Mark Stockton, The Poet in His Bedroom…, graphite drawing, 2019
Artistic Commissions
The participating artists represent a range of ideas, approaches, and methods. Several projects focus on the Delaware River Waterfront, drawing attention to Whitman’s direct connection to that locale. Others extend into the neighborhoods. All are easily accessible to a broad audience in public locations. Major support for all of the artistic commissions was provided to the University of Pennsylvania Libraries by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
“I think of art as something to serve the people—
the mass: when it fails to do that it’s false to its promises.”
Contradict This! A Birthday Funeral for Heroes
May 31—June 2, 2019
The Bearded Ladies Cabaret, an experimental group led by John Jarboe, will create an outdoor performance that explores both the human and heroic sides of Whitman featuring cake, coffin, gavel, choir, composers, and live musical trolling. On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the much lauded homo poet Walt Whitman's birth, this group of Philly queers and misfits will gather overlooking the Whitman Bridge to put this ancestor and his legacy on trial.
*Update: This show was picked up by La Mama Theatre in New York as part of Stonewall 50, June 20-29, 2019. The production also won a 2019 Barrymore Award for Outstanding Outdoor Theatre Production.
New Songs of the Open Road
May 18, June 8, June 22, July 6, 2019
Interdisciplinary artist Homer Jackson of the Philadelphia Jazz Project draws on the history of civil rights protests and freedom songs, as well as Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road” and select Langston Hughes poems, to organize four walks in diverse neighborhoods around Philadelphia. These neighborhoods will range from Strawberry Mansion in North Philadelphia and Germantown in the Northwest to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Whitman Plaza in South Philadelphia, the latter the site of ongoing racial tension and demonstrations related to a housing project proposed in the 1960s and finally built in 1982. The walks will be accompanied by original musical compositions and led by a gospel choir. Special thanks to the Waterman II Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation who, following a recommendation of David Haas, has provided additional support for New Songs of the Open Road.
*Update: Inspired by this series of singing walks, Jackson developed the Whitman Sampler Mixtape Series. Read more about this sister-project below.
RiverRoad
June 4 & 6*, 2019; 8pm and 10pm
Installation artists Carolyn Healy and John JH Phillips will collaborate with performer James Osby Gwathney, Jr. to create a multimedia work based on Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road.” The piece will take place on a large industrial barge on the Delaware River and featured video, sculpture, lighting, and electronic sound in an environment in which Gwathney performs the entire text of Whitman’s poem. While a tugboat guides the barge from Penn’s Landing, where the audience will board, to a point downriver and back, the audience will freely follow Gwathney as he recites the poem, traveling with him along the 130 feet of the barge deck through the structures of the set. The artists hope the experience of being afloat on an unusual vessel in the middle of the wide river under night clouds and stars will create both a sense of unease and exhilaration that resonates with the poem. Whitman frequently made the crossing from Camden to Philadelphia, especially to hear opera, one of his favorite art forms. The artists wish to create a unique tribute to Whitman that can be experienced both from the waterfront and by the audience on board the barge. Healy and Phillips have previously designed settings for sections of James Joyces’s Ulysses (at Symphony Space and LaMaMa in New York and the Cini Foundation, Venice) and Finnegan’s Wake. Special thanks to the Edna Wright Andrade Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation, who has provided additional support for RiverRoad.
*This performance date was rescheduled from June 5 due to inclement weather.
When You Look on the River and Sky
Mid-May—September, 2019
Spencer Finch, a New York-based artist known for sculpture, installations, and drawings that capture fleeting natural phenomena and sensory experience, will create an interactive work on the RiverLink ferry that operates between Philadelphia and Camden. In Whitman’s day, a number of ferries connected the two cities, but today only one ferry runs, from May to September. Finch’s piece directly links Whitman’s journey in the late 19th century to today’s visitors’ experience of the river. Ferry-goers will match the color of the sky and water by spinning two color wheels of Pantone swatches Finch selects after observing the ever-changing tones of the Delaware river and the sky above it. The ferry will fly two color flags each day, one the color of the sky and one the color of the water. Finch has created a number of works inspired by writers including Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau, and Whitman. Finch also created an installation for the High Line in New York titled The River that Flows Both Ways, inspired by the color and movement of the Hudson River.
Whitman Sampler Mixtape Series
Following inspiration from New Songs of the Open Road, Jackson conceived of a 10-part mixtape series to document these original compositions, as well as additional works from local poets and musicians who have been inspired and influenced by Whitman. The mixtape acknowledges both his influential contribution to modern American expression and his challenge to our democracy. It is available to the public as a free download. Read more about this project here.
