Philadelphia never holds open call, selects white artist to sculpt statue of Harriet Tubman

[PortCityProphet]

‘How Do You Just Give Away Half a Million Dollars’: Black Philadelphia Artists Call Selection Process of White Artist to Sculpt Harriet Tubman Statue Unfair

Black artists in Philadelphia are outraged the city has chosen a white artist to pay tribute to abolitionist Harriet Tubman with a new permanent statue

atlantablackstar.com

Black artists in Philadelphia are outraged the city has chosen a white artist to pay tribute to abolitionist Harriet Tubman with a new permanent statue slated to stand before City Hall in 2023. Without our city council voting on it, how do you just give away half a million dollars?” asked Maisha Sullivan-Ongonzo of the city’s decision to limit access to a public arts project honoring Tubman. Sullivan-Ongonzo is a community activist and a multimedia artist who calls Philadelphia home. On the bicentennial celebration of American abolitionist Harriet Tubman, the city of Philadelphia brought in the traveling statue “Journey to Freedom” created by Wesley Wofford and featuring Tubman. It stood outside City Hall from January to March 31 of this year. According to a city spokesman, the statue garnered 4 million people reacting positively to the sculpture, which influenced the city to go against usual protocol and bypass an open call for the public art project worth $500,000, to include a wide pool of capable and diverse artists.

“Even though it’s a great statue and she said how it moved everyone and nobody else can do that, I said, ‘Most artists can do that; I’m an artist.’ I said, ‘Most artist, if you give them what they need, we can get that kind of emotive feeling from people; that’s what good artists do,’ ” said Sullivan-Ongonzo.

Sullivan-Ongonzo is upset with the city barring many Black artists from taking a shot at sculpting Tubman for all to see. She is also bothered by the artist selected, Wesley Wofford, who is white.

To read the response from the white artist click the link
(Its a black owned and run site should give them some clicks for ad revenue )


But this some shytty dealings by Philly city council. Its gotta be some black folk on the council who shoulda known that you can't have a white dude depict black folk it doesn't matter how many folks liked his original sculpture.
City council need they ass whooped.
This how white folks stay coming up

 

[King_Kamala61]

Welp.....this is what always happens....its a shame.the art community for blacks has a lot of scum. I got stories for days man.

But it was wrong to get a white man to do the statue...hell the MLK statue in DC was done by an Asian. They (we) dont hire they own.

 

[ORDER_66]

White supremacy always with tricks and little passive aggressive shots at our fukking heroes...