Because the Parkway is often used for public events, barricades have become nearly ubiquitous to contain protests, redirect traffic and separate participants from spectators.<\/p>\n
\u201cBar None\u201d bends and manipulates barricades so as to appear functioning in ways never intended, said Charlotte Cohen, executive director of the Association for Public Art.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a transformation of what we think of as these protective structures: Those that keep us out, or keep us safe,\u201d she said. \u201cCertainly, they\u2019re used to control. Above anything else, that\u2019s really what the use has been. I think this transformation of that material is part of the real charm of the work, the ability to see them as something that can be a container for history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barricades are designed to be moved, but \u201cBar None\u201d is immobile, rooted to the ground with concrete footings. But ultimately, it is not built for the ages: It will be taken down at the end of October.<\/p>\n
As a temporary sculpture, \u201cBar None\u201d was conceived to speak to the country\u2019s current social and political moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was interested in producing a work that is directly asking questions of our right to assemble,\u201d Gentile said. \u201cWe see a lot of focus on what we understand as our rights under the Constitution starting to waver. I feel the intersectionality of our need to come together is often and pointedly attacked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before \u201cBar None\u201d comes down in October, Gentile will deliver a talk about the work on Sept. 18 at the nearby Parkway Central branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia. On Oct. 4, he will lead a workshop at the library on his collage techniques.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Because the Parkway is often used for public events, barricades have become nearly ubiquitous to contain protests, redirect…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":150926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,88593,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-150925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-art-installation","10":"tag-pa","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115039391552343308","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}