Mural Arts Philadelphia will host a virtual tour that showcases the city’s murals and the Black icons they depict, beginning tomorrow.
Throughout the 90-minute event, attendees are taken on a digital excursion around the city as an expert shares the history behind each mural and how they were created.
The Black History Month Mural Arts Tour aims to shed light on the origin of Philadelphia’s Black arts movement and its importance in the community. The artistry on display on the city’s abundance of public art pieces resulted in the Pennsylvanian metropolis becoming the City of Murals.
“This Black History Month tour is meant to celebrate civic heroes during Black History by showing the various murals that we have in the city that uplift [and] amplify people who look like them,” Chad Eric Smith, director of communications and brand management at Mural Arts Philadelphia, told The Philadelphia Tribune.
The event will take place on Feb. 15 and Feb. 24. Both tours begin at 4 p.m. Tours are also available to book in private groups, capping out at 100 attendees.
One of the murals featured in the tour is the 2019 untitled portrait by artist Amy Sherald.
The piece, spanning six stories of a building in Center City Philadelphia, depicts a young member of an art education program, Najee S. The mural explores the concepts of representation in art and how public art can alter the experience of those who pass by it, according to Mural Arts Philadelphia’s website.
Artist Ernel Martinez’s mural of Philadelphian boxer Smokin’ Joe Frazier, the first to outmatch Muhammad Ali, will also be featured in the tour. Frazier held the title of heavyweight boxing champion throughout the early 1970s. He would come to train many of Philadelphia’s youth at Joe Frazier’s Gym.
The mural’s design, which Martinez crafted alongside the late boxing legend’s family, “captures the spirit” of the city’s favorite boxer, Mural Arts Philadelphia states. “I think that storytelling is really what moves culture forward in a progressive way,” Smith told the publication. “When you can have artwork that is impactful, that goes a long way in boosting the morale of the community.”
