Unauthorized Art Invades the Philadelphia Museum: Get Art Off Our Backs on Sunday November 7th
 
How does a huge crowd of people wearing a mind-bending array of artworks on their persons and giving away and trading those works fit into the tradition-bound setting of the Philadelphia Museum of Art? Come to the Parkway at 2pm on Sunday November 7th and find out as the Get Art Off Our Backs project brings an unauthorized, uncurated, unclassifiable, open-call art event to the Museum's Great Stair Hall.
 
Artists (and others) are being invited by Get Art Off Our Backs organizer Albo Jeavons to meet inside the Art Museum and to bring along art that can be worn on the body.  Participants will circulate through the public stair area wearing artworks and freely trading or giving them away. The event has no connection to or official sanction from the administration of the Museum.  "It wouldn't be in the spirit of the project to ask the Museum for permission: Get Art Off Our Backs is a suggestion, put out there in the spirit of creativity and pleasure – I have no idea who will respond, how many people there might be or how the Museum will react - that's part of the fun!" says Jeavons. "Of course; the ultimate, long-term aim of the project is the total, non-violent annihilation of capitalism and hierarchical social organization all over the world, but for this first event I'm just aiming for a fun, exciting, unscripted event in a beautiful public setting."
 
"I don't want the Museum's admission price to be a bar for potential participants so I've scheduled the event for the first Sunday in November which is "Pay what you wish" day." adds Jeavons "we're inviting photographers and videographers to document the event, and I'm encouraging participants to extend it out into the Museum's galleries.  Some of us will be bringing along wearable art that reponds to artworks in the Museum's collection and we plan to display ourselves wearing the work next to the works that they refer to.  I imagine there will be some informal performances and some "artistic nudity"."
 
Detailed information about the event is available at getartoffourbacks.com and interested individuals are encouraged to join the email list on the site for status updates about the event. The site also has areas where prospective participants can share pictures and video of art they intend to bring to the Museum on November 7th.