Saturday, June 9, 2007
The Neighborhoods Art Installations
“NEIGHBORHOODS: 2426 BRADISH PLACE” was a multidisciplinary installation, the third in a series, that took place in the gutted ground floor of the home of Michelle Levine and Clay Thomas on May 19th, 2007. Michelle is an artist who is currently rebuilding her house and studio in the Tulane/Gravier neighborhood. Through the use of interviews with neighbors, soundscapes, live music, drawing, photography, and sculpture, this event confronted the range of issues the community is experiencing as they revitalize this neighborhood.
Video of Neighborhoods:Tulane/Gravier
Click below to get a closer look at the artwork of Neighborhoods: Tulane/Gravier on YouTube. 4 min., 10 mb
2426 Bradish Place
Elizabeth Underwood
Tin can phones work. Pull the string taut enough and you can hear clearly, though it's like listening to a poem - elusive, intuitive. I made 75 of them and pulled them through the broken window pane where people used to do drug deals. Honoring the work Michelle and Clay are doing by renovating this house, inviting something new to be said, to be heard. The LED lights on magnets inside the tin cans are homemade, simple, gumdrops of pretty color - communication in and of itself is a bit of magic like that.
Robert Vicknair
Silhoutte drawings on asphalt felt were created
for each installation.The stark figure/ground compositions depict
iconic scenes of residents and buildings in each neighborhood.
Also,due to the lack of electricity at two sites,high
contrast imagery was necessary.
David Sullivan
The Falstaff brewery tower's glowing orb used to alert the neighborhood to weather conditions. My 10-foot high, cobbled-together tower, Falsestate, comments on the current conditions I see in the city.
Maxx Sizeler
This is what I asked of participants:
1) Please share your thoughts about buildings that do not exist anymore post Katrina. Negative or Positive or anything you want to say related to building(s) that have been destroyed since Katrina. The destruction can be either as a direct result of Katrina or in the time since, natural or man made destruction, any kind of destruction of buildings that has changed our city or anything you want to say on the subject.
2) Please post your cards on the Styrofoam panels.
3) After tonight your cards will become part of the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank web site that archives information of all kinds related to Katrina. This piece will be part of my show that I will be having at Barrister’s Gallery, New Orleans, in September 2007. Together, with your cards, other works from my show will be archived on the website under one heading.
To view the cards go to:
Hurricane Digital Memory Bank
Shannon Crane
Friday, June 8, 2007
video
Hurricane Party, by Courtney Egan, projection in downstairs window of 2426 Bradish Place
A reimagining of hurricane parties of yore when the tower blinked red and the orb loosens from its moorings.
Set Two: 2426 Bradish Place
Jonathan Traviesa
"The Delicate Situation of John McDonough"
New Orleans public education is at a crossroads. I see potential blossoming
and potential death.
Elizabeth Underwood
Robert Vicknair/Monica Zeringue
R:The plastic dress is a garment for an allegorical figure( see Delacroix,Greece On The Ruins Of Missolonghi).Satellite images of waterways, islands,and canals fill the bottom and back of the dress.A map of Tulane
/Gravier covers the stomach of the figure.
David Sullivan
The beast is made of plastic bags, odds and ends, and has tools for legs. It is on some sort of support - tubes run from gallon jugs of colored liquid into the beast's orifices. If you kick his balls, they light up garishly and strobe for a few seconds. It's a pitiful sight.
Valerie Massimi / Victor and Juliet
Playground - A place for Weeds and Thistles
Wild plants are riding this sculpture like the Merry-Go-Round in the park. We like the flowering weeds and thistles but feel that it is strange to see them overtaking so many places.
Set Three: 2426 Bradish Place; Audio: Interviews w/ Bert and Freddie
Clay Thomas
Pat Cronin
Taboogaloo
I was flying with dogs and crows in there.
David Sullivan
Jonathan Traviesa
"Gravier Gentlemen"
AUDIO: Interviews w/
Bert
Freddie
These are the folks from the neighborhood. Their stories and environments
are crucial in grounding the whole event to the area.
photos Jonathan Traviesa
interviews Victor & Juliet
edited sound Spartie Tucker
Jonathan Traviesa and Robert Vicknair
"Floodscape #1: Green Van and Fallen Tree with Party Lights and Bounce
Music"
An endearingly gorgeous, profound, and tragic floodscape as viewed from the top porch. Compelled by
the frozen energy of the scene, it only needed simple lighting and local bounce beats to unlock its potential.
Valerie Massimi (detail)
Set Five: 2426 Bradish Place
Jonathan Traviesa
"WATER! WAVER!"
This piece highlights how big hopes/needs produce nervous, teetering
effects.
Valerie Massimi
Michelle Levine
Maxx Sizeler (detail)
Elizabeth Underwood
(detail)
Everything exhibited on the interior table as artifact was found on-site. Like a garage of tools a gnome might use - tongue depressors, plastic knives, bits of broken china - obsessively ordered, following some strange but evident system. This is one way to make what we can with what we find, and it's fun, here in the post-apocalypse.
All photos by Jonathan Traviesa
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