Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Phil America (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. The consensus appears to be that, at best, this is a case of WP:TOOSOON. Delete without prejudice to re-creation if better in-depth reliable sources become available. Randykitty (talk) 16:46, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Phil America
AfDs for this article: 
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Previous AfD resulted in "no consensus" due to only two !votes (delete and weak keep). Only third-party ref with any depth is one article from the Bangkok Post. Other than that, sources are mostly primary or non-notable blogs, etc. Edit history of article creator suggests a strong conflict of interest. OhNo itsJamie Talk 21:45, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:42, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:42, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Visual arts-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:42, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Photography-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:42, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:42, 16 August 2015 (UTC)


 *  Delete  probable vanity page with an enormous number of sources, claims, of which the strongest probably is this article in an expat newspaper in Thailand.  Exhibitions in minor places with no press coverage.  The thing is, Notable people, authors, photographers show up in searches.  This  news google search on his unusual name shows how lacking in notability he is.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:25, 16 August 2015 (UTC)  Reexamined, still voting DELETE, see belowE.M.Gregory (talk) 15:10, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 *  Keep  The photographer has held two TED talks that can easily be found online just by googling his name, a google search on his "unusual" name shows this the search even leads to third-party journals and magazines where he's featured, i say the article should be kept but it should be updated. Tenuta134 00:13, 21 August 2015
 * Comment. Tenuta134's "Keep", immediately above, was struck out in this unexplained edit by an IP. -- Hoary (talk) 23:19, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — ☮ JAaron95  Talk  13:28, 19 August 2015 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep There is numerous references to museum shows, an ISBN for at least one of the books found through google and numerous other links. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.51.150.177 (talk) 22:36, 20 August 2015 (UTC)   Sock vote struck. T. Canens (talk) 23:17, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep Phil America is a well known artist who has shown artworks all over the world. He exhibited at the museum I worked at. Can be seen with a simple Google serach. Shelly200mirrors 06:31, 22 August 2015
 * Keep He has held two TED talks.-- Eat me, I'm a red bean (discuss)(contribs) 13:40, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, T. Canens (talk) 23:09, 26 August 2015 (UTC) *Probable delete as I pointed out above, searches on his unusual name are unpersuasive, although if you look far enough down the search some articles in reliable sources do come up. I just don't have time right now to read them all and render a firm opinion.E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:02, 31 August 2015 (UTC) Reexamined, still voting DELETE, see belowE.M.Gregory (talk) 15:10, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete - WP:GNG requires non-trivial third-party coverage, and it's not there. A TED talk is by its very nature not third-party, and plenty of people do them - it's not just Steve Jobs-level people, and it's gotten so big they do "independent" TEDx talks now.  I can find a talk on Youtube, but nobody talking about the talk, and one of them, according to PA's Facebook, was a TEDx talk, so to claim two is inaccurate.  The sizes of his exhibitions aren't ascertainable, nor is the notability of where he exhibited.  He doesn't meet WP:ARTIST.  His articles (and what I assume are exhibition books) are all considered self-published works and on indie press; they're not in major magazines, and there are no reviews of his work.  His GHits from the search cited above are, in order: official site, WP, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, the TEDx on Youtube, Vimeo, etc.  Hit #10 is a Guardian article, followed by a photo blog, another personal page, 2 Linkedins, and another Youtube of the TEDx talk. He exists, but he's not verifiable as notable. MSJapan (talk) 18:49, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete just like the GNG, an artist who has been around and is notable is going to have some combination of published third-party reviews, exhibition announcements, critical essays, and perhaps a few appearances in books. Aside from the Guardian article on his Thai slum project (which actually disparages his work as being far less notable than that of Santiago Sierra), I find very few of these. Third party sources are easy to find for notable artists. Sources for Phil America are not. New Media Theorist (talk) 22:36, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Comments. What a wretched article. It at first appears to have have lots of references, but they're a mess. A lot of the URLs look very fishy. I tried a few. Some actually showed something useful; some did not. Imaginably enough is actually sourced for an article to be merited. (Incidentally, the fact that the opinionated Jonathan Jones didn't like what PA was doing doesn't affect PA's [Wikipedia-style] notability, if I understand the latter. For Wikipedia, any publicity is good publicity.) If any or all of Tenuta134, Shelly200mirrors and Eat me, I'm a red bean think that an article really is merited, they might make a convincing start of converting it from the mess that it is now into something solid. (Don't know what to do? Here's inspiration for you.) I'd then "!vote" to "keep" the result. &para; MSJapan says: His GHits from the search cited above are, in order [...]. Uh-huh. One thing that should not affect the notability of Mr America is any awfulness of Google, particularly when the species of awfulness is likely to vary with one's particular "bubble". What matters is what good sources exist, not how much junk one must boredly go through in order to find these good sources. &para; E.M.Gregory, are you saying roughly what I'm saying? I can't work out whether "probable delete" means "this will probably end up deleted", "this should probably end up deleted", "if I knew more I'd probably want this deleted but till then I don't", or something else. -- Hoary (talk) 09:19, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete Thanks User:Hoary for reminding me to come back. When several editors insist there's something there, I feel like I ought to take a careful look. Searches on his name showed flickers of possibility like the Guardian that made me think there might be more out there.  I've now just spent a few minutes looking.  Phil America's slum stunt  makes this a sort of WP:BLP1E of the art world.  "Slum Vacation", the only Phil America accomplishment for which I find secondary sources, was a performance art stunt: he built a shack in a Thai slum and lived in it for 2 weeks, then took it apart and put it on display at the University of Bangkok.   This  got him dismissive coverage in The Guardian as an example of a failed attempt by an artist to be relevant to the conversation about poverty, and an article in the Bangkok Post that none of us can access (past the first 3 paragraphs).  He posted the project on his facebook page, and a handful of apparently non-notable blogs and websites ran photos.  That's all I can find, and it's not enough.E.M.Gregory (talk) 10:29, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Reply - just FYI, since you changed your vote and this is the one you want to count, you should go back above and add the tags around the other one so the reviewer knows which one to count. MSJapan (talk) 16:03, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the clarification, E.M.Gregory. The more I look at this article, the worse it seems. A humdrum example: "In 2014 Phil helped organize and took part in Freedumb, the first art show to be shown on all continents within 3 days." (Attributed to http://publicdelivery.org/freedumb/ .) Amazing that they got the show up and running in Antarctica so quickly! Except that of course they didn't: not "all" continents but six, and the source says nothing about this being the first time that even this had been done. I just now fixed that. Personally I've had quite enough of this sorry article; but I notice that Lopifalko has been doing a lot of work to it, and await his comment here before "!voting" myself. -- Hoary (talk) 22:53, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It truly is a beast of an AFD. I would like to see some coverage in edited publications (not blogs, unless they are notable blogs).  On the other hand, that exhibition list is starting to persuade me.  Not Zurich - Zurich practically throws money at artists to show in its myriad art spaces and an artist living there as America was could fairly easily talk his way into getting a show.  But he really did do a mixed media gig at MoMA.  On the other hand, New York teems with small publication that pay intense attention to exhibitions, and the MoMA exhibit is sourced only to MoMa's own website.  I'm a big fan of WP:HEYMANN, so I'm writing this to cheer User:Lopifalko on.  Flag me if anything changes.E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:55, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment MOMA, as in the big museum? Sadly, E.M.Gregory, I looked it up and, as it says here, the exhibition was in some kind of education centre, which turns out to be the MOMA research library. Sounds like the MOMA, but a show in the library is very different from a curated show in the gallery. I think this a telling example of the, ahem, inflation that has us looking so closely at the claims and notability. New Media Theorist (talk) 02:22, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I should have made that clear. A "real" MoMA show would have changed my vote in a heartbeat.  My point was that he did get a moment at MoMA, and even that moment in the library or wherever it was is something of pretty big deal.  But it was a couple of years ago. Nobody wrote it up.  It does not appear to have been any kind of breakthrough for him. The other listed exhibitions are far less persuasive. I try to look closely at artists AFDs that show some indication of notability.  But about the best I can find here is the possibility that it's just WP:TOOSOON.E.M.Gregory (talk) 10:10, 2 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Update: Lopifalko is doing an excellent job, but I fear that the irritation is getting to him. Understandably so. -- Hoary (talk) 14:29, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment: Thank you for the motivating comments folks. I've whittled down this huge cloud of hot air, into its few constituent parts, so we can best see what this person's achievements amount to. I feel there could be a reason to keep this article at the end of all this, but it would be on thin ice. I'm as yet undecided, haven't weighed it against WP:NOTABILITY yet. Lots of the achievements are based on his photographs of other peoples' graffiti, in publications focused upon the graffiti and not the photographer. And then there is his video-based work, where video is a less onerous medium to incorporate into a space than other media. And he has had installations, which I've not given much thought to yet - I would still like to whittle away at his solo exhibitions to see what they amount to. The MoMA show, which has been mentioned here, comes down to very little. It's disheartening to see how an artist bio fluffs up their career, employs smoke and mirrors, and it take enormous scrutiny from an interested observer to decipher what has actually happened - a lot lot less than what has been inferred. The obfuscation work itself feels like a work of art. -Lopifalko (talk)
 * User:Lopifalko's detailed examination (and highly informed deeflation) of this article's claims is nothing short of heroic.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:12, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you E.M.Gregory, most humbly. -Lopifalko (talk)
 * Comment I took a shot at improving it, and was able to find one new ref for the show in London. The gallery that is promoting his work (Public Delivery) has some decent artists on their roster.I was actually thinking about changing my vote, until I started editing the biographical details. The name "Phil America" is a stage name/artist name, and its ref was his own site. A whole lot of unsourced self-promotion going on. New Media Theorist (talk) 17:36, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Public Delivery have a page for everything he does (and a list of exhibitions here with locations that appear to differ from the locations he desceribes them having been at on his own site here). They seem to be organising a lot of his exhibitions, rather than merely promoting them (or is this what New Media Theorist means, I'm not fully understanding). I don't yet trust using them as a ref for anything. -Lopifalko (talk)
 * Lopifalko, Public Delivery seems genuine to me. They have a few artists whose names I recognized-- Erwin Wurm really cements some notability for them. Although maybe they just exchanged mail correspondence one day and now they're "collaborators". I agree with what you say about "smoke and mirrors above." Regarding the MoMA show, it seems that it might have been just a "free exchange" show where anyone could submit.  It was in the mezzanine of the MoMA library. See note #2 in the article. Yet another inflated ref, it would appear.  One thing I did add to the article introduction is that he's an "activist", a term which seems to define many of his projects. New Media Theorist (talk) 18:02, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Lopifalko you explained it perfectly when you say "it take enormous scrutiny from an interested observer to decipher what has actually happened - a lot lot less than what has been inferred. The obfuscation work itself feels like a work of art". E.G. I just discovered that Public Delivery is run by Martin Schulze, who is a collaborator on many of Phil's other projects. Keeping my Delete vote and stopping any further work on this! New Media Theorist (talk) 19:58, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * LOL. User:New Media Theorist You have my deep and sincere sympathies, as someone who revisited this article half a dozen times, just double-checking PhilAmerica's smoke-and-mirrors page to see if there was something to see. Just one last Question - Do you thing the whole Wikipedia article thing was another PhilAmerican piece of performance art?E.M.Gregory (talk) 01:35, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * E.M.Gregory, I think Lopifalko deserves all the credit for figuring this one out and stating it so succinctly above. What he says about the way some artists operate is really interesting. In the real world, it's a valid way to make a living; here, it's not a valid way to present yourself. In answer to your question, the Stage name Phil America is a performance of an imagined artistic persona... New Media Theorist (talk) 05:15, 3 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete: as per @New Media Theorist, to wit: "whole lot of unsourced self-promotion". Quis separabit?  17:52, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment Given the deconstruction that has gone on here, is there a Wikipedia criteria for keeping an article based on it providing a clearer picture of an almost notable person than is available to interested readers anywhere else?! -Lopifalko (talk)
 * Comment. Lopifalko, you deserve some Quixotic barmystar or similar. (Another for New Media Theorist, for all this.) The amount of work you've done on this (non-) article, no wonder it's got your mind, um, whittling clouds so that they may rest on thin ice. I took another look at the article today, particularly on the man's solo exhibition "Journey of Voices" ... which turned out not to have been solo. (NB neither this nor any other exhibition was previously billed as "solo". Just "selected".) There really doesn't seem to be much left. Perhaps this is an "emerging" artist; if so, my comment is, as always: "Let's wait till the emergence has already occurred." Until then, somebody thinking that the biographee merits an article (Tenuta134? Shelly200mirrors? Eat me, I'm a red bean?) would be free to work on a draft, augmenting it with disinterestedly sourced material. -- Hoary (talk) 23:13, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Hear. Hear. I think we can close this now on  a delete consensus.E.M.Gregory (talk) 01:35, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hoary for all this decent editing attention. -Lopifalko (talk)


 * Delete Too soon -Lopifalko (talk)
 * Delete per Lopifalko. There's something to the biographee, who could well be "emerging". If this is closed as delete (as seems likely), and if more material about the biographee comes to be published, then somebody wanting to revive an article should of course ask whoever has closed this AfD. But one tip: Work from the latest version of the deleted article, which may be far shorter than the latest before the AfD notice was slapped on but is far better (with a far higher percentage of references that actually say what the article implies that they say, etc). -- Hoary (talk) 06:04, 3 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.