the Magic of South Street

What do you get when you mix a bunch of property, pieces of ceramic, pieces of mirror, a 70 year old artist and tons of mortar? The Magic Gardens of South Street.


As we were on our way out of Philly we made a lost important stop: South street. The street is full of many different shops and art galleries including one "Dumpster Divers" gallery made out of found objects. As we headed down the street we found a building covered from top to bottom with mosaic. The mosaic mixed found objects, homemade tiles, and mirrors to create amazing patterns and pictures.  And then we found another one, and another, and a whole mosaiced ally, a garage, a store front and more.

The mosaics are the work of Isaiah Zagar. Isaiah and his wife bought dilapidated buildings on South Street during the late 60's. They would renovate the buildings and add mosaics to the walls of the buildings and rent them out.  If only they had been our landlords!

In the early 90's Zagar started building what is now known as the magic garden. It is a labyrinth of mosaic and found objects. It was fun exploring the magic
garden there were so many different hidden images and messages in the walls. There were many bike wheels used like windows. While walking throught the maze we stumbled on a fashion shoot!  Chelsea was on the look out for Tyra and Miss J while we hung around waiting for them to finish so we could get our own shot in since they were blocking the best spot of the whole gardens. Rude.

All in all the gardens, and looking at  Zagar's work throughout the street was a very rewarding way to spend the afternoon.  Putting his art in the street not only decorates the neighborhood but it makes art accessible.  As Zagar reaffirms: "Art is the center of the real world".  Those words are used as a sort of slogan and repeated throughout his work.  He now teaches workshops and the non-profit organization that sprung up around protecting his work from destruction (for the creation of condos) runs community events with a focus on artistic collaboration and access.  Pretty sweet.