October 3, 2018, Kristen De Groot - Associated Press
For nearly two decades, Philadelphia's Municipal Services Building has been home to a bronze sculpture of Frank Rizzo, the polarizing, tough-on-crime former mayor and police commissioner.
(Mural Arts)
Now, a temporary art installation highlighting formerly incarcerated men and women who are working to transform their lives — intended to spark a conversation about mass incarceration — hovers over the Rizzo statue.
The artists involved say that's no accident.
"I wanted to make them bigger than Rizzo, and to make them think bigger of themselves in these dignified portraits," said Russell Craig, one of the two lead artists of the "Portraits of Justice" interactive mural, created through a program of Mural Arts Philadelphia. "Also, in a sense, they are looking down on Rizzo."