Altering the City: Video Landscape | Traces of Wind and Water

Artist: Georgie Friedman

Neighborhood: Uphams Corner

Medium: Video Installation

Time Frame: Thursday, October 13, 2016 - Monday, November 14, 2016

Description:

Traces of Wind and Water: This video installation is made up of three sections: one section visually replants large trees on the site, their swaying tops visible from the street below; another transforms the Strand into an architectural/natural waterfall with a constant flow; and in the third, wild grasses spring up and dance in the wind. The sections rotate throughout the night. To view the artist's full statement click here, or go to www.georgiefriedman.com.

On view nightly: October 13 - November 14, 2016 from dusk to 11pm.* Best seen near the intersection of Columbia Rd and Hancock St Approx. Address: 531 Columbia Rd, Dorchester, MA 02125.

MAY THIS NEVER END

Artist: Matthew Hoffman

Neighborhood: Downtown

Medium: Narrative Mural

Time Frame: Friday, January 8, 2016 - Friday, November 18, 2016

Description:

The Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy has commissioned a new temporary artwork by Chicago-based artist and designer Matthew Hoffman, a textual narrative titled MAY THIS NEVER END.

The 4-foot x 319-foot artwork, made of bright yellow high density polyethylene, reads: “Nothing’s for keeps. Except that we must keep going. You’ll spend your entire life searching, ok? We all want to belong. So let’s all get along. Make the most, and hope. May this never end.” 

The new work is located on The Greenway between North and Clinton streets near Faneuil Hall. A MassDOT-BRA planning process is collecting community feedback on the future of the site. The Greenway Conservancy has used the site for light-touch creative programming such as photo installations on the fence and in shipping container “galleries” in partnership with the Flash Forward Festival. 

Pop-Up: Franklin Park Art Grove

Artist: TBD

Neighborhood: Roxbury

Medium:

Time Frame: Saturday, August 8, 2015 - Monday, August 31, 2015

Description:

The is proud to announce the continuation of the Pop-Up series, celebrating temporary art in Boston's neighborhoods. Pop-Up: Franklin Park Art Grove will be sited in Franklin Park’s Wilderness Picnic Grove during the month of August 2015. This will be a three-tiered program that will include a selection of outdoor art interventions, public talks, and artist-led youth workshops. Pop-Up: Franklin Park Art Grove is a collaboration between The Boston Art Commission, the Franklin Park Coalition, the William Monroe Trotter Institute, and the Boston Parks and Recreation Department.

August 8-9 will be the opening weekend for the Art Grove- come enjoy a weekend of artwork, food trucks, performing arts, workshops, and music in the crown jewel of the Emerald Necklace. All events are free and open to the public. Families and youth are encouraged to attend.

Isles Arts Initiative

Artist:

Neighborhood: Boston Harbor Islands

Medium:

Time Frame: Saturday, July 11, 2015 - Monday, August 31, 2015

Description:

The Isles Arts Initiative is a summer long public art series on Georges, Spectacle islands and Boston Sculptors Gallery that will capture the intrinsic beauty of the 34 harbor islands.

Cove will transform Georges Island into an outdoor gallery, as eleven regional artists and collectives create site-responsive contemporary installations that will activate all 41.3 acres from the parade group to the dark tunnels and bastions, to the shoreline. Through Seen/Unseen, Spectacle Island will become a canvas for ephemeral experiences that ebb and flow like the tide as 5 miles of trails and 105 acres are activated by the sounds of regional musicians and talents of acclaimed performance artists from across the US. This weekend series will take visitors off their predictable paths and jolt them with a new awareness of their landscape. Back on land, art enthusiasts are encouraged to explore Boston Sculptors Gallery, in SoWa, where they will see works by 34 artists, each responding to one of the 34 harbor islands. Works include kinetic sculptures, prints, paintings and mixed media. Wall text from Chris Klein’s book, Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands will accompany each work, illuminating the unique histories of each island.

To learn more about the Isles Arts Initiative, and to see a schedule of events, click here.

Design Biennial Boston

Artist:

Neighborhood: Downtown

Medium:

Time Frame: Monday, June 1, 2015 - Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Description:

The 2015 Biennial will feature Cristina Parreño Alonso of Cristina Parreño Architecture, Cynthia Gunadi and Joel Lamere of GLD, Dan and Marie Law Adams of Landing Studio, and Michael Murphy and Alan Ricks of MASS Design Group. Mariana Ibañez and Simon Kim of IK Studio and Daniel Ibañez and Rodrigo Rubio of Margen-Lab received honorable mention awards this year for their contributions. The winning designers’ projects range from speculative visions to constructed interventions, including a monumental library in Slovenia, an installation in a stairway at MIT, the transformation of an industrial tank farm into a shared salt dock and public park in Chelsea, and a cholera treatment center with a wastewater purification facility in Port-au-Prince.  

The jury for the 2015 Biennial included curators Chris Grimley, Michael Kubo, and Mark Pasnik (pinkcomma gallery) along with Lucas Cowan (Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy), Eden Dutcher (GroundView), Michael Evans (Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics), Mary Fichtner (BSA Space), Karin Goodfellow (Boston Art Commission), Dan Hisel (Dan Hisel Architect/Wentworth Institute), Eric Höweler (Höweler + Yoon/Harvard University), Tim Love AIA (Utile/Northeastern University/2015 BSA President), and Ana Mijlacki (Project_/MIT).   The public installations will be on view from late June through mid-September.

To learn more about the Design Biennial Boston, please click here. 

Waves on Sea and Land

Artist: Mark J. Stock

Neighborhood: Downtown/ North End

Medium: Digital art installation

Time Frame: Thursday, March 5, 2015 - Monday, August 31, 2015

Description:

Waves on Sea and Land is a new generative art installation by Mark J. Stock, created for the Boston Harbor Islands Welcome Center located on Boston's Rose Kennedy Greenway. The Welcome Center functions as the information source for the Boston Harbor Islands national park area. Waves on Sea and Land is a simplified representation of two essential natural patterns prevalent on and around the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. In one mode, water waves ripple and move across the screens, their size and motion determined by current data polled from Harbor Island weather stations. In the other mode, tufts of beach grass sway in the wind, their motion dictated by simple physics calculations and driven by the same wind data. Both representations are purely monochromatic, directing focus on the motions themselves instead of their intermediaries.

The Harbor Islands are always in flux: wind and tides scour and deposit sand and sediment, shorelines move, while grasses and wildlife adapt to their dynamic environment. Waves on Sea and Land reflects these timeless yet ephemeral forces with a never-ending, never-repeating simulation of two patterns of motion etched into the memories of the islands' visitors. Waves on Sea and Land will play on the two screens of the Welcome Center 24/7 until Saturday, May 9, 2015 when the Welcome Center opens for the season. After May 9, the piece will play from dusk untilmidnight through August 2015.

ABOUT THE ARTIST- Mark J. Stock is an artist, scientist, and programmer who creates still and moving images combining elements of nature, physics, chaos, computation, and algorithm. His works explore the tension between the natural world and its simulated counterpart, and are generated with his own custom scientifically-accurate research software. He has been showing work since 2000 and has been in over 80 curated and juried exhibitions since 2001, including Ars Electronica, ASPECT Magazine, and seven SIGGRAPH Art Galleries. He has spoken at numerous scientific, graphics, and art conferences and workshops, and has published papers in a variety of fields. Mark completed his PhD in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan in 2006 and works out of his studio in Somerville, Massachusetts. He is represented in California by SENSE Fine Art.

ABOUT THE ART AT THE BOSTON HARBOR ISLAND WELCOME CENTER- Boston Cyberarts, the National Park Service and Boston Harbor Island Alliance have collaborated on an ongoing project to commission public algorithmic art for display on the LED screens at the Boston Harbor Island Pavilion on Boston's Rose Kennedy Greenway. Boston Cyberarts commissions algorithmic artists, asking them to write computer programs that will create real time generative art that will be constantly changing. This program ties into the innovative strengths of the Boston area, using digital art algorithms to heighten the interest in Boston Harbor's history and natural complex ecosystems.

ABOUT BOSTON CYBERARTS-Boston Cyberarts supports and encourages experimentation in the arts through exhibitions, events, educational programs and collaboration with like-minded groups in an effort to foster the development of new practices in contemporary art making. The Boston Cyberarts Gallery is located in the Green Street station on the MBTA's Orange line in Jamaica Plain. The gallery is the only art space located in a train station in the country, and also the only independent art organization in Massachusetts focusing on new and experimental media. Boston Cyberarts is grateful for the support of many generous individuals and institutions, including the National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, and the Boston Cultural Council.

Further information on Boston Cyberarts is available by visiting www.bostoncyberarts.org, calling  or emailing .

Color Crossing

Artist: Kate Gilbert with Halsey Burgund

Neighborhood: Downtown

Medium: mp3 Paint printed vinyl graphics & speakers

Time Frame: Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - Friday, October 31, 2014

Description:

If there was a time machine right here and you could get in it, would you go backward or forward?  Past or future?  That’s the question artist Kate Gilbert asked over 100 city dwellers, with their surprisingly heartfelt answers becoming the centerpiece of Color Crossing.  

This Downtown Crossing installation integrates an audio composition of the public’s responses to the past/future question with a site-specific mural and printed text-based graphics.  The combination delivers a provocative interpretation of a slice of society’s hopes and fears about the past and future while gently but clearly making a case for the here and now. 

A “portal to the present”, Color Crossing is part social commentary, part historical nod, and part design intervention.  The installation is in place through November, 2014 in Music Hall Place, 15-17 Winter Street in Downtown Crossing, Boston MA. 

Project concept, mural and graphics by Kate Gilbert; audio composition by Halsey Burgund. 

Color Crossing invites everyone to continue the conversation about the neighborhood’s past and future by visiting https://www.facebook.com/colorcrossing.

Color Crossing is supported by the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District with thanks to 3MJ Realty, The Druker Company and Boston Building Wraps.

For more information visit http://kategilbertstudio.com/color-crossing/

Stairs of Fabulousness

Artist: Liz LaManche

Neighborhood: Downtown

Medium: Tape

Time Frame: Monday, September 1, 2014 - Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Description:

Simple and colorful, the “rainbow stairs will make city hall 400% more fabulous,” according to the project proponent. Using non-skid tape, the stairs in the lobby area will be transformed by color. This is a small intervention into City Hall, using color as the medium and the existing bricks and concrete as the canvas.

Nine winners were announced in the Public Space Invitational, including "Stairs of Fabulousness." Awards were given in three categories: The Streetscape, Random Awesome Designs, and City Hall. The designs were chosen from a pool of 70+ submissions. These small-budget ways to creatively improve public space and infrastructure will be deployed in 2014 and 2015.

To see a video of the installation, click here.

Pop Up! Dudley Connections

Artist: Various artists

Neighborhood: Dudley Square

Medium: Multimedia

Time Frame: Friday, August 15, 2014 - Friday, September 19, 2014

Description:

Dear Boston: Messages from the Marathon Memorial

Artist:

Neighborhood:

Medium:

Time Frame: Monday, April 7, 2014 - Sunday, May 11, 2014

Description:

The tragic events of April 15th, 2013 resulted immediately in an outpouring of support by first responders, runners, the local community and well-wishers from around the world. Almost immediately, a makeshift memorial began to take shape, first at the police barricade at the intersection of Boylston and Berkeley Streets and later at Copley Square. People from across the globe left flowers, posters, notes, t-shirts, hats, tokens of all shapes and sizes, and—most significantly—running shoes.

Each of the objects left at the memorial, whether giant banner or tiny scrap of paper, store-bought or handmade, was a message of love and support for grieving families and a grieving city. They were hope in material form, symbolizing the human desire to help, comfort, connect, and sustain when confronted with great tragedy.

In June 2013, the memorial was dismantled and these thousands of objects were transferred to the Boston City Archives for safekeeping. To mark the one year anniversary, a selection of items from the memorial collection will be displayed—in one of Boston’s most important civic buildings—so visitors can once again experience the outpouring of human compassion they represent.

Dear Boston has been organized by a partnership that includes the Boston City Archives, the Boston Art Commission, the New England Museum Association, and the Boston Public Library. It has been made possible with the generous support of Iron Mountain.

Related Programs and Events

The BPL is hosting a series of programs and events in April to commemorate this important anniversary. Please visit the Boston Marathon Programs page to learn more.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), will open its doors on Saturday, April 19, 2014 for a free To Boston With Love Community Day—an opportunity for families in Boston and beyond to enjoy a day of art and fellowship. The Institute of Contemporary Art will also host a free day on Tuesday, April 15th. 

Many other organizations throughout the Greater Boston area are hosting commemorative events:  the BostonBetter blog includes listings and more information on programs, schedules, and participating institutions.

Starry Night

Artist: Lisa Greenfield and Daniel J. van Ackere

Neighborhood:

Medium:

Time Frame: Saturday, December 21, 2013 - Thursday, December 21, 2023

Description:

Starting in late 2013, the Summer Street underpass at A Street will be illuminated by a net of brilliant, twinkling blue LEDs. This project was first installed in 2010 for several months, and following its joyful reception by the local community, the artists undertook a longer lasting installation in the same location. In addition to adding beauty and whimsy to an often overlooked public space, Starry Night will provide visibility and safety to the area. 

Stop Telling Women to Smile

Artist: Tatyana Fazlailzadeh

Neighborhood: East Boston and Roxbury

Medium: Wheatpaste posters

Time Frame: Friday, October 18, 2013 - Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Description:

Stop Telling Women to Smile is a public art series that addresses gender based street harassment. The work consists of drawn portraits of women who have told their stories of harassment, and wheat pasting those portraits as posters with captions that speak directly to offenders on outdoor walls. The artist will be bringing this project to the streets of Boston in mid October of 2013. 

During her time here, Fazlalizadeh will be interviewing local women about their experiences with street harassment. After photographing the chosen participants and drawing their portraits, Fazlalizadeh will strategically deploy these city-specific signs on the streets of Boston. These signs serve as a symbolic reclamation of public space as well as a declaration that women are not sexual objects for public consumption, but citizens worthy of respect.

Fazlailzadeh will be returning to Boston in the coming months to put up new posters in even more locations around Boston. As of now, her work can be seen in Central Square in Cambridge, at Harbor Arts in East Boston, and at Barlett Yards in Roxbury. 

To learn more about Tatyana Fazlailzadeh, visit her website at tlynnfaz.com/

For more information on Stop Telling Women to Smile and to follow the artist on her national tour, check out stoptellingwomentosmile.com

Pulse of the City

Artist: George Zisiadis

Neighborhood: 5 Locations

Medium:

Time Frame: Friday, September 6, 2013 - Friday, September 5, 2014

Description:

Pulse of the City is an exciting new interactive work that made its debut in five locations throughout Boston in early Suptember, 2013. Citizens are encouraged to step up to the bright red, metallic hearts and grab onto the handles protruding from either side. The participant's heartbeat is then processed into music, resulting in a one-minute interactive concert that changes with each person who touches it. 

Locations around Boston include Christopher Columbus Park in the North End (down for the time being, but returning soon); East Boston Neighborhood Health Center in Maverick Square; Ashmont Station in Dorchester; along the circle at Avenue Louis Pasteur in Longwood; and in front of the Reggie Lewis Athletic Center in Roxbury.

George Zisiadis, a San Francisco based artist, is the creative force behind the solar-powered music boxes. These playful sculptures encourage us to break from the rush of urban life and take a moment to play, to marvel, and to appreciate the world around and inside of us.

Phtoto: “Pulse of the City.” (Courtesy of George Zisiadis)

Phases

Artist: Sophia Brueckner and Catherine D'Ignazio

Neighborhood: Greenway

Medium:

Time Frame: Monday, July 8, 2013 - Saturday, August 1, 2015

Description:

Phases is a new generative art installation by Sophia Brueckner and Catherine D'Ignazio, created for the Boston Harbor Islands Pavilion located in Boston's Rose Kennedy Greenway. The Pavilion is the Welcome Center for the Boston Harbor Islands national park area. Starting Monday, July 8th and running only after sunset, the animation renders moonlight sparkling on ocean waves receding into the nighttime darkness. It is purposefully reminiscent of the condensed landscapes in early computer games where the complexity of nature is distilled into such a small number of pixels, analogous to modern difficulties in reducing complex real-world environments and situations into simple metrics computers can understand.

The animation is alive, and the computer program pulls information in real-time regarding the conditions of the Boston Harbor Islands to influence the constantly evolving animation. The tides affect the shape and speed of the overlapping and receding patterns. The middle column of light changes with the phases of the moon. Weather conditions affect the beams of light moving across the scene, and, on clear nights, flickering pixels emulate the glitter of light on water. While bringing awareness to the challenge of capturing real-world complexities using limited representations within the computer, Phases uses technology to link two places together in real-time, bringing a little bit of the Boston Harbor Islands to the city.

Programming for the low-resolution LED screens at the Pavilion is sponsored by the National Park Service and Boston Harbor Island Alliance. The programming content, curated by Boston Cyberarts, is designed to enliven a focal point of the Greenway after dark with themes that connect the viewer to the islands-based park 15 minutes from downtown Boston.

Text and photo provided by Boston Cyberarts. More information is available at bostoncyberarts.org

Bartlett Yard Events

Artist: Various

Neighborhood: Dudley Square

Medium: Various

Time Frame: Monday, April 1, 2013 - Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Description:

Bartlett Yard, is Roxbury's newest destination for arts, culture, and community. Bartlett Yard is the site of the former MBTA Bartlett Bus Yard and the future home of Bartlett Place, a major new residential and retail development in Roxbury.  The total site area is approximately 8.6 acres.  The northern half of the site is presently leased to a construction company.  This leaves approximately 3 acres of open outdoor space in a unique "puzzle-piece" configuration.  Far from being limiting, the uniqueness of this space opens the door for many types of events.  Bartlett Yard is the home of a variety of art, retail, and special events hosted by Alliger Arts, Nuestra Communidad, Windale Development Corporation, and a variety of community non-profit partners.

This series of events is being organized by Jason Turgeon, a resident of the Highland Park neighborhood, known for organizing the annual FIGMENT Boston art event on the Rose Kennedy Greenway and writing the hyper-local Fort Hill History blog. He is working in collaboration with Jeremy Alliger of Alliger Arts, a stalwart of Boston's art and dance scenes and has organized events at nearby venues including Hibernian Hall and Mark Paulo Ramos Matel, a Rose Fellow, a native of Virginia and most recently lived in Alabama and New Orleans. Mark has a background in design/architecture and has fabricated object of beauty ranging from furniture to street art. They are working with site development team Nuestra Communidad/Windale Development Inc.,

For more information about specific events each weekend visit: http://bartlettevents.org/

Image courtesy of Bartlettevents.org

Strandbeest

Artist: Theo Jansen

Neighborhood: City Hall Plaza and Rose Kennedy Greenway

Medium: Kinetic sculpture

Time Frame:

Description:

Saturday, August 22 | 10 am - noon | Crane Beach, Ipswich

Friday, August 28 | 11 am - 1 pm | Plaza, Boston

Friday, August 28 | 4:30 - 7 pm |Rose Kennedy Greenway / Dewey Square, Boston

Thursday, September 10 | 3 - 7 pm | MIT Media Lab, 75 Amherst St., Cambridge, 5:30 - 7 pm | Strandbeest walk on plaza outside the MIT Media Lab

STRANDBEEST: THE DREAM MACHINES OF THEO JANSEN

PEM presents the first major American exhibition of Theo Jansen's famed kinetic sculptures. Dynamic  and interdisciplinary, Jansen's Strandbeests ("beach animals") blur the lines between art, science and  storytelling. The exhibition celebrates the thrill of the Strandbeests' unique locomotion as well as the  processes that have driven their evolutionary development on the Dutch seacoast. The kinetic sculptures are accompanied by artist sketches, facilitated demonstrations of the creatures' complex ambulatory systems, a hall of "fossils" and photography by Lena Herzog.

To learn more about the Strandbeests, click here.