The Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia is awarding the Association for Public Art (aPA) its 2023 Board of Directors Award for exceptional stewardship of historic properties.

The aPA will bring to life this summer the historic Ellen Phillips Samuel Memorial along Kelly Drive and the Schuylkill River with a temporary exhibition (June 12 – November 12, 2023) by artist Maren Hassinger. Part of an ongoing effort to reimagine the site Hassinger’s evocative sculptures offer restorative and inspiring messages of shared and active humanity. This will be the first contemporary public art exhibition at the memorial and the artist’s first outdoor sculpture exhibition in Philadelphia. There will be an opening reception on June 14th at the memorial.

Explore our current events and programs for the 2023-2024 season. We will be updating this page as we add more to the calendar!

The Association for Public Art is seeking Art Ambassadors to assist with aPA’s Annual Meeting on Wednesday, June 14th on Kelly Drive, which will celebrate the opening of Maren Hassinger’s “Steel Bodies” outdoor sculpture exhibition. We are looking for high-energy, responsible individuals with strong communication skills and experience in hospitality or customer service.

The Association for Public Art remembers longtime trustee Philip Price, Jr., who passed away in February at the age of 88. Price joined the Board in 1991, and generously supported a number of our projects as well as other nonprofit organizations in Philadelphia. He funded the restoration and recasting of the “Billy” goat sculpture in Rittenhouse Square, which his grandfather, Eli Kirk Price II, gifted to the City of Philadelphia through this Association.

The nation’s first organization devoted to public art, Philadelphia’s Association for Public Art (aPA, formerly the Fairmount Park Art Association), announces the launch of free open digital access to more than a hundred years of art, civic and institutional history on its website.

All proceeds benefit the Association for Public’s Art (aPA) contemporary commissions and programs.

Something of a public art movement has taken hold in this country in the 40 years since Penny Balkin Bach joined the Association for Public Art (aPA) in 1980. Bach has played a major role in the maturation of the field. Most critically, early on she posed questions about public art and community that today echo ever louder as issues surrounding public monuments spill over into the mainstream.

Re-issued in 2022 to celebrate the Association for Public Art’s 150th Anniversary, you can now purchase t-shirts and a tote bag with Barbara Kruger’s artwork Untitled (When I hear the word culture I take out my checkbook). This 1985 artwork by Kruger was first featured on a t-shirt given to attendees as part of our organization’s Public Art in America ’87 conference held in Philadelphia. The conference was the first national, interdisciplinary forum to examine public art in its broadest context through the perspectives of politics, urban design, cultural anthropology, and the social sciences.