BAM Cultural District Public Art Project
BAM’s visual art program—is pleased to announce the final selections for BAMart: Public, a year-long initiative aimed at enlivening the BAM campus and its surrounding district through the commission of four distinctive public artworks from emerging and established artists. The four artists chosen from more than 100 submissions worldwide are Glen Baldridge, Ed Purver, Timothy Hull and Future Expansion Architects, and Showpaper (with contributions by Adam Void & Gaia, Cassius Fouler & Faust, Leon Reid IV & Noah Sparkes, Ryan C. Doyle & Swoon, and UFO 907 & William Thomas Porter).
Each site-specific work utilizes a wide range of media and materials. The BAMart: Public curatorial committee chose works that offer new and stimulating ideas about how to introduce art into public spaces and engage those who visit and pass by on a daily basis. BAMart allotted four locations within the BAM Cultural District that feature either blank vertical scapes or open spaces:
230 Ashland Place (BAM Harvey Theater exterior wall)—Rising a few stories above the plaza at 230 Ashland Place is a large concrete wall that will host Ed Purver’s The Always Season, a hyperrealistic digital rendering of a blue sky with dollops of puffed clouds seen through a large “puncture” in the wall. Purver plays with notions of permeability and impermanence, while at the same time implying that even despite the impossibility of holding onto any moment, a connection is always available.
653 Fulton Street (The lot between BAM Harvey Theater and 230 Ashland Place)—Next to the Harvey Theater entrance sits a paved lot that will become home to The Accelerated Ruin, a monumental sculpture of three pyramid-like structures, designed by Timothy Hull and Future Expansion Architects. Constructed on a stepped plinth, the gentle peaks are formed with a biodegradable foam-like material manufactured by Ecovative Design and built over a delicate framework of aluminum rods. As the year progresses through the seasons the shapes will change, eroding to reveal the artwork’s skeleton and evoking themes of loss, memory, vulnerability, and transience. Its continuous and unpredictable devolution will deepen the relationship between the work and the regular passersby who will witness its entropic transformation in the course of their daily lives.
651 Fulton Street (BAM Harvey Theater exterior)—Glen Baldridge will install and reveal a street-side Sunset by applying a layer of perforated vinyl to the windows and façade of the Harvey Theater. Like a luminous skin, the mural evokes an internal energy source, resources for self-perpetuation, and the possibility that magical moments can happen where and when you least expect them. This project is presented in collaboration with 651 Arts.
Lafayette Avenue between and Ashland Place—While news boxes usually live a nondescript, utilitarian existence (ending up weathered and grimy), they remain valuable resources of information. In answer to the quotidian plastic or metal box, Showpaper, a free bi-weekly print-only publication that lists and promotes every all-ages show in the New York area, proposed a project titled Brooklyn Shelf Life. Here, five news boxes will be created by five pairs of artists (Adam Void & Gaia, Cassius Fouler & Faust, Leon Reid IV & Noah Sparkes, Ryan C. Doyle & Swoon, and UFO 907 & William Thomas Porter), curated by Andrew H. Shirley. They will be stocked with a revolving series of independent print publications curated by Jesse Hlebo of Swill Children, in collaboration with Showpaper and Printed Matter. Prototypes display a range of approaches, from melted and surreal to folkloric to ancient and tribal.
The BAM Cultural District is the vibrant multicultural area surrounding BAM, situated between Downtown Brooklyn and the historical residential neighborhood of Fort Greene. It attracts over 650,000 visitors and arts patrons every year and, with its rich arts community, is a nexus for the experimental and avant-garde. The district continues to grow as more theaters, music venues, and project spaces move into the area.
“Utilizing open space allows for BAM to support artists and to infuse more life and creativity into the community,” says David Harper, BAMart curator. “This project’s goal is to inspire the collective public imagination.”
Role: Commissioner/Curator
Date: June 19, 2012—May 2013
Location: BAM Cultural District, Brooklyn, NY
Artists: Glen Baldridge, Timothy Hull with Future Expansion Architects, Ed Purver, Showpaper (Adam Void & Gaia, Cassius Fouler & Faust, Leon Reid IV & Noah Sparkes, Ryan C. Doyle & Swoon, and UFO 907 & William Thomas Porter)
