Jacksonville’s Bicentennial
A city only gets one bicentennial. Jacksonville deserves a moment to reflect on its first 200 years and to glance ahead at the next 200. The city of Jacksonville and the Jacksonville Historical Society will commemorate, celebrate, and elevate Florida’s most authentic city with an all-day/evening event.
Bouke de Vries: War & Pieces
Thru December 31 London-based Dutch artist Bouke de Vries’ War & Pieces has been described as a masterwork by art critics. The monumental artwork, crafted from thousands of fragments of porcelain, reimagines the decorative centerpieces that adorned seventeenth-and eighteenth-century banquet tables. A former conservator of ceramics, Bouke de Vries uses broken ceramics as the primary medium for his artwork, celebrating the “beauty...
Forging a Bold City One Sculpture at a Time
Probably most famous for the photograph that appeared in national news during Hurricane Matthew, “Spiritualized Life” was created by Charles Adrian Pillars to honor those lost during World War I. The piece was privately commissioned by the Citizens Committee in 1920 and unveiled in Memorial Park on Christmas Day, 1924. It is one of the first pieces of public art in the city and still stands as one of the most iconic sculptures in Jacksonville.
Jacksonville’s Bicentennial Year is Here
We live in a city whose location we did not select, that we did not design or build, dependent on technologies that we did not invent, speaking languages that we did not create. And yet, the city is now ours. Our daily lives transpire in a place that we have inherited. That makes us just like the people of every other city, although we (and Jacksonville) are different from other cities. It also makes us the stewards of Jacksonville’s future.
A City’s Bicentennial Only Comes Around Once
In 2020 protests over the tragic death of a Black man named George Floyd at the hands of a white policeman reignited a long-running national debate over the significance of Confederate monuments in public places. Some discussions widened to consider the names of schools, streets, parks, and even a city itself. Suggestions for renaming Jacksonville have included Jaxson, Duval, Cowford, and even Durstville, after Fred Durst, lead vocalist for the local band Limp Bizkit.
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