Shocking Sticker

An art student personalizes Philly's homicide rate.

by E. James Beale

crime

Gregory Pizzoli (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Norman White was a 23-year-old black man. He was murdered in Philadelphia, the day after Christmas, 2006. I know this because a name-tag sticker, affixed to a metal pole at the corner of 17th and Pine streets, told me so.

And by the time Gregory Pizzoli, a first-year grad student at the University of the Arts, has completed his latest project, White's sticker will be one of 406 out on the streets of Philadelphia. One for every homicide in 2006, goes the idea in which, by being shot to death in broad daylight at 53rd and Delancey streets, the late White Dog Café prep cook represents No. 403.

It all started when his professor, Astrid Bowlby, told the class to "create a village." And that "the village must find a home." A room, box, table, monitor, overcoat, book, dance, whatever. But Pizzoli did not choose the small confines of a dollhouse; he made the city his village.

"I am an artist, but I'm also a citizen, and as a white male in grad school I'm a privileged citizen," he says. "And, well, there really are a lot of murders here."

On a stroll through Rittenhouse Square, however, it's easy to forget or ignore the astounding numbers of murders. "That's a big part of the reason that I want [the stickers] at places like 17th and Pine," he says, because they are neighborhoods which, "for the most part, are able to avoid this."

And that attention is needed. Julie Rausch, executive director of the Anti-Violence Partnership of Philadelphia, realizes that people ignore the killings or, worse, assume that they are all the product of "thugs killing thugs."

"Anything that directs public attention in a tasteful way to the shocking number of homicides in our city has got to be positive," she says.

Outside of books, which he's studying how to make at UArts, Pizzoli almost exclusively designs and creates wheat-paste posters — where expedience and exposure are at a premium. Pizzoli frequently sees his art torn off walls and buildings. It "usually gets ripped down within a day," he admits.

"It's important that I'm not making these finely crafted prints that I'm trying to sell," he explains, noting that the stickers are not for sale, and they provide no contact information or an artistic signature.

While Pizzoli was perfectly willing to talk, City Paper's interest in the project took him by surprise. He says he "felt that I could make more of an impact doing something that addressed the real world." And that it does. Stand near one of the estimated 250 stickers he's already posted and you'll see several people stop to read the tags that, ironically, were news to the anti-graffiti network.

But all exposure may not be welcome. Aside from a city that does not want its underbelly exposed, there is also concern for the victims' families. After praising the project, Rausch is quick to remind that "it would be quite a shock for [the victim's families] to see the sign for their loved ones without any warning."

While the stickers are not meant to be memorials or graves — "They're just information," says Pizzoli, likening them to a public homicide list — they do broadly bring attention not only to the huge number of dead citizens, but to the name of the individual citizen who've been killed.

Giving names to those homicide-count numbers, Pizzoli did not know Norman White. In fact, Pizzoli did not know any of the 406. This contributed to his interest — one can turn a blind eye towards a number; it may be harder to avoid a name. And as long as the homicides continue, so will the project, says Pizzoli, who hopes to obtain a space on a wall where he can place the stickers as they happen in real time.

"That way," he explains, "I could every week go and put more and more names up, which would not only have the effect of putting it in people's faces, but also having the whole time-based thing where the paper would weather and fade, and the names would eventually disappear."

(ejamesbeale@citypaper.net)