The Doors Project: Projecting Gateways onto Obstacles
The Doors Project. (Courtesy The Doors Project)
In an ongoing endeavor to blend public art, architecture, and urbanism by artists Siyuan and Hwee Chong, The Doors Project subversively projects a series of doors onto public spaces in Singapore, reflecting the struggles of the urban poor and underprivileged. But while commenting on despair, the real message is one of faith, hope and empowerment. “We wanted to make a statement about life, and jolt people to think,” the artists said in an interview at Yolo. “Instead of following the light at the end of the tunnel, why not carry our own lights, and create our own doors! It’s really about rolling up our sleeves, and creating the opportunities we want for ourselves.”
Yayoi Kusama Covers a Meatpacking District Scaffold With Dots
Yayoi Kusama’s dotted screen on scaffolding at 345Meatpacking serves a dual purpose. (Courtesy DDG)
We already knew that DDG Partners could pull together a classy “product,” as they say in real estate parlance. But now the group has upped the ante by teaming with Yayoi Kusama, the 83-year-old Japanese show-stopping pop artist. Kusama’s blockbuster at the Whitney has already spilled over into cross-marketing at Louis Vuitton with her ubiquitous dots climbing up the facade of their 57th Street Store. Downtown the artist’s Yellow Trees will sprawl across protective netting on construction scaffolding at DDGs 345meatpacking, the group’s new 14th Street project which could rival their comparatively quiet 41 Bond Street project. 345 promises to make a much splashier entrance, but with a hand laid Danish Kulumba brick facade, it could be Bond Street’s equal in craftsmanship. The public won’t see the results until September 30th, when the Kusama curtain will fall and the Kulumba will be revealed.
Festival Floats Hundreds of Umbrellas over the Streets of a Portuguese Town
Umbrellas float above Rua Luís de Camões in Águeda, Portugal. (Patricia Almeida/Flickr)
On any typical day, the pedestrianized Rua Luís de Camões in the small Portuguese town of Águeda is a charming place to experience the city, but this July, a cultural festival called AgitÁgueda (Stir Agueda) rolled out the green carpet, suspended hundreds of colorful umbrellas overhead, and invited residents to see the city in a whole new light.
Flock Houses Land in New York’s Public Spaces
A “Flock House” in DUMBO, Brooklyn. (Courtesy Mary Mattingly)
“What if mobile, self-sufficient living units were the building blocks for future cities?” asked New York artist Mary Mattingly. She explored this question in her Flock House Project, experimenting with migratory living solutions through fantastical inhabitable installation art. The project is going on throughout the city this summer.
Mattingly’s series of four “Houses” have been traveling around the five boroughs since June. Individually titled the Microsphere, Terrapod, Chromasphere, and Cacoon, they are now on display at the Bronx Museum, Snug Harbor, the Maiden Lane Exhibition Space, and Omi Sculpture Park in Ghent, NY.
A Spinning Piper Seneca Lands in Central Park
(Courtesy Public Art Fund)
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s actually a plane. On the corner of 60th Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan, a six-seat, twin-engine Piper Seneca aircraft balances on two vertical steel posts positioned at the end of its wings, playfully rotating on its own axis and likely confusing visitors to Central Park. After doing a double take on the surreal scene, find a plaque located nearby and you’ll learn that this mysterious aircraft is actually an installation by artist Paola Pivi, whose portfolio includes scenes of zebras on snowy mountaintops and arenas of screaming people. Working with the Public Art Fund, an organization dedicated to present artists’ work throughout New York City, Paola Pivi opened her newest installation featuring the Piper Seneca, How I Roll last Wednesday, June 20th.
Artists Reimagine Watertowers As Urban Light Catchers
(Robert Banat)
On the night of June 3rd, 2012, Tom Fruin’s newest sculptural artwork, Watertower, was installed on a rooftop near the Manhattan Bridge in DUMBO. The colorfully constructed Watertower features approximately a thousand pieces of foraged plexiglass mounted on a steel skeleton. The monumental patchwork of colored glass also includes an interior and exterior ladder and an operable roof hatch. The great amount of plexiglass used for the piece, which measures 25 feet in height and 10 feet in diameter, was collected all throughout New York City. The use of recycled materials is not new to Tom Fruin Studio, as Watertower is the fourth scavenged artwork of the “Icon” series dedicated to creating tributes to the world’s architectural and sculptural icons using reclaimed materials. Read More
Chicago Loop Alliance to Coat Sidewalks, Streets, & Buildings with Color
The promotional rendering for "Color Jam."
From May 29th through June 4th, sheets of vinyl will be layered over the intersection of State and Adams streets in Chicago’s Loop in a site specific installation entitled Color Jam. The public installation, commissioned by Chicago Loop Alliance through their Art Loop public art program, is the work of multimedia artist Jessica Stockholder. The exhibit will be an ongoing piece of public art, covering sidewalks, buildings. and the intersection itself with contextually abstract shapes and colors. The work will be on display from its “official” completion on June 5th through September 30th of this year.
Figment 2012 Livens Up Governors Island
Face of Liberty by Zaq Landsberg
Figment NYC is an annual celebration of arts and culture that takes place on Governors Island from June 9-10. Now in its sixth year, Figment provides New Yorkers with an interactive space to participate in the arts, with volunteer artists collaborating on works that transform the environment and the public’s perception. With visual art, music, performance, and installation works, the event will provide the community with a forum for emerging artists to engage with the public.
Public art enthusiasts, rejoice: An online project called Mural Locator is committed to map and catalog public murals around the world. MuralLocator.org has information on murals in 40 countries, although the U.S. accounts for the bulk of the data so far. Not surprisingly most are clustered in major urban areas. Philadelphia leads the pack, boasting 76 so far. Tags in Alva, Oklahoma and Ely, Nevada attest to the diversity of locales mapped by mural locator contributors. A typical user-submitted entry includes location data, artist information and an image of the work. But it’s the description and historical context that make this tool an asset. As the catalog grows, Mural Locator could serve as a digital museum for public art worldwide.
Jeff Koons Proposes Bringing Trains Back to the High Line
Courtesy Friends of the High Line
When preliminary designs for the third and final section of the High Line were revealed, the designers presented several options including flowerbeds and amphitheater seating for the Tenth Avenue Spur, an offshoot of the park that stands above the intersection of 10th Avenue and 30th Street. The design team’s aim is to make the Spur one of the main gathering spaces in the park. Now, with the proposal of a massive installation by artist Jeff Koons calling for a suspended locomotive over the park, the Spur may become exhibition space as well.
Gimme Shelter: Orlando-area bus stops get theme park treatment
An artsy bus stop in Orlando. (Photo: Raymond Martinot)
A series of sculptural bus stops will be installed throughout Orlando as part of an effort to bring art into the community. Entech Creative, a production engineering company, teamed up with Walter Geiger, of Walt Geiger Studios, to design and produce the “Cascade” series of shelter structures. Each bus stop has four to five uniquely shaped panels ranging from 15 to 16 feet high. Their form is suggestive of a waterfall, undulating to provide commuters with shade and shelter.
Artist Creates a Colorful Mosaic of 1,000 Doors in Seoul
South Korean artist Choi Jeong-Hwa's "Doors" installation. (Courtesy Choi Jeong-Hwa)
This surreal construct is one of the many public art projects by South Korean artist Choi Jeong-Hwa, whose love of found objects and anti-institutional approach to art is known internationally (he once hung strings of sparkling garbage around Seoul Olympic Stadium). The 10-story tall installation called Doors is comprised of 1,000 reused, brightly colored doors transformed into a rustic and visually indulgent object evoking a pixelated and painterly effect from afar, perhaps reminiscent of an abstract Klimt painting. Alternatively, the installation can also be read less glamorously as a mirror to Seoul’s increasingly ad-dominated cityscape where Doors resembles a jarring collection of ads to the point of irony. (Via Colossal.)
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