Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine ArtsCenter City
Fred Wilson: THE MASTER PLAN or In Between the Big Bang and Modern Art Is the Restroom
Twenty-two photogravures reproducing the floor outlines of major museums' visitor maps, questioning the museum as a neutral repository and how its architecture shapes what we see.
More in Philadelphia
Fred Wilson took the visitor maps of eighteen museums of art, anthropology and natural history in North America and Europe, and erased nearly everything. What survives on each floor plan is a handful of words and icons: collection-care terms and visitor-services signs. Hence the subtitle, In Between the Big Bang and Modern Art Is the Restroom.
The result is 22 photogravures, etched in off-white and black ink, in the Works on Paper Gallery of the Historic Landmark Building. You walk the row comparing one plan and its leftover symbols with the next. If the only thing you've ever looked for on a museum map is the restroom, Wilson got there first.
It helps to know his 1992 Mining the Museum, which reworked the Maryland Historical Society's displays to surface the enslaved people its collection left out. For the other end of that story, Peale's The Artist in His Museum (1822) hangs in the rotunda. Entry comes with admission: $25, or $15 on Fridays from 5 to 8pm.
Look for
The leftover signs
Look for the few words and icons Wilson kept on each otherwise blank floor plan: collection-care terms and visitor-services symbols set inside the gallery outlines.
Good for
- An Hour Or Less
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want colour or figures: it's 22 black and off-white floor plans with almost no words.
With kids
Children 12 and under get in free, and ages 13 to 17 pay $5.
Free in the same building
Plan a visit to Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine ArtsAlso at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
8
- You Stretched Diagonally Across It: Contemporary TapestryPhoto credit: Constance Mensh.
- Botany of NationsCourtesy of Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
- Native Plants on the Parkway: A Botany of Nations GardenCourtesy of Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
- Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine ArtsDifference engine, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- The Fabric Workshop and MuseumJohn Phelan, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel Universityajay_suresh, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Vox PopuliVox Populi
- The Franklin Instituteajay_suresh via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0