For Immediate Release
Two Public Art Projects Announced-- Rachel Hayes and Nina Bovasso Kickoff Re:Construction 2009
BravinLee programs is pleased to have been selected as consultants to the Downtown Alliance for their
Re: Construction program. This initiative channels the energy of Downtown's rebuilding process by recasting construction sites as canvasses for innovative public art and architecture. Each project uses standard construction barriers for artistic installations, embracing the ongoing nature of Downtown's redevelopment. The program will run for three years, and is funded through a grant from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which is funded through Community Development Block Grants from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
This summer BravinLee programs will present Rachel Hayes and Nina Bovasso on two different construction sites in Lower Manhattan.
In mid August, Rachel Hayes will install Rainbow Conversation at the Louise Nevelson Plaza construction site, part the of New York City Department of Design and Construction's Liberty Street reconstruction project, located at the corner of William Street and Maiden Lane. In Rainbow Conversation, Sculptor Rachel Hayes creates spectacular experiences of color and motion in an area that might otherwise be overlooked or avoided. Strips of opaque and sheer fabrics and vinyl have been sewed into striped panels. These materials are not only objects with boundless properties for manipulation, but also historical signifiers of gender, fashion, decoration and gesture. Hayes' installation will transform the 41 aluminum fences that surround the construction zone into a sensual and vibrant experience, building experimental multihued landscapes with line and light. Some of the pieces will flutter in the wind so that one will see both movement and color from either end of the Plaza, beckoning the viewer to move around it. Hayes is interested in the deep conversation going on behind the fence, consisting of mostly grueling and heavy activity, engineered with giant machines. Rainbow Conversation has been just as carefully engineered as the construction going on behind it: Each piece was meticulously hand-sewn, and incorporates not only Hayes' own physical labor, but also that of family and friends, including both her mother and mother-in-law. According to Hayes, "It is almost as if my work doesn't care what is going on behind it, yet I am responding to the construction site, offering sheer windows to peep through and witness the hard work of others. It is quite interesting that all this construction surrounds Louise Nevelson's 'Shadows and Flags', 1978, a powerful sculpture by an important woman artist. It is almost cyclical."
Rachel Hayes hails from Kansas City and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. She earned a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has had solo exhibitions at Shaw Center for the Arts, Baton Rouge, Solvent Space, Richmond, VA, LAB Gallery, NY and Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, NM. Group exhibitions include the Sculpture Center, NY, Kansas City Jewish Museum, Grand Arts, Kansas City, and Fakespace LA. Awards and Residencies include Sculpture Space Residency, Art Omi International Residency, Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship in Sculpture. Most recently she was awarded the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Memorial Fellowship in Sculpture and will have a solo show 2010 in Cornish, NH.
Project management for Rainbow Conversation: Eric Sall
In mid August, 400 feet of concrete jersey barrier at the southern end of Hudson River park on West Street just north of Chambers Street will be transformed into a lush, wild landscape with Nina Bovasso's Botanizing on the Asphalt. Run by Hudson River Park Trust, the new park construction is encompassed within the concrete barriers, where Bovasso's signature flowers and dense colorful imagery will be installed. Bovasso renders intense and euphoric explosions of color and form. Employing a strategy of layering and accumulating the most basic marks - a dot, a line, color, shape and surface texture, Nina Bovasso creates works where design and pattern seem to run amok. Her work achieves harmony through "everything happening at once". The compulsive doodle is elevated to heroic proportions. This project takes the shape of an ongoing linear field and is inspired by how vegetative growth pops up at random in urban environments. The Hudson River serves as a spectacular backdrop to the installation. The 400' work is printed on a 3M graphic film that adheres to textured surfaces.
Nina Bovasso is a born and bred New York City artist who is currently living and working in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. After receiving her BFA in painting from The San Francisco Art Institute, she attended the Skowhegan school for art, and went on to do her masters degree at Bard College. She has had recent solo shows at The University of Georgia; The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, Georgia; Inman Gallery, Houston, Texas; BravinLee progams, NYC; and Galeria Casada Santapau, Madrid, Spain. Bovasso's work can be found in the collections of: Collection KPN, Netherlands; The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; JP Morgan/Chase Bank, New York, NY; and Princeton University Museum of Art, Princeton, NJ, among others. Her work has also been reviewed in ArtForum, The New York Times, The Village Voice, TimeOut NY and Art in America. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim memorial foundation, and grants from The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation and The Pollack- Krasner Foundation.
Production design for Botanizing on the Asphalt: Lauren van Haaften-Schick
The Downtown Alliance: The mission of the Alliance for Downtown New York is to be the principal organization that provides Lower Manhattan's historic financial district with a premier physical and economic environment, advocates for businesses and property owners and promotes the area as a world-class destination for companies, workers, residents and visitors. The Downtown Alliance manages the Downtown-Lower Manhattan Business Improvement District (BID), serving an area roughly from City Hall to the Battery, from the East River to West Street.
The Downtown Alliance is striving to make Lower Manhattan a wonderful place to live, work and play by creating a vibrant multi-use neighborhood where businesses can prosper and the residential community can flourish.
BravinLee programs is a contemporary art gallery specializing in works on paper, artist book projects and public art installations. In 2006 they curated and produced Studio in the Park, 11 art installations in NYC's Riverside Park (catalog available).
For more information and images, contact Karin Bravin, BravinLee programs 917-885-2047 or Karin@bravinlee.com
526 West 26th Street, Suite 211
New York, New York 10001
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