable and given the dire economic times we collectively endure, it is utter madness! The entire budget of MAP is $6,000,000.00, which means it drains an additional $4,500,000.00 from the small pool of arts funding that isn't provided it by the City of Philadelphia. This money would be put to better use funding more viable and less aesthetically embarrassing cultural institutions and social programs. The Philadelphia Orchestra is suffering financial difficulties. It is unconscionable that the Mural Arts Program continues to drain 6 million dollars from a shrinking pool of funding for cultural organizations. We do not need additional illustrations on the walls of buildings. We need programs that address the crime on the streets that overlook the murals. We need to address the problems of homelessness, poverty, unemployment and our ranking as the number one per capita murder capital of the United States. 

There are currently over 3,000 murals painted on the walls of Philadelphia. The economy of Philadelphia is considerably worse than it was 10 years ago yet this ineffectual program still receives taxpayers' money. At the time when NO MORE UGLY MURALS was written, the city was blighted by only 1,500 of these amateurish and saccharine odes to politically correctness. If the Mural Arts Program had the same budget it does now every year for the last decade, it would have consumed $60 million dollars in arts funding. Can anyone that is not employed by the bureaucracy of the Mural Arts Program possibly think that this situation makes any sense at all? The taxpayers of Philadelphia deserve much better treatment than this.
The City of Philadelphia definitely has more pressing concerns than the irresponsible and unnecessary decoration of architecture. That 1.5 million dollars of taxpayers' money could have a lasting impact in restoring cuts to social programs. As long as even one child goes to school hungry in this city, the funding of the bureaucracy of the Mural Arts Program is unthinkable. We do not have the luxury of decorating walls while poverty and crime keep our elderly citizenry trapped behind them. 

Below is the original HSOC essay, which is even more pertinent today than when it was written.

No More Ugly Murals

The Heretical Society Demands the immediate cessation of the Mural Arts Program in Philadelphia. The recent proliferation of crudely painted murals is an embarrasment to the city of Philadelphia. The Mural arts program, originally concieved to combat graffiti, is more destructive than the supposed malady it seeks to correct. Littering the inner city with bad paintings as a cure for urban blight is the aesthetic equivalent of ameilorating insomnia with crack cocaine. When the themes are appropiate to the neighborhood, the designs are clearly substandard. With very few exceptions, the artistic quality is amateurish, despite the fact that we have an extremly high concentration of artists in this city. This odd disparity between poor quality and abundant talent is not an indicment of the arts community. It reflects the lack of discernment our city goverment invaribly exhibits toward the arts.
Philadelphia's best artists are not associated with the program. Is this due to a deliberate exclusion, or is it the result of the program being administered by a group of misdirected bureaucrats, as far removed from the arts community as they are from constituency of our neighborhoods? The time has come to abolish this system of cultural imperialism and degradation. Painted sloganeering of social issues does nothing to alleviate these problems. These murals act as a constant reminder of existing hardships, social and cultural. The people of Philadelphia do not need larger than life admonition of the painfully obvious. We are a great deal more sophisticated than that. THE HERETICAL SOCIETY demands the immediate cessation of the Mural arts program, with its budget to be distributed among the causes it so ineffectually champions. All extant work of poor quality should be obliterated by being painted over in single colors. Any remaining funds should be donated to social agencies with relevant connections to the aggrieved neighborhoods. The architect John Pawson talks about " the uncomplicated beauty of the unadorned wall." We Demand this beauty.