Conversation with the Artist: Nicolo Gentile

The Association for Public Art (aPA) in partnership with the Parkway Central Free Library presents an artist lecture and presentation by Philadelphia-based artist and educator Nicolo Gentile. Gentile’s Bar None was commissioned for aPA’s 2025 Art on the Parkway program, an annual juried open call currently in its second year. Join us to hear the artist speak about his first large-scale public artwork, and the archival explorations informing Bar None, including research from the Free Library’s collections, in dialogue with a brief screening of historic footage of the Parkway from Temple University Library’s Special Collections. Gentile’s public artwork reimagines the Parkway as a living archive shaped not by monuments, but by collective action through transforming steel barricades into a winding procession of memory and light with etched panels reflecting moments of protest, pride, and public gathering. Bar None is on view at Maja Park at 22nd Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway through October 26, 2025. The event will held be preceded by a reception with light refreshments. Doors open at 5:30 and the presentation will begin at 6pm.

Host or Publisher Association for Public Art