Americans for the Arts

May 14, 2010

On May Day, I watched for the first time the high energy starting ceremony of the American Visionary Art Museum’s 2010 Kinetic Sculpture Race. The teams that work for months to create outlandish amphibious vessels are known as much for their quirky themes and costumes as they are for their uncanny endurance skills. The community-based event is just one example of Baltimore’s interest in ephemeral public art. Contemporary art enters urban space in other ways, too—during the Transmodern Festival (April), the Evergreen Sculpture series (May) and Baltimore’s three-day Artscape festival (July) that features a midway with DIY artists’ projects.

MAP (Maryland Art Place)—the state’s oldest nonprofit contemporary art center—is only a 10-minute walk from the 2010 AFTA conference site. We’d like for the world to take note of Baltimore’s contemporary art scene. That’s why we’re launching a series of public art initiatives, beginning this summer with our first-ever project outside MAP’s galleries. At 6pm on June 23, MAP presents Everybody Suz-ercise! with Miami-based artist Susan Lee-Chun and a team of Suz-ercisers for the PAN Pre-Conference opening event.

The performance begins on the plaza at Market Place, just outside the doors of MAP, and proceeds to the edge of the Harbor where high mode team will finesse a choreographed routine on the green space across from the Aquarium. You can check out the faux fitness program created by The Suz @ www.TheSuzItsFauxReal.com.

The packet arrived along with the password. 390 applications of public art completed in 2009. And Fred Wilson and I are supposed to co-jury the 40 best?

So many efforts to compare and rank: a no-budget, ephemeral painted snowscape and a million-plus permanent plaza of granite and bronze. A 5-hour, 30-artist free public cabaret and a 6-part suspended wood sculpture donated by its creator.

Time and performance versus place and design? Repeated enjoyment vs. remarkable moment? Is it a greater achievement to create new architectural spaces or reinvigorate depleted historical sites? And sculptures that are reconstituted in diverse sites – are they really new in 2009 or newly contextualized existing works?

If there is any trend in the 2010 jurying for YIR it is that public art has succeeded, wildly.