Friday, November 12, 2010

"Intersections Fence Project." Puplic Art In the Downtown East Side

.








I have been working on a public art project with my friend and esteemed colleague, James Koester in the DTES. It's a show of paintings of local artists. James has been working with Intersections media to produce this show. Plans are still in flux but it looks like the paintings will be displayed as a perimeter installation on the fence of the Intersections parking lot, like the banner of James' blog of the project.

James is designing managing and curating the project which is a much bigger job than you might imagine. Some of the artists have been chosen by Intersections and some by James. Intersections will be producing a short video of the project. My contribution to the effort has been the making the metal frames for the project and the installation which will happen in early December.

Of what I've seen so far, the paintings have a quality not seen in a lot of public art. Refreshing. It reminds me of a quote attributed to Candido Portinari who when asked for his position on social realism he replied "All I know is this; art is art or it's shit." We can thank James for his integrity on that score. He has gone out of his way to create an artist centered community based exhibit of exceptional quality.

Here is another teaser of one of the pieces:







A must see show in the making...