Title
Honoring Kindred Arts and Little Giant Creative on the occasion of Monumental Tour's public art exhibit in the City of Philadelphia.
Body
WHEREAS, Kindred Arts is a cultural equity initiative that conceives of and executes community arts programming in public spaces, viewing art as a catalyst for civic dialogue; and
WHEREAS, Little Giant Creative, a Philadelphia-based full-service creative agency, partnered with Kindred Arts to execute Monumental Tour in Philadelphia; and
WHEREAS, Monumental is a public art exhibit traveling across the United States, empowering social change through the arts, and exhibiting artwork throughout Philadelphia in October and November 2020; and
WHEREAS, The purpose of Monumental's multi-state tour is to maintain the momentum of the George Floyd protests and facilitate productive civic dialogue needed to shape the national identity in the long term; and
WHEREAS, The tour's first installation, All Power to the People, a 28-foot Afro pick designed by multimedia artist Hank Willis Thomas, was displayed in West Philadelphia and North Philadelphia. Thomas's artwork combines the afro pick and the Black Power salute, while the title references a legendary Black Panther Party slogan; and
WHEREAS, Monumental also features Rumors of War, a statue designed by the renowned artist Kehinde Wiley depicting a Black man wearing dreadlocks in a topknot, ripped jeans, a hoodie, and high tops, sitting atop a rearing horse. Installed at the corner of 52nd and Locust Streets in West Philadelphia, Rumors of War is Wiley's response to the Confederate statues that often depict generals on horses, while simultaneously reimagining the 1805 painting Napoleon Crossing the Alps by French artist Jacques-Louis David; and
WHEREAS, The exhibit will also include artist, filmmaker, and cinematographer Arthur Jaffa's Big Wheel-four seven-foot monster truck tires laced with mesh and iron chain, with abstract medallion 3-D printed sculptures in place of hubcaps...
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