Over the past decade, Richmond has seen an explosion of public artwork. Artist, muralist, and writer Mickael Broth has documented this phenomenon in his new book, Murals of Richmond. In this special edition banner lecture, held on January 10, 2019, Broth moderates a lively panel discussion about the transformative power of public art with Christina Wing Chow, Hamilton Glass, Andre Shank, and Ed Trask, who are among Richmond’s most talented mural artists.

Mickael Broth, also known as The Night Owl, has painted over two hundred public murals throughout Richmond, the United States and Europe since 2012. He was awarded a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship in 2008 for his gallery work and has shown widely around the United States. Broth serves on the board of directors for the RVA Street Art Festival and has been instrumental in the curatorial direction of the organization since its formation in 2012. In 2013, he published Gated Community: Graffiti and Incarceration, a memoir detailing his experiences with vandalism and jail. In 2017, he was awarded a commission by the City of Richmond for the creation of an 18-foot tall welded aluminum sculpture that will be installed in front of the Hull Street Library in Richmond’s Manchester neighborhood.

The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.