New Gaia Mural in Fishtown Asks, ‘What Is The Aesthetic of Reinvestment/Gentrification?’
LOVE this… Fantastic new mural in Fishtown this week by internationally renown artist and recent panelist on my “Evolution of Street Art” talk at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gaia!
The mural sits at the intersection of Belgrade and Susquehanna – literately at the end of the block I grew up on and where my parents still live! (When I was a kid, this building was a little corner store called “Jack’s” where I used to buy chips, Twix bars, and, of course, huggies.)
Titled ‘Frontiers,’ Gaia‘s new mural shows an Albert Bierstadt view of Yosemite with a post-green style home along side a classic Philly Italianate rowhome. As he installed the mural, Gaia posed the following thought-starters to his Instagram:
“What is the aesthetic of reinvestment/gentrification?… What is the formal future of Philadelphia’s new construction? Reinvestment throughout neighborhoods like Fishtown, Kensington, and Point Breeze have brought new facade concepts to the classic Italianate rowhome. Projects like 100k House, the New Kensington High School, and 2056 East Arizona Street have brought a new aesthetic determined by LEED environmental standards and modular strategies.”
Streets Dept 
Does this mural really communicate that? I like the questioning of the value of super-Modernist architecture (which I don’t think is driven by LEED rating–where does he get that?), but this mural, painted on a bland 1960s-era? concrete block building, just looks odd. I’d say what it really brings up is “Are today’s muralists and street artists so pushed to create statement pieces with offputting juxtapositions and challenging comic-book imagery that they forsake beauty and connection with context?