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River Grass Skirts
April 13, 2009
Spring Season
NEW YORK - Debra Simon, Artistic Director of arts > World Financial Center knows well that her arts programming grows on people and has documented the crowds to prove it, but this is the first time that a site-specific public art project actually grows and will eventually be worn by someone! For a month, five copper armatures will support an indigenous, Hudson River water front grass growing in the shape of skirts.
The exhibition, entitled River Grass Skirts, consists of five grass-sprouting skirts by site-specific artist Michele Brody that will be on display and growing in the World Financial Center Winter Garden, 220 Vesey Street April 13 through May 9. It's free.
Presented by arts>World Financial Center in partnership with Earth Celebrations, their artist-in-residence Ms. Brody creates five living, lace garments. Each garment hangs from skirt-shaped armatures made from recycled copper piping on which grow a grass indigenous to the Hudson River water front, Native Purple Love.
By interweaving manmade, natural and living materials, Ms. Brody creates an experience where viewers develop a new awareness of the tenuous relationship between themselves, nature and the urban environment.
On Saturday, May 9, the skirts will be worn and featured in Earth Celebrations' Hudson River Pageant, an ecological parade and performance art event to raise awareness for the restoration of the Hudson River and address climate change in New York City.
Brooklyn-born artist Michele Brody creates site-specific, mixed media installations and works of public art that are generated by the history, culture, environment, and architecture of a wide range of exhibition spaces. While living and working in such places as France, Costa Rica, California, the Midwest, Germany, and her home New York, her art career has developed into a process of working in collaboration with each new community as a means towards developing an interpretation of the sense of a place as an outsider looking in.
In 2006, Ms. Brody completed two major permanent public art installations in The Bronx: a series of faceted glass windscreens for an elevated train platform and a hand painted tile mural for a new public school. She has also installed a uniquely designed manhole cover in the sidewalk of Wall Street in commemoration of the Assay Office that once stood at 30 Wall Street.
Ms. Brody has had one-person shows at the Temple Judea Museum in Elkins Park, PA, Chashama, in NYC, Littlejohn Contemporary in NYC, Dina4 Projekte in Munich, Germany, the Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporaneo in San Jose, Costa Rica, and at Le Quai de la Batterie, Atelier-galerie d'Art Contemporain in Arras, France. She has been the recipient of grants from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Lower Manhatta Cultural Council, Pollock/ Krasner Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, and New York State Council on the Arts' Architecture, Planning & Design Program; and, residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and at Marywood University.
"For over two decades, we've presented exceptional music, art, theater and film in the World Financial Center Winter Garden, making it the center of the downtown arts scene," said Debra Simon, Artistic Director of Arts World Financial Center.
Earth Celebrations was founded in 1991 by theatrical pageant director, Felicia Young, dedicated to fostering ecological awareness and reviving the arts at the center of community life. Earth Celebrations' innovative environmental and arts programs include: theatrical pageants, exhibitions, performances, art and ecology/puppet and costume workshops, internships, artist residencies, and partnerships with schools, community centers, and gardens. For 15 years Earth Celebrations produced the popular Rites of Spring: Procession to Save Our Gardens on the Lower East Side, which engaged over 5,000 participants annually, and led to the preservation of many of the community gardens on the Lower East Side and throughout New York City.
Arts World Financial Center is sponsored by American Express, Battery Park City Authority, Brookfield Properties and Merrill Lynch.
Admission is free for all events. For information, call (212) 945-0505 or click www.artsworldfinancialcenter.com.
04/13/09 -30-
Michele Brody
River Grass Skirts
A Site-specific Public Art Project
World Financial Center Winter Garden, 220 Vesey Street
April 12 through May 9, 7:00am to 11:00pm
On Saturday, May 9, in conjunction with Earth Day 2009, the fully-grown grass skirts will be harvested and worn a group of dancers during Earth Celebrations' Hudson River Pageant
www.artsworldfinancialcenter.com (212) 945-0505
FREE
The Bruce Cohen Group, Ltd.
Contact: Bruce Cohen 212 580 9548
brucohen@pipeline.com
April 13, 2009
Spring Season
NEW YORK - Debra Simon, Artistic Director of arts > World Financial Center knows well that her arts programming grows on people and has documented the crowds to prove it, but this is the first time that a site-specific public art project actually grows and will eventually be worn by someone! For a month, five copper armatures will support an indigenous, Hudson River water front grass growing in the shape of skirts.
The exhibition, entitled River Grass Skirts, consists of five grass-sprouting skirts by site-specific artist Michele Brody that will be on display and growing in the World Financial Center Winter Garden, 220 Vesey Street April 13 through May 9. It's free.
Presented by arts>World Financial Center in partnership with Earth Celebrations, their artist-in-residence Ms. Brody creates five living, lace garments. Each garment hangs from skirt-shaped armatures made from recycled copper piping on which grow a grass indigenous to the Hudson River water front, Native Purple Love.
By interweaving manmade, natural and living materials, Ms. Brody creates an experience where viewers develop a new awareness of the tenuous relationship between themselves, nature and the urban environment.
On Saturday, May 9, the skirts will be worn and featured in Earth Celebrations' Hudson River Pageant, an ecological parade and performance art event to raise awareness for the restoration of the Hudson River and address climate change in New York City.
Brooklyn-born artist Michele Brody creates site-specific, mixed media installations and works of public art that are generated by the history, culture, environment, and architecture of a wide range of exhibition spaces. While living and working in such places as France, Costa Rica, California, the Midwest, Germany, and her home New York, her art career has developed into a process of working in collaboration with each new community as a means towards developing an interpretation of the sense of a place as an outsider looking in.
In 2006, Ms. Brody completed two major permanent public art installations in The Bronx: a series of faceted glass windscreens for an elevated train platform and a hand painted tile mural for a new public school. She has also installed a uniquely designed manhole cover in the sidewalk of Wall Street in commemoration of the Assay Office that once stood at 30 Wall Street.
Ms. Brody has had one-person shows at the Temple Judea Museum in Elkins Park, PA, Chashama, in NYC, Littlejohn Contemporary in NYC, Dina4 Projekte in Munich, Germany, the Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporaneo in San Jose, Costa Rica, and at Le Quai de la Batterie, Atelier-galerie d'Art Contemporain in Arras, France. She has been the recipient of grants from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Lower Manhatta Cultural Council, Pollock/ Krasner Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, and New York State Council on the Arts' Architecture, Planning & Design Program; and, residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and at Marywood University.
"For over two decades, we've presented exceptional music, art, theater and film in the World Financial Center Winter Garden, making it the center of the downtown arts scene," said Debra Simon, Artistic Director of Arts World Financial Center.
Earth Celebrations
© 2009 World Financial Center.
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