And for the whole background ... from the EV Grieve inbox...
Centre-fuge Public Art Project is proud to present Cycle 2, the second installation of art on the rotating outdoor gallery at First Street and First Avenue.
In mid-2011 a drab, gray trailer, serving as a temporary office for workers on the 2nd Avenue subway line, popped up on the South side of First Street. For one year Centre-fuge Public Art Project transforms the trailer into a rotating street gallery. Up to seven artists at a time create work on all visible sides of the structure with the art changing every other month.
The goal of Centre-fuge is not only to re-beautify this incredible block, but also to encourage the community to express itself in a public forum. With the closure of half of Houston Street, making underground way for the 2nd Avenue Subway line, the ever-growing presence of construction makes the block feel less like a neighborhood full of individuals and more like a work site full of barricades and jackhammers. The project is dedicated in memory of friend, creator and Lower East Side neighbor, Mike Hamm.
Artists represented in Cycle 2 of Centre-fuge are Claw Money, Eiknarf, John P. Dessereau, Julius Klein, Kenny Rodriguez and Yuri Velez, with a collaborative piece by Mastro and Ben Angotti. Centre-fuge is brought to you by founders Pebbles Russell and Jonathan Neville.
And for more information and bios of the Cycle 2 artists, please go here.
BoweryBoogie had coverage...
Previously.
3 comments:
That's funny because the statements of Centre-fuge Public Art Project mimic the ideas of the Bloomberg Administration, Real Estate developers and all gentrifiers.
"To re-beautify this incredible block, but also to encourage the community to express itself in a public forum."
"Public forum": The Guggenheim Lab already offered that, as well as art. They gave people the opportunity to get together and talk about the changes in the neighborhood.
What they were really saying was:
We understand that you are mentally ill because of all of the changes in the neighborhood, changes that we have been analyzing for years now, and we would like to help you by offering you a forum to discuss your problems, and to tell stories, just to let it out a little, get it off your chest.
"the ever- growing presence of construction makes the block feel less like a neighborhood full of individuals and more like a work site full of barricades and jackhammers"
The neighborhood already is a construction site for a neighborhood full of animals.
People may find the images you create visually pleasurable but they function as propaganda for Bloomberg's vision.
Art is the easiest thing for developers to co-opt and PS beauty is everywhere.
Check out this post from November 30, 2011 on evgrieve. "The peaceful vibes of Avenue C and East 12th Street."
http://evgrieve.com/2012/03/centre-fuge-public-art-project-debuts.html
This is an interesting position to take on a project which has clearly been developed with nothing but pure joy for this neighborhood, the arts, the children who play in the playground next door to the trailer, and the broader New York City community.
We can either embrace the construction which is plaguing this city or we can turn those awful construction containers and the like into something that is at least tolerable for people to look, at live with, and be around.
Stop being a cynic, leave your house and actually talk to the people in this wonderful neighborhood and see what they have to say about the project on First Street.
p.s.
What does Bloomberg or the Guggenheim have to do with a construction trailer that a neighborhood group of people wanted to make beautiful, not gray and covered in human excrement?
I think it would be more consistent with the Bloomberg administration's agenda to erect luxury condos on top of the trailer. Community gardens beautify neighborhoods too, does that make them bad? Can there be any quibble with beautification that is not puerile or obtuse?
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