Positively Philadelphia: Springtime Spotlight on Public Artworks
By Lauren Lipton
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- "Site Seeing" is a month-long program in April from the Fairmount Park Art Association, to help the public rediscover public art.
"The programs will be launched on April 5th, with an evening of tango at the Swann Memorial Fountain [in top photo]," says executive director Penny Balkin Bach.
Why the tango?
"Because when the fountain was dedicated in 1924, there were tango dance parties along the Parkway," Bach (right) says.
Can't dance? Bach says, grab a bike:
"There will be bicycle tours. We are creating an outdoor sculpture bicycle map."
How about a nice stroll along the Parkway?
"For two Saturdays along the Parkway, we'll be putting giant balloons with helium floating above the sculptures, about a dozen sculptures along the Parkway. These balloons will kind of be like a three-dimensional Google map."
And the final program is at the "Iroquois" sculpture (below). Lights will come down, flashlights will come up.
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"We invite people to come and bring their flashlights," says Bach. "And everybody will come and light it with their collective flashlights, a way, again, of calling attention to this incredible collection of outdoor sculpture which, I think, is Philadelphia's most unrealized, unrecognized cultural asset."
And that's "Positively Philadelphia!"
Hear Lauren Lipton's full interview with Penny Balkin Bach in this CBS Philly podcast...
