Putting the rich world of Philadelphia's public art online
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Friday, November 22, 2024


Putting the rich world of Philadelphia's public art online
Conrad Benner after taking a close look at an in-progress mural by Iris Barbie Pendergrass in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia, on July 1, 2023. At the heart of Conrad Benner’s work is a love for a city that he believes is particularly suited to a thriving street arts community. “I find deep joy and interest in learning about the world around me through public art and the artists who make it,” he said. (HoJun Yu/The New York Times)

by Joshua Needelman



NEW YORK, NY.- Conrad Benner’s phone camera was fixed on Nile Livingston, an artist who stood in front of a blank wall. Livingston would soon paint a massive mural, and the “canvas” would be the side of an apartment building overlooking a parking lot in the Gayborhood area of Philadelphia. But Livingston was having a hard time finding the right words for a promotional TikTok.

“We can do a thousand takes,” Benner said, warmth in his voice. He had chosen both the location and the artist.

Benner, 38, runs Streets Dept, a photo blog and social media presence dedicated to spotlighting street artists. In addition to interviewing artists on video and photographing their work, Benner selects artists for Mural Arts Philadelphia, which says it is the nation’s largest public art program. In a city known for the richness of its cultural institutions and its public art scene, Benner wants to “serve the artists in all ways.”

“He’s a bridge in the public art community,” Livingston said. “He stops and slows down and observes the things around him, and he really cares about the city of Philadelphia.”

Before meeting up with Livingston, Benner’s camera was locked on another artist, Alexei Mansour, whom Brenner had selected to paint a mural in real time as part of a street festival. It was almost 90 degrees, and huge speakers drowned out Mansour, a self-described “mumbler” not keen on public speaking. There were people everywhere, and Mansour, too, struggled, his face turning bright red. (“I blacked out,” Mansour said later of the moment.)

Benner took control: He instructed Mansour to wave his hands in front of his face to cool himself down. He switched locations, first trying to record Mansour in an adjacent building (also too loud) before settling on a corner away from the commotion.

“One, two, three,” Benner said patiently, and Mansour began to describe his work.

Mansour, whose work focuses on queer identity, and his team worked on a mural of Greek god Dionysus, whom some consider an early nonbinary figure.

Benner, who grew up in the Fishtown neighborhood and typically wears a flat-brimmed cap and a mustache, eschews attention when documenting art, directing people’s eyes toward the artists he supports.




“My interest was always at pointing the camera outwards,” Benner said. “I find deep joy and interest in learning about the world around me through public art and the artists who make it.”

Benner first published Streets Dept in 2011. A novice to the street art world — Benner is not a trained artist, and he had long planned to go into architecture — he had early posts that took on what he called a “fanboy blog” tone.

The blog went mainstream in June 2011 when Time magazine reprinted a post about an artist who had “yarn-bombed” a city train, wrapping seats in multicolored knit fibers. The attention landed Benner a full-time marketing job, which he quit in 2015 after he surpassed 100,000 Instagram followers (he now has more than 150,000 followers and another 34,600 on TikTok) and devoted all of his focus to Streets Dept. He later started a subscription service through Patreon, a membership platform for content creators.

In 2020, Benner began selecting artists and locations for Mural Arts, which he said now provides the bulk of Street Dept’s funding, after nearly a decade of independent curatorial work, which he still does on the side.

At the heart of all that work is a love for a city that he believes is particularly suited to a thriving street arts community.

“Most of the street artists who work right now are putting up on either abandoned buildings or construction materials,” Benner said. “Almost every neighborhood in Philly has an abandoned building that’s a former warehouse, or abandoned homes.”

“There was this idea that, OK, industry and maybe some people left this city, so now it’s our playground,” he said of street artists. (The city’s population declined from about 2 million in the 1960s to about 1.5 million in 2021.) “If you leave a building abandoned, it’s going to get filled with art.”

Hours after filming with Livingston and Mansour, Benner popped by a free wall space for artists on a busy street corner, where a man was painting a woman’s face. Benner had seen the artist’s work for months but had never met him. He was Shaun Durbin, an up-and-coming local artist who had tried to get Benner’s attention earlier at the live painting. He agreed to let Benner feature his work.

Benner pulled out his camera. “This is so kismet,” he said. His favorite part of his work is meeting new artists and sharing their work with the masses. “Why else are we in this world if not to just look around and be excited by what’s around us?”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

July 17, 2023

How a Jay-Z retrospective took over the Brooklyn Public Library

Putting the rich world of Philadelphia's public art online

Contemporary art sets the trend at Roland Auctions NY Two-Part June 30th/July 1st auction

Search for a century-old shipwreck turns up one even older

Saber-tooth cats and dire wolves carried a terrible disease in their bones

Rare dinosaur 'bonebed' is discovered in a Maryland park

Serge Attukwei Clottey in 'Windrush: Portraits of a Pioneering Generation' at Palace of Holyroodhouse

Danish artist Malene Landgreen presents an exhibition of her work at Trapholt

Carpenters Workshop Gallery and Calodney Art Advisory present 'In Repetition, There is Difference'

A Victorian dinosaur park finds its way in the 21st century

Newport Foundation at The Vernon House presents 'Games, Gamblers & Certomancers: The New Cardsharps'

bG Gallery opens an exhibition celebrating the indelible impact and legacy of California's artists

Farah Atassi's presents 'Mechanical Cabaret' at François Ghebaly

Courtney M. Leonard's first retrospective debuts new work and explores intersections of Indigenous Culture

The Morgan Library & Museum elects two new Trustees

Interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, writer, and curator Tiona Nekkia McClodden joins White Cube

Works by Pitcher, Wood, and SHAG highlight Moran's California Living sale

'Veronika Kellndorfer: Dialoge with Silver Lake, Metabolism of Architecture' opens at the Neutra VDL House

Bonnefanten Museum opens an exhibition featuring photographs of skateboard culture by Ed Templeton

Exhibition at ARKEN raises highly topical questions about our relationship with artificial intelligence

How Much Does a Card Machine Cost in the UK?




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful