PBS For The Arts: Off The Wall

In communities across the country – from Philadelphia and Miami to Denver and Los Angeles – public art serves a myriad of roles. Whether works are a product of a creative teenager scrawling on a wall or a project commissioned by the local arts council, the art often tells the unvarnished history of a community, serves to revitalize a neighborhood and arguably contributes to the well-being of people who live there.

Off The Wall is a series on the role of public art in local communities and the artists who produce it. From community-developed projects in Philadelphia and Los Angeles to past and present murals in Denver and Miami, public art is critical to a city’s landscape and people’s sense of belonging.

Philadelphia

In December 2021, a neon billboard appeared in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. “In our story of us,” it reads, “there is always light there.” The white neon flickers by the elevated train tracks: “We are shining. Dazzling. Beautiful. Healed.” Created by Kensington Healing Verse, the sign represents the community’s commitment to strive toward healing and hope as it battles the opioid crisis.

The project started under Mural Arts Philadelphia’s Porch Light Project, funded by the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services, a program devoted to supporting the mental health and wellness of Philadelphians through the development of public art. Philadelphia Poet Laureate Trapeta B. Mayson and project curator Ryan Strand Greenberg held creative writing workshops with Kensington residents. The students’ poetry was the inspiration for the words emblazoned on the billboard. Mural Arts seeks to heal through art: raising people’s voices so they can be heard and seen.

Los Angeles

Ed Massey’s colorful, distinctive paintings have been spotted in cityscapes across the United States, from the hoods of New York City taxi cabs to the face of the Los Angeles Convention Center. While Massey is known for bringing vivid imagery to public settings, he has a keen interest in social issues and feels a responsibility to the communities where he works.

The public artist, along with his brother Bernie Massey, founded the nonprofit organization, Portraits of Hope, to involve residents in the beautification of their city and promote a culture of civic engagement. Children and volunteers fill in Massey’s broad strokes and massive flowers with brightly colored hues, creating works that decorate the city of Los Angeles, from murals inside animal shelters to giant spheres on the water.

Denver

The historic residential neighborhood of La Alma Lincoln Park is home to the American Chicano civil rights movement in Denver, which included a series of strikes and walkouts during the 1960s and 1970s. The legacy of the Chicano movement, or El Movimiento, is found among the public art murals scattered throughout the city. In May 2022, the National Trust for Historic Preservation added the Chicano murals of Denver to its list of the most endangered historic places in America.

As a teenager, artist Emanuel Martínez painted his first of many murals in the 1960s to celebrate the Chicano culture and history of the city and therefore pioneered muralism in Denver. Today, Martínez’s remaining murals are threatened by gentrification and a lack of recognition. The public art of Denver, particularly the Chicano murals of La Alma Lincoln Park, are at the forefront of a rapidly disappearing space in the city. The movement to preserve the town’s history would protect the disappearing single family homes, community buildings, and almost 200 structures that define this neighborhood.

Miami

The Wynwood walls have become a popular canvas for graffiti artists and have attracted visitors to this area of Miami for the past twenty years. While today they are a major tourist attraction, murals have a long history in Miami of telling local stories. In the 1980s, street artist Purvis Young marked the walls of the city at night with paintings about urban Miami and the displacement of its Black and Brown residents.

Miami artist VantaBlack has created a contemporary, text-based mural, “Say Their Names,” honoring the victims of gun violence, police violence and domestic violence. The piece was created under the artist’s Memorial Portrait Project to remember those lost to social and racial injustice. The large-scale mural painted outside the Bakehouse Art Complex is part of the project’s expansion to a public space, where visitors can gather for collective mourning and healing. The mural commemorates lives lost with their names embedded into the walls of Miami, an everyday reminder of the deeper struggle for justice in the city.

To watch the Off The Wall series, visit the #PBSForTheArts hashtag on social media.