Nicolo Gentile’s new public work Bar None is an ode to protests that have taken place on Benjamin Franklin Parkway throughout history.
The public art installation features a series of archival images of some of the most notable protests that have taken place on the Parkway etched into acrylic panels within steel barricades. The barricades are partially buried into the ground, slowly sinking into the grass.
Bar None was created as a result of an open call that the Association for Public Art put on earlier in the year. Gentile went into the open call knowing the site in which the piece would be located, and it was his primary inspiration for the piece.
The Benjamin Franklin Parkway has historically acted as a home for social demonstrations in Philadelphia. Bar None is an ode to that history, and a reminder for the viewer of its importance. Gentile emphasizes the significance of his use of steel barricades, an object which has the sole purpose of separation. “It’s this object that carries with it a certain recognition of state power.” said Gentile about the barricades.
“It’s ubiquitous in terms of its placement, but I don’t want the viewer to take that ubiquity as neutrality. It’s all about decisions. Who’s making the decisions and what is the decision to divide? Whose actions are sanctioned and welcomed, and whose are deemed disruptive?”
When asked why now was the right moment for a work like Bar None, Gentile said that witnessing what he views as increasing threats to constitutional rights across the United States made the creation of the piece feel urgent and necessary.
“The first and primary right is the right to come together. This project was a testament to that right. I am highlighting a very particular type of coming together that I think needs to be reconceived, reworked, and reactivated.”
Gentile hopes to be able to make more public work in the future and mentioned how engaging with the public has been a growing experience for him. Gentile delved into the thoughts that “Bar None” has left him with.
“I’ve learned a lot with this public engagement, especially now, and learning to contend with intersectional histories, not necessarily running from the fight of dealing with difference, and dealing with adversity within that difference has been a very important personal growth”
Gentile says his recent work is driven both by personal self-exploration and by a desire to pose difficult questions about the world around him. He describes his shift toward creating more public-facing art as a “direct implication of self.”
“I have questions, and I’m not positing that I know answers. Art for me has always been an opportunity to ask those hard questions”
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