Arts
fromHyperallergic
4 days agoArt for Dignity
The Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, home to New Deal murals, faces potential demolition, prompting campaigns to save it and protect public art.
As the administration continues its attacks on culture, the president is targeting a building near the National Mall with several remarkable New Deal-era murals about social security, which remain as relevant as the day they were painted. Reporter Aaron Short brings us inside the fight to save this gem of a building, which a new petition describes as a "Sistine Chapel" of artworks centering working-class communities that the government abandoned during the Great Depression (and continues to neglect today).
A group of artists, preservationists, and activists is sounding the alarm against Trump's potential demolition of a prominent federal office building next to the National Mall, and the treasured artworks inside it - including several New Deal-era murals that speak to the value of Social Security in the United States. Alex Lawson, executive director of the advocacy organization Social Security Works, co-authored a petition to save the works with local muralist Absurdly Well.