Posts Tagged ‘New York’

Lee Mingwei

Friday, October 28th, 2011

Artist Lee Mingwei recently installed his latest participatory artwork, ‘The Moving Garden’, at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Located in the museum’s lobby, the piece includes a 45 ft. long table filled with roses. The purpose of the piece is simple, and yet really powerful. Mingwei asks that if you take a rose, you fulfill two missions. One is to take a detour on the way to your next destination and the second is to give the rose to a stranger along the way. I love projects that get visitors interacting, but also extend beyond the gallery walls.  Incorporating projects into the public realm is exciting and I see it is as a vastly untapped method for cultural institutions to reach new audiences and have an impact on their communities.  Lee Mingwei is new to me and browsing through the amazing projects on his website is inspirational – take some time to explore his work.

You can follow participants’ stories of giving and receiving through Twitter at #mygardengift.

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The Work Office

Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

The Work Office, located in NYC, was a temporary art project, “disguised as an employment agency.”  Organized by Katarina Jerinic and Naomi Miller, the project was inspired by the 1930’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) which employed thousands of people during the Depression.  Jerinic and Miller translated the idea of “making work” by setting up an art gallery/work center to hire local artists to complete certain tasks.

Challenges such as ‘giving a concert for your houseplant’ or ‘recording an oral history’ were issued weekly to utilize the artists’ skills while offering them a small wage.  For each completed task, artists were given a paycheck in line with Depression era salaries.  At the end of each week, the Work Office hosted Payday parties that served to issue checks and share the artwork produced by each challenge.

This is the best kind of community art project, one that spins and spreads to encompass a web of participants.  The project started in 2009 and ran again in 2010.  I hope they get funding to continue their work this year as well.

Artist Credits

Top Image: Sarah Nicole Phillips: Curbside Object Status Tag, Challenge: Document a Need for Repairs

Bottom image: Lori Nelson: Souvenirs of a Recession, Challenge: Record and Oral History

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