Turning the Place Over

Check out the video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBXwA0gcBm4&feature=related

Turning the Place Over is an adventurous architectural piece by UK artist Richard Wilson. A "radical intervention into architecture" Wilson turned a building in Liverpool’s city center literally inside out. It runs in daylight hours, triggered by a light sensor. Turning the Place Over consists of an 8 meter diameter ovoid cut from the facade of the empty Yatess Winery building in the Liverpool city center and was made to oscillate in three dimensions. The revolving facade rests on a specially designed giant rotatory, usually used in the shipping and nuclear industries, and acts as a huge opening and closing ‘window’, offering recurrent glimpses of the interior during its constant cycle.

Fort Worth Extraordinaire!

Today was the day that the first of 6, 35 foot sculptures were raised and lowered into a permenent base. The sculptures have been sitting in their crates alongside Lancaster for a month or so now. This is a high profile commission for Fort Worth, artist Cliff Garten, a California based artist who has been tapped to do similiar pieces for such cities as New York, Sacremento and Long Beach is the artist behind the giant stainless steel sculptures. Dubbed "The Lancaster Avenue of Light", the pieces also feature lighting components as well which will illuminate the road each and every night.

Helmick + Schechter

Helmick + Schecter are two sculptors who tend to collaborate together on large public art projects and these are two of my favorite examples of their work. The second piece is actually a large time piece and map. I was drawn to their work after reading a mailout promo they sent after completing a piece titled 'Exquisite Corpse' which was comissioned for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. It outlined their exact intent, the materials they used and why as well as background on the location. I really like that after completing a piece the pair do fairly extensive written explanations detailing the project. http://www.handsart.net/ this is their site, go and check out their work!

Pictured above: 'Ghostwriter' commissioned for placement in the Evanston Public Library in IL

Pictured above 'Latitude' as installed at Captial Community College in Hartford, CT

Insane in the Membrane: Inter-Activated Public Art

Christopher Janney above "Circling" at DFW International Airport, below "Sonic Forest" as temporarily installed at the Bonnaroo Music Festival

Juame Plensa's "Crown Fountain" in Chicago pictured above and below. The large digital screen displays over 1000 different faces of fellow Chicagoens and combines new technology with the age old public fountain.

When most think of art it's almost always a given that art is not touched, just looked at. Most people, while taking in the elements of a piece, cannot feel them, hear them audibly or be physically affected by them...this is simply not the case anymore. As the art world begins to expand to include the great sweep of knowledge that technology has brought about a new level of public art is slowly but steadily being birthed. Believe it or not but us Texan's are on the cutting edge of this. The first two images were pieces by an artist, Christopher Janney, with a background in architecture, sculpture and music. He has recently been commissioned to design an interactive parking garage for downtown Fort Worth. Instead of using only one of his mediums he combines all three to create large scale public art pieces, which are interactive.

"Sonic Forest", the first image shown in this entry, was designed to be interactive with sound and light and has been featured in different locations with slight adjustments to the sound and light depending upon location. This piece is comprised of 25 eight foot columns, each outfitted with with four photo-sensors so that four people can interact with each column at once. There are also led lights and loudspeakers which are powered by JBL drivers. All in all the grid of columns looks like an electronic forest and as people pass between the 'trees' they explore the sonic forsest.

Janney is set to complete his parking garage within the next couple of years in Fort Worth, for now we know speakers will play 'sounds of fort worth' and as utilized by Janney in other pieces large, colored, transperent material will give off an ethereal quality as well as various other lighting inside the garage.

So what's the point you might say? Art with interactive qualities has the potential to win over a whole new crowd. A crowd who are quick to dismiss abstract/conceptual artistic themes may feel more a part of a piece than in a normal stand/look situation. The public as a whole may not necessarily understand the significance of minimalistic art but if the piece allows for interaction (i.e. motion triggered lights or sound) the viewer is more likely to leave feeling like they contributed to a work rather than simply gawk at it in confusion. When art is in the public realm it isn't just for the artistically educated, it is for everyone and so in a perfect world the public as a whole will enjoy their art. I think that interaction between viewer and piece is the perfect way to meet the masses half way on this.

Public Art: Not Just Bronze Sculptures

This is a new installation by glass artist David Keens, "Chroma Refraction", it is newly installed in the Northpark YMCA & Community Center in Fort Worth, TX



"Public art enriches the quality of daily visual experience, creating a sense of place and makes a city more attractive to visitors and residents. An investment in the urban environment, public art promotes civic pride by reflecting who we are..."

I wanted to start a blog for several reasons, one being that the longer I work for Fort Worth Public Art the more I learn about this new world. The Public Art realm is growing especially in most major cities. It is a relativley young field with roots. As put by Marc Pally "Public art, broadly defined, encompasses artwork placed in a public context--on the street, in a park, on the exterior of a building and so on."

The longer I work with FWPA the more I realize the need for public art, and so this blog while also a dumping ground for some of my thoughts, is a way to update my friends/aquaintances about public art, specifically on things going on in the D/FW area but also to inform on the importance of these programs within our society. Since Public Art was new to me, I don't want any of you to miss out on the exciting developments within this sector.

It's not all bronze sculptures! Fort Worth has been moving away from cliche cowboy and western themse as well the same old bronze sculpture for several years now.