A Fence and An Actress

I went to my usual spot the other morning to gather video footage. I was so happy to have a clear sky after weeks of rain. When I arrived, the plaza, unlike the sky, was not clear. There was a fence and some machinery sitting behind Phoenix Rising. Recently I was told that demolition wouldn't begin until late in the summer. So why the equipment? Not only did the fence confuse me, it spoiled my frame. But that quickly changed. After a few minutes, I began to really like the design of the fence in my frame. I liked how it carried the center of the frame to the right and created an odd sense of balance. I couldn't help but think of my previous post about Tilted Arc and the fence I found surrounding Federal Plaza. It appears that I cannot escape fences with this project. Fences are the new public art. For some people, fences make good neighbors. For me they make good actors.

At the end of this video, there is a girl. She inquires if I am making a movie. This scene is staged. In all the time I have been filming at Dilworth Plaza not a soul has asked me what I was doing. Not even a Police Officer to ask if I have a permit to film. People and Police just pass through my frame, carrying themselves as if no camera is present. Perhaps their nonchalance is their form of acting - trying their best not to indicate. This day, three people asked what I was filming. I could have told my friend to stay home and sleep in. Instead she woke up early and rode her bike from West Philly to City Hall to ask me if I was making a movie. Life imitating art.

The staged scene and the questions, "Are you making a movie? What is it about?" have begun to haunt me. What movie am I making? What is it about? Some days it seems crystal clear while other days I cannot say. I have never made a documentary before. Part of the novelty is exciting while the other part is maddening. It is mostly maddening. I want to refrain from making a voice-over heavy piece where I discuss myself. The constant drumming and droning of "I think this, I remember this, I see this, I feel this, I, I, I" is a frightening thought for me. It's not that I dislike personal documentary filmmaking. It is fine but I demand something more. Something that is even more personal but stands just outside the use of "I, I, I."

This film is about a visual connection I made years ago between a sculpture and a building. Between Emlen Etting's Phoenix Rising and Cesar Pelli's Cira Centre. The film deals with their physical presence in the city. How do they fit into the landscape? How do they define the landscape? Do they? Can they? Are these two pieces in fact a single design that symbolizes Philadelphia or the Philadelphian? What do these two works communicate to those that live here and those that pass through? Apparently Phoenix Rising communicates very little. One can sit for hours on end, day after day, filming the piece and no one stops to ask what you are doing. One has to ask a friend to ride her bike 2 miles just to create the illusion. 

The other night I asked my wife and my closest friend what their two favorite buildings are in the city. One old. One new. My wife chose Horace Trumbauer's Philadelphia Museum of Art as her old structure while my friend chose William Strickland's Merchant's Exchange for his. For the newer, more modern, both said Pelli's Cira Centre. I was told that part of that had to do with my years of attempting to cinematize the structure. That my obsession with filming it had somehow left a mark. That it made the building more interesting or more prominent. The fact that Cira Centre is so far removed from the downtown area and stands only 435 feet tall (over 100 feet shorter than City Hall) makes viewing the building difficult unless you walk toward it. Cira Centre, unlike the horrific Liberty Towers and the other downtown skyscrapers, sits quietly on the west bank of the Schuylkill River, just outside William Penn's and Thomas Holme's original plan for the city. Cira Centre does not scream, "I, I, I" but rather, "We, We, We." It is a building for a city and not an architect's nod to architecture. It is not an International design that can be removed from Philadelphia and dropped in another city and remain effective. Similar to Serra's Tilted Arc, if Cira Centre was ever removed, it would lose all meaning. Cira Centre, as Pelli stated, is tied to the history of the city, to the people, to the culture, and to the climate.

If Phoenix Rising is a similar form does it carry the same message as Cira Centre? Is Phoenix Rising a sculpture that carries the history, the people, the culture, and the climate of Philadelphia? We know from Etting's biography that he did. Perhaps I should separate the work from its maker for a moment and ask that same question again. If the answer is "Yes" then how could the removal of Phoenix Rising be good for the sculpture and the city? How can we shift our public works around and maintain our history and culture? I suppose because Philadelphia is a "City of Twos." It was designed in 1682 by two men, Penn and Holme, and was designed to sit between two rivers, the Delaware and the Schuylkill. Oddly enough the Schuylkill empties into the Delaware down at the Navy Yard. I went there to film but the spot is inaccessible and the confluence invisible. It is best viewed on a map.

I was told that Phoenix Rising is being relocated somewhere along the Delaware River.  I think that is perfect. It will tie building to sculpture, river to river, and a Philadelphia form to the city's history, culture, climate, and people. It seems only appropriate to quote architect, Santiago Calatrava: " Architecture and sculpture are two rivers in which the same water flows." 
 

Etting as filmmaker

Yesterday I incorporated the work of Eadweard Muybridge. He is the filmmaker that most fascinates me. The impact of his work is still obvious – the techniques that Muybridge originated over 100 years ago are still used today. Watch any instant replay or breakdown of any play in any sport and you’ll see Muybridge’s touch. Watch the films of Peter Greenaway, Ken McMullen, Hollis Frampton, or any handful of music videos or TV commercials and you’ll find Muybridge. Whether or not Muybridge is the inventor of cinema is still debated. Most say Edison. I always say Muybridge.

Muybridge created his famous Animals in Locomotion in Philadelphia between 1884 and 1887. Cinema is native to Philadelphia.

Muybridge’s work represents one end of the cinematic spectrum. Siegmund Lubin, Philadelphia’s Polish immigrant optician, represents the other. Lubin opened his first shop on 8^th St in 1885 just as Muybridge photographed a nude woman tossing a handkerchief. 

Muybridge Motion Study

Lubin saw Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Shortly afterward, he began making and exhibiting films. Lubin started a studio in Center City where he turned out film after film. He even opened a studio in Los Angeles. Lubin made over 100 films. However, by 1917, Lubin and his studio system were finished.

Lubin Studio with Glass Roof

Lubinville

A documentary about Lubin: www.kingofthemovies.com

In the 1920's, Philadelphia saw the birth of the American avant-garde. A group known as The Cinema Crafters of Philadelphia was founded in 1928 - their goal was to "pioneer experiments in the new field of photoplay production." One of the Crafters, Lewis Jacobs, began Experimental Cinema magazine. Other Cinema Crafters included Tibby Lear, Jo Gerson, Betty John, and Louis Hirshman.

The Cinema Crafters of Philadelphia (1929)

Etting's first film, Poem 8.

Etting's second film, Oramunde.
 

Etting’s Phoenix Rising and Cesar Pelli’s Cira Centre have a cinematic quality. Phoenix Rising works like an early magic lantern – the sun hits the peculiar form and casts a slowly animated shadow on its circular base. The base looks like a roll of celluloid.

Pelli’s all-glass tower appears like strips of film stacked on top of another – each window a film frame. The viewer can watch the office workers move in Muybridgian fashion; an ordinary (Muybridgian) task becomes cinematic wonder: a woman carrying a stack of papers, a man answering a telephone, five people walking toward the conference room. 

The earliest forms of Cinema have never left Philadelphia.

And then there was one...

Finally! After four days of filming at rush hour and roughly 1000 passers-by, a man stopped to read the Richardson Dilworth plaque and photograph Phoenix Rising.

I posted 3 videos of Phoenix Rising in the past 2 days. All were shot from the same exact spot. All that is about to change. I promise.

This video features original music by Adam Di Angelo.

Peopling the Plaza

Over two past weeks, weather permitting, I have been filming. I shot some nice footage of Cira Centre, the Delaware River, and Phoenix Rising. I also spent time at the Urban Archives at Temple University where I found some great photographs and news clippings. So far I am pleased with my footage. 

I tried making a film about Phoenix Rising two years ago. I insisted on shooting black-and-white photographs of the sculpture as opposed to color photographs or video because I felt then that the plaza and the sculpture were too filthy. I also insisted that no person be present in any photograph. I would stand in the sunken plaza waiting for passers-by to clear my frame. Other times I would reposition the camera so that a person would disappear behind the sculpture’s pedestal. One woman I simply Photoshopped out of the picture.

Part of me wants to apologize to that woman. I feel guilty for having removed her from my frame. A bigger part of me wants to ask her to walk by Phoenix Rising again because my film is completely different now. It is reliant on people – on the public.

The past few mornings have been incredible. Granted they have been cold, but that hasn’t bothered me entirely. I arrive at Dilworth Plaza by 8:15 and set up shop. I plop myself down on the steps just in front of the fountain. Two tripod legs on the lowest level and the back leg on the first step. If the light is decent, I leave the lens naked, no filters, and if something needs to be enhanced, I add one of my filters. Then I hit record and watch.

When a camera is static, unmoving, one has the tendency to overcompensate for the lack of dynamic filming. That is an enormous error. One begins zooming in and out, touching dials, adjusting exposure, swapping out filters, adjusting the frame. When you get home and look at your footage, nothing is useful. Shots are too short because you changed so many things so quickly. No shot lasts longer than 15 seconds. While I learned that lesson years ago, I am still unable to resist at times. My first day at Dilworth Plaza I changed the color temperature of the image, making it a bit more orange than I should I have. At the time, I thought the shot oozed style, now I see it oozes ooze – it oozes overkill.

Viewing my orange footage at home I realized just how perfect the people were.Where I thought I was documenting the sculpture, I was in fact recording beautiful movement in a public space.

I returned the following morning with clearer intentions. I left the color temperature alone. I set the frame, hit record, and observed. The people were amazing. I was mesmerized by their motion, their movement in front of the camera. I recognized some people from the previous morning. One woman I even recognized from two years ago when she walked through my frame. I still have the photo of her. Her backpack and short blond hair are burned into my brain. 

 

My fascination with Eadweard Muybridge came back to me all at once.  There I was watching people cross from one side of the frame to the other – a simple gesture – yet every person did it differently. They carried themselves in such a way that it became a true spectacle for me to watch. I found it impossible to focus on the sculpture. I forced myself look at the sculpture. I was the only one. No one looked at Phoenix Rising. One person walking past my camera looked back to see what I was filming. He seemed genuinely surprised to find a sculpture. I was hoping someone would ask me why I was filming the sculpture. I even hoped a cop would ask me if I had permission to film. Anything to stir up a conversation about Phoenix Rising. Not a word. 

The first morning, I noticed that Phoenix Rising dwarfs the people that walk by it. Since I had never filmed the sculpture with people before I had no sense of scale – no sense of proportion or size. The piece is massive. Looking at the news clippings I copied from Temple’s Urban Archives, I wonder whether the reports of the sculpture standing 28 feet tall are correct. Other clippings say it is 20 feet. Originally I estimated it was roughly 20 feet.  Now I am not certain. I measured out 28 feet in my apartment and thought that it seemed too big. But seeing it with people I question its height. It appears the Philadelphian nature of the work is making itself visible in text and image – the city of twos – 28 feet or 20 feet? I need to find my friend and ask her what she thinks.

There is another option. I can ask the men who soar well above 28ft. I imagine they have a good sense of height.

"What does it mean to be a Philadelphian?"

The other day I received an email response from a friend about my blog. Here it is.

Dear M,

Apologies for the long delay in response to your original email, following our chance meeting. Your blog gets at many issues, perhaps too many, and that is part of why I didn’t respond earlier. The few blogs I’ve read seem to share the same flaw/habit: they are so personal and presumptive as to be confusing. Your blog makes a number of quick assertions about the planning commission, about the plaza, about the sculpture, etc, that I find myself wondering about the last sentence while reading the next…I think it is the “diary” nature of the blog. But in your latest entry, you throw out a personal observation that, I think, is at the heart of your Phoenix Rising argument, if not at the heart of your sensibilities: “[Phoenix Rising] was created by a Philadelphian for a Philadelphian.” There is the crux of the value and vision; the fact that the commission is making decisions and plans, whether or not public art is really art, whether or not public art is anything more than decoration, all those questions may be fodder for an art-class paper, but at the heart of your story is “created by a Philadelphian for a Philadelphia.” What the hell does that mean? What does it mean to be a Philadelphian rather than a Parisian or Londoner or New Yorker? Not just in the current sense of the idiots who threw things at Santa at an Eagles game, or the Phillies fan who threw up on other fans last year, what does it mean to be a Philadelphian?

Who and what was Dilworth and why is he less remembered than Rizzo? Less revered than Rizzo? How and why did Etting, a second or third-rate artist, feel the need to memorialize him? What does all this say about Philadelphia and being a Philadelphian? Isn’t Philadelphia a second or third-rate city by international standards? And yet, isn’t it home to development of one of the greatest ideas? An idea that is part of the current political and military landscape today: revolts in Egypt? Libya? You’ve made me think that being a Philadelphian is far greater than the sum of its parts…yes, architecture and history and art have passed away, but Philadelphia is still here. Washington Square is a playground/park with a single flame, and yet it was once (and still may be) a cemetery for soldiers and indigents…but the light is lit. So if Phoenix Rising is moved or lost or destroyed, there is a central question about being a Philadelphian, recognizing other Philadelphians, memorializing Philadelphians.

And then we have K’s book, which “was created by a Philadelphian for a Philadelphian.” What sense of place, what sense of shared experience, what sense of Philadelphia-ness is contained there? And as you defend Etting’s sculpture, what motivates you from your sense of place?

Good luck with the film.

I found this email fun to think about.

What does it mean to be a Philadelphian? I do not know the answer anymore than I know what it means to be a woman.

Finding out what it means to be a Philadelphian is beyond the scope of my blog and film and beyond the scope of my abilities. It may be impossible to answer that question. But it is a question worth investigating. What does it mean to be a Philadelphian?

Lately I have been struggling to create what I envision. On paper or in discussion, everything seems crystal clear or at least vaguely clear. But when I put pen to paper or my editing icon to my Final Cut Pro timeline, something falls apart. Not something that was solid and sturdy to begin with, but something that gave me the illusion of sturdiness and strength. There is an ongoing fight. An indecision. An inability to serve and guide my present through my past.

It is said Philadelphia is a city of twos. Two rivers: Delaware and the Schuylkill. Two bridges: Ben Franklin and Walt Whitman. Two thoroughfares: Market and Broad Streets. Two icons: William Penn and Benjamin Franklin.

The name Philadelphia was created from two Greek words: phileo (love) and adelphos (brother). Hence The City of Brotherly Love.

But the city of brotherly love never came to fruition. Penn’s utopian plan did not last; it barely began. While Penn’s design looked good on paper, the newly anointed Philadelphians felt differently. Philadelphians immediately began dividing Penn’s generous sized lots. Penn’s green country town quickly became a congested mess as narrow alleys were created for the designation of row homes.

So what does it mean to be Philadelphian?

Thomas Eakins painted The Gross Clinic in 1875 at the age of 31. The painting is considered by many to be the most important work of American Realism. It has been written that Philadelphia “was not an art center in the sense in which it was a medical center.” (Philadelphia A 300-Year History, p.449) Led by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia art instruction started with anatomy; Eakins pushed that instruction beyond PAFA’s standards. In 2006, Thomas Jefferson University attempted to sell The Gross Clinic for $68 million dollars.

Frank Furness, like Eakins, was another eccentric product of conservative Philadelphia. Furness’ Victorian designs were bold and innovative and his aesthetic altered the face of Philadelphia. He is regarded as having produced a “Philadelphia Style” which was carried on in the work of Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Louis I. Kahn. Furness’ designs did not last. Nearly 90% of his work in Philadelphia was demolished.

Louis I. Kahn immigrated to Philadelphia at the age of 4 or 5. Not a Philadelphian by birth, he was one by design. Kahn’s structures are low lying and monumental. The Gentlemen’s Agreement, the determining factor of 20^th century Philadelphia architecture, is present in everything Kahn designed. No skyscrapers, no sleek, slender structures. Just modern-day ruins. Massive stone and concrete structures adapted to the space and light of their environments.

What does it mean to be Philadelphian? I do not know. Do these three eccentric, obsessed, failed, visionaries represent what it means to be Philadelphian? I don’t think so. But they shaped the environment that is Philadelphia. And they represent the best that is Philadelphian.

Like Penn, their visions were not accepted. They were rejected immediately by their own. Philadelphians rejected by Philadelphians.

As the above email points out Philadelphians throw snowballs at Santa Claus and vomit on 9 year old girls at Phillies games. In no other city have football fans pelted Santa Claus. That is Philadelphian. It is Philadelphia sports – a subculture of the Philadelphian. Perhaps that’s all Eakins, Furness, and Kahn are – sub-cultural Philadelphia icons, sub-cultural Philadelphians.

In the case of Phoenix Rising, what does it mean to have a sculpture created by a Philadelphian for a Philadelphian?  Isn’t its relocation the rejection of two Philadelphians (Etting/Dilworth) by Philadelphians?

Like me, Philadelphia is constantly at odds with itself. It cannot escape its past anymore than it refuses to leave it. I am constantly culling information from Philadelphia history for my own work. I know that at some point I must stop. But I cannot help it. There are too many great stories and images that must not be ignored and forgotten.

Raphaelle Peale painting his scars into a piece of fruit. Eakins tearing the loin cloth off a male model in front of female students and being fired as a result. Muybridge filming nude women throwing water on one another and arguing with Eakins about the best way to photograph the action. There are myriad stories that all reflect a Benjamin Rush quote I have snipped in order to suit my own purpose, “All men are public property.”

I will not respond to everything in the email. I disagree that Dilworth is less remembered than Rizzo. If he is, that is rapidly changing: a new exhibition about Dilworth at the Pennsylvania Historical Society, the Dilworth Plaza plan incorporating details about Dilworth’s legacy, and countless articles asking “What would Dilworth do?” There is evidence that he is not only remembered but missed. Dilworth, like Santa Claus and Muybridge’s models, was public property. Perhaps that’s why we are moving his memorial. Perhaps moving his memorial is a very Philadelphian thing to do.

Right now I am looking out the window of my 18^th floor apartment. I live on Washington Square. I cannot see the eternal flame because my view faces south. I see the Delaware River, the Walt Whitman Bridge, and the stadiums at the south end of Broad Street. In my quest to answer the email’s question, “What is a Philadelphian?” I am unfortunately stuck in the city of twos with a view of just one side.

A Tilted Mind - Part II

Look up public art or sculpture on the web and within seconds you will be reading about Richard Serra’s controversial Tilted Arc at Federal Plaza in New York City. Serra’s 120 foot long, 12 foot high steel wall was installed on the plaza in 1981 and removed in 1989.

Tilted Arc, Richard Serra, 1981

Poster for March 6th Hearing

Serra stated that Tilted Arc made people more aware of themselves and their movement in space. Unfortunately, Serra’s intentions were lost on the majority who felt the piece was an aggressive act and unsuitable to the plaza; they demanded its immediate removal. Serra argued that the work was site specific and stated that if it was removed from the plaza, the sculpture would be destroyed.

In 1989, Tilted Arc was dismantled and removed.

The Tilted Arc controversy sparked debate about what public art is, what it should be, and how it is funded. It also questioned the artist’s role and the public’s role in public art practices. For Serra, there was no discussion: “Art is not for the people. Art is not democratic.”

By my nature I side with Serra. Watching this video clip makes me appreciate him more.

http://www.sfmoma.org/multimedia/videos/90

But what can one say if something does not work? In the case of public art, does the notion of good art apply blindly? By that I mean does good art necessitate good public art? According to philosopher, Arthur C. Danto, it does not.

Here are three passages from Danto’s essay, “Tilted Arc and Public Art” in his book, The State of the Art.

                       

1.           

“First, works of art, and certainly works of public art, do not exist in interest-free environments. There is a public interest in good art, but that is not the only public interest art serves. There is ground for removing a piece of public art when its placement represents interests that the work subverts, even if the work itself is good.”

2.

“What, then, should be the criterion for good public art? I find Henry James instructive here, as in most cruxes of life. There is a passage in The American Scene where he records his surprised admiration for Grant’s Tomb. ‘I felt the critical question…carried off in the general effect,’ he wrote. ‘The aesthetic consideration, the artistic value…to say, was the manner in which the tabernacle of General Grant embodied the values of a democratic society. He contrasts the monument with the tomb of Napoleon in Paris which, ‘as compared to the small pavilion on the Riverside bluff, is a holy of holies, a great temple jealously guarded and formally approached.’ His point is that these two structures project the deepest public values of the societies that built them. If esthetic values were a society’s deepest values, then ‘the aesthetic consideration’ would not melt into irrelevance unless a work failed artistically. In these two monuments, the two societies embody themselves.

3.

“Public art is the public transfigured: it is us, in the medium of artistic transformation. ‘The experience of art,’ Serra argued in his testimony, ‘is in itself a social function.’ So it is. But the social is not the public, any more than the individual is the private. Private and public are dimensions of the political. So when Serra’s attorney spoke of the ‘imposition of the political considerations into Federal programs related to all the arts,’ he was making a mistake of category. The public is already the political. What Serra has insisted is that the esthetic override the political, which it cannot do when the art is public.”

Public art is a delicate matter. It is for the public and paid for by the public yet the public is never consulted. The public’s interest is decided by panels and authorities. What is the criteria on which these boards and authorities judge and decide works of public art?

In the case of Tilted Arc and Phoenix Rising, it can be said that the sculptures did not connect with the people. Where Tilted Arc sparked outrage, controversy, and countless articles and documentary films, Phoenix Rising sparked a deafening silence. Not a word, not an article, just this blog and my documentary film. Where one went with a bang, the other will certainly go with a whimper. But a work’s lack of popularity, like Phoenix Rising’s, does not lessen this discussion. It balances the debate and points the finger back at the public – the group that ultimately decides the success, failure, and future of the public art they fund.

Last weekend, my wife and I went to NY. On Sunday morning, armed with a disposable camera (I had forgotten my digital camera in Philly) we walked from our hotel on Wall Street to Federal Plaza so that I could photograph the vacant plaza where Tilted Arc once stood. When we arrived I could not see any trace of the sculpture’s past life. In fact, I could not see the plaza because there was a long, tall fence encompassing the entire side of the building where Serra’s confrontational piece once stood. A new, chain-link Tilted Arc now blocked the plaza. It was just as tall as Serra’s work but much, much longer. The sign beyond the fence read: Recovery In Progress.

[Photo by Michael Johnston]

From what I could find online, the recovery of the plaza is a federal program that “provides the opportunity to contribute to the nation’s economic recovery.” It was created to stimulate job growth and to repair our infrastructure and improve environmental performance. By improving environmental performance, I imagine that they will rip up the existing materials and dump them somewhere – never trying to recycle or reuse what is available.

[Photo by Michael Johnston]

I wonder how Serra’s Tilted Arc would survive the latest federal program impedance. If Tilted Arc had lasted, would it now be removed in its 30^th year because we have the urge to “green” everything? Would Tilted Arc be used as a symbol for the obstruction of environmental technologies? In my mind, the best thing that could have happened to Tilted Arc happened – it was installed, sparked controversy, and was removed. It had an interesting moment and is now greater as myth than history.

The same for Phoenix Rising. Why subject an interesting sculpture to standing alongside a café? Why reduce all plazas to public eateries and spitting fountains? I do not object to them, I think the new plan is perfect for Dilworth Plaza and the best remedy to a dead section of the city. But as we move closer to all plazas being public eateries, the possibility for works of art like Tilted Arc and Phoenix Rising to be incorporated into the public landscape becomes obsolete. While only a select few view a work's difficulty as high art, the majority view the difficulty as an obstruction to their daily lives. I have never liked a work of art, be it a painting, film, or sculpture, that did not challenge or confront me. Yet I do not like my public spaces to challenge or confront my daily activities. Should we install artworks that force the public to engage with their surroundings in different ways? Can we and should we install confrontational art in non-confrontational spaces at the public’s expense? 

I remain on the fence.

[Photo by Michael Johnston]

A Tilted Mind – Part I

“Every life is a contradiction, a new truth, a new miracle, and even frauds are interesting. I am not a philosopher and I do not believe in philosophies; the word itself I look upon with suspicion. I believe in the right of man to contradict himself.”

                                                                           William Saroyan – Myself Upon the Earth

Last year I was told that Phoenix Rising was not being relocated; it was being removed. The city was not making any effort to procure a new site where the memorial would be installed. In fact, the city was attempting to give the sculpture away to the descendents of either Dilworth or Etting – anyone willing to take a 20 foot aluminum sculpture off their hands. However, Dilworth’s law firm stepped in and things changed. Recently I was told that the plan is to relocate the sculpture to Society Hill. A plan I support.

I am concerned with the disposal of the different strata of Philadelphia history. That anything that is not the Liberty Bell is replaceable and removable. That the vernacular is eliminated for the international. That 90% of Frank Furness’ architecture was demolished as a result of drastic and progressive city planning. 

My original intent was to create a web-based documentary about the removal and relocation of Emlen Etting’s Phoenix Rising. My goal was to stir up discussion and controversy. I even entertained the notion that through this blog and future website, I would find collaborators to help me fight to keep Phoenix Rising where it is. That is no longer my goal.

I have decided against the website. It is not the right medium for this project. The project is a film. It has always been a documentary film. It will not be a typical documentary where I intercut interviews with those responsible for moving the sculpture with time lapse footage of the sculpture showing how many people pass by it every day. Nor will I intercut interviews with those responsible for moving the sculpture with those that oppose the moving of the sculpture.

The documentary film is about the history of Philadelphia and the mythology of Philadelphia. Etting has his place in both as do Phoenix Rising and its honoree, Richardson Dilworth. Part of the mythology is that Philadelphia is a city of twos: two rivers, two bridges, two icons. The same goes for Phoenix Rising. It was created by a Philadelphian for a Philadelphian. When the memorial to Dilworth is removed from Dilworth Plaza, should its new location reflect its maker or its honoree? Should it be treated as art or memorial? Another aspect, one that I have been investigating for some time, is the connection in form and design between Phoenix Rising and Cira Centre. Again, twos. One is functional and the other expressive. How do these two pieces work in tandem? Do they? For me, there is a project here beyond the typical political documentary. And with the latest proposal for a statue of Octavius V. Catto to be placed at the south end of Dilworth Plaza, the politics are infinite.

Earlier this month I attended my first Design Advocacy Meeting at the AIA on Arch Street. I urge everyone to sign up and attend these meetings. People can and do speak candidly at these meetings and it is refreshing to hear Philadelphia’s failures, successes, and potentials discussed without inhibition. I found that many others shared my views and reservations. Listening to the latest Dilworth Plaza proposal, which can be found on the CCD website, I began rethinking my project and my views. And my film became much more personal.

My film will deal with Philadelphia the way I see it and the way I interact with it. Perhaps some of my opinions will be unpopular or naïve or biased but they will be mine.  Phoenix Rising’s relocation is a single aspect of my view of this city. While Phoenix Rising is public my connection to it is personal. I view Phoenix Rising as a Philadelphia design. As a native form by a native son. Just because I view the sculpture in this light does not mean that I think it should remain at the north end of Dilworth Plaza. I feel that relocating the sculpture is the only way to give it a chance with the public.