Philadelphia is probably in a better position than almost any city in the country to protect its public artworks – if we know what’s happening. — Penny Balkin Bach
In “How public art gets lost – and saved – in Philly” by Samantha Melamed for Philly.com, Association for Public Art Executive Director Penny Balkin Bach offers some insight into how public artworks are lost or saved in Philadelphia.
Bach shares that the 1998 removal of Ellsworth Kelly’s iconic wall sculpture was “this sort of slap-in-the-face wake-up call that we needed as a city and as a cultural community to pay more attention to these kinds of things…Having the public’s eyes and ears alert is probably our greatest protection.” She points out that “Philadelphia is probably in a better position than almost any city in the country to protect its public artworks – if we know what’s happening.”
The article looks at several public artworks that were lost, saved, and those that are in limbo, including Joseph Greenberg Jr.’s Heroic Figure of Man (lost), Maxfield Parrish’s The Dream Garden (saved), and Robert Indiana’s AMOR (in limbo).