Hot Meat Sticks On Sale Now at G-Mart

City Hall fourth floor art exhibit offends Council president Anna C. Verna.

The irony of an Art in City Hall exhibit was lost on City Council president Anna C. Verna yesterday after the display - installed in a corridor outside fourth-floor Council offices - provoked complaints.

The work in question - intended as an ironic commentary on commercial-ism, according to the artists - re-created in convenience-store display.

But it wasn't so much the tin of meat and beer cans arrayed under a blinking surveillance camera in the roughly seven-by-five-foot glass case that made Verna and some other observers cringe.

It was the wording of the posters. "HOT MEAT STICKS," screamed one sign. "Golden Stream Beer" read the cans. And in two-foot-high letters: "SHOP G-MART FOR FAG CIGARETTES," referring to the British term for cigarettes.

"It was just very, very distasteful," said Verna, who called Joyce Wilkerson, Mayor Street's chief of staff, and extracted a promise that the display would be moved to the second floor, near the mayor's office.

Artist Michael Alan, who created the piece with his business partner and fellow artist Sonia Kurtz, said the piece was meant to be a statement about consumerism.

"I understand some things are suggestive," Alan said. "It's just playing with words and the labels of things."

Alan and Kurtz run a store and gallery called G-Mart in Old city. In addition to holding monthly shows, they sell a mixture of merchandise similar to the objects in the display case in City Hall.

"We have custom-made products," Alan said. "It's a weird cross section of pop culture."

It wasn't the first time the avant-garde had clashed with the more moderate sensibilities of City Council.

Last year, Verna requested another artwork be moved. That one was a pair of red pajamas with a pattern depicting dogs urinating on fire hydrants.

That, she said, wasn't even the beginning.

"A couple of years ago, when I was in Room 405, every time I opened the door, I was greeted by the carcass of a turkey," Verna said. "And another time, I thought it was almost like a porno: A woman with her legs spread wide open. It was dreadful. I guess art is in the eye of the beholder."

The administrators of the Art in City Hall program could not be reached for comment. Hilary Jay, one of the curators of the exhibit, said the G-Mart exhibit was part of1 a show on product design that will incorporate work from other firms, including Venturi Scott Brown. Next month, Jay will become director of the Paley Design Center at Philadelphia University.

Verna said she planned to set up a system to avoid future surprises. Her staff, she said, will meet with Wilkerson's staff today to discuss the issue.

Philadelphia Inquirer (link to site)

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/

Categories: Gmart