Issue date: 2/21/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Taylor Howard/DP Senior Photographer The mural at 15th and Waverly streets, depicting the transgender artist's transformation to a woman, had its permit revoked in a 6-4 decision by the Philadelphia Historical Commission last month. However, residents say the mural has helped keep the area safer.

Twenty years ago, The Philadelphia Mural Arts Program started with a simple premise - offer up-and-coming artists new canvas space, and they would transform the city's struggling neighborhoods.

Now, murals from South Philly to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge have been credited as a key part of the city's

revival.

But on Waverly Street, the transformative potential of mural art has come face-to-face with Philadelphia's past.

Artist Dee Chin's The Death of Venus, painted on the building at the corner of 15th and Waverly streets, was cited last month for violating the city codes: A vote by the Philadelphia Historical Commission declared that the mural detracted from the Victorian-era building's historical value and ordered it removed.

According to real-estate broker Michael Sher, who paid Chin to create the mural in 2002, it was the artwork's controversial content - it depicts the transgendered Chin's personal transformation into a woman - that turned the commission off.

"I think it's part political," he said. "There's a real anti-art atmosphere in Philadelphia right now."

The fight's not over, though, for Sher, who is planning to appeal a decision that he calls "typical of the governmental functions in a dictatorship."

"I just feel very strongly that [the commission] is doing something that's very objectionable in a free society," he said. "If it's privately funded, I don't see how the community should get involved with that."

Problems arose because Sher did not initially seek the commission's approval, though he was later granted a four-year permit that expired last month.

The commission decided to discuss the mural's merits once again and voted 6-4 against renewing its permit, citing its lack of historical value.

"We were not making judgments on the quality of the mural, on the aesthetics or the social issues involved in the mural, and we're certainly not making any judgments on the artist herself," Commission Chairman Michael Sklaroff said.

Continued...

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