Isaiah Zagar spent thirty years of obsessive work on Philadelphia's Magic Gardens, one of the most fantastical public art environments in America, and its mosaics glitter in front of you. Philadelphia's Magic Gardens was built by Isaiah Zagar beginning in 1994 in and around two vacant lots on South Street. Zagar, a mosaic artist who has covered dozens of building facades across South Philadelphia with his signature style of broken tile, mirror shards, bicycle wheels, glass bottles, and found objects, created his most ambitious work here: a multi-level labyrinthine garden of tunnels, grottoes, and walls extending underground as well as above, every surface covered in mosaic.
The work incorporates fragments of pottery, bottles, tiles, ceramic plates, bicycle wheels, glass, and thousands of mirror shards that catch the light from every angle. Zagar worked on it for years before neighbors complained and the property owners tried to evict him; a community campaign saved the garden and it became a nonprofit arts organization in 2004. The indoor gallery and the outdoor garden are both included in admission.
Walk through the tunnels and grottos and read the quotations embedded in the walls; Zagar worked text and image together throughout the environment.