The Business of Art

This is another show application I have been working on.  This weekend has been full of what I like to call "the business of being an artist": writing show and residency proposals, choosing images of my work so send with my application (my least favorite part) and waiting for outside resources to arrive (such as tax forms and letters of recommendation).  It is such a constant low-grade tension that I hardly notice it (and it kind of keeps up my momentum!) until I've sent off the applications and then, rather than huge relief, I feel like I just stepped off a cliff and am free falling until I catch myself on the next concrete endeavor... perhaps I should just let myself fall because I am pretty sure there is no bottom to hit...

Here is my proposal for my proposal for Vertical Gardens at Exit Art in New York:

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A New Layer

Joseph Campbell talked about how a culture's highest influence is evident in the tallest building of that time. Our tallest buildings are no longer churches or state buildings, but financial institutions. As financial institutions shiver in this economic recession, it seems there is room (and an ecological and humanitarian need) for a taller structure to be built; a new, non-destructive influence to come into itself.

A landscape built on top of a city: I propose a building concept that will focus our infinite ingenuity and resources to build green space on and around our financial institutions, as well as parking lots and other city structures. This green skin will be built in consideration with aesthetic harmony and function with what already exists. We can build spaces as big as fields and hills for grazing animals, farming, wind-power generators, solar panels, etc. or small enough for personal hanging and vertical gardens. Hills will connect buildings of different heights or different stories of the same building. A 20 acre field could exist on top of a few 60 story buildings. It will be a new layer and a new influence.

For the exhibition I will propose a compositional concept for this new layer. I will build a miniature landscape-like installation using almost all found and recycled materials. The structural assemblages (abstractions of the bones of our capitalist landscape) will be built out of modular items (sticks, straws, q-tips, random bits of plastic, etc). On and around that structure will be organic assemblages suggesting design potential for organic structure to co-exist with inorganic. The landscape will climb up the wall from floor to ceiling, extending in a multi-layered, web-like stretch. It will mix 2D and 3D elements-- wall drawing and sculpture; billboard-like elements and plants -- things we already work to find harmony with in our existing landscape. There will be three or four small lights (referencing the sun or unnatural lighting like car headlights) attached to motors and slowly moving, bringing the structure to life with changing highlights and shadows.

I hope to create a beautiful yet ghost-like memorial of what once lay below our cities, and suggest city and country as one conscious organism rather than the disconnected entities they seem to be now.

Good Night!!