Temple Contemporary

Updated
1 Dec 2016

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Wall installation of broken instruments from Philadelphia schools, Temple Contemporary. Photo by Haley Adair.

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600 Highwaymen, "The Fever," 2017.  Photo courtesy 600 Highwaymen.

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Temple Contemporary, "Funeral for a Home," 2014. Photo courtesy Jeffrey Stockbridge.

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Installation view of Temple Contemporary's reFORM, in collaboration with Pew Fellow Pepón Osorio. Photo by Constance Mensh. Courtesy of Temple Contemporary.

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Installation view of Temple Contemporary's reFORM exhibition, 2015. Photo by Constance Mensh.

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David Lang, Symphony for a Broken Orchestra, 2017, presented by Temple Contemporary. Photo by Karl Seifert.

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Composite image of dolls by artist Trenton Doyle Hancock. Photo courtesy of Temple Contemporary.

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3711 Melon Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104. Photo by Patrick Grossi, courtesy of Temple Contemporary.

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Young Great Society members painting a home, 1979. Photo courtesy of Temple University Special Collections Research Center.

Part of Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, Temple Contemporary’s mission is “to creatively re-imagine the social function of art,” with programming that is shaped by an advisory council that presents questions of local relevance and international significance. Projects supported by Center grants include Funeral for a Home, a response to years of widespread demolition in sections of Philadelphia; reFORM, an immersive installation addressing the closing of dozens of Philadelphia public schools, created by Pew Fellow Pepón Osorio; Symphony for a Broken Orchestra, a new composition by David Lang performed on over 1,000 broken instruments gathered from the School District of Philadelphia; Moundverse Infants, an exhibition by visual artist Trenton Doyle Hancock examining the representation of race in the material culture of dolls.

In 2019, the gallery received a Center Discovery grant to develop The Ongoing Revolution, a project aiming to uncover and preserve the overlooked stories of the United States’ pursuit of equality, tolerance, and independence.