New Public Docu of 2015

As the future of 2016 grows from burgeoning horizon, I wanted share a few updates on recent current projects. Last year proved exceptional for my public art mission to interpret, critique, activate and improve the public space of our everyday lives.

SiteLines Current Install - 01

SiteLines Exhibit

I had the great privilege of staging my first true solo show with ICA Baltimore at Current Space last spring. With the support of a Rubys Grant, my show SiteLines was the culmination of a series of radical walking tours I organized in 2014 seeking to understand overlooked public spaces in and around some of Baltimore’s highway foleys and pedestrian malls. It so happened that the show opened just as the Baltimore Uprising began to take shape in the streets.

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SiteLines Tours

The day of the first major Freddie Gray march, I led 44 participants on my Crossing the Highway to Nowhere tour. As I talked about West Side struggles against top-down planning, a helicopter hovering over the nearby protest split off and followed us as we gathered at the edge of Route 40. After crossing the highway our group began to head back to the gallery, only to run directly into the Freddie Gray march. To join was urgently appropo. On that day a modest crowd of Radical Pedestrians merged with a much larger force of walking movement in our city.

Here is what a few others had to say: ArtFCity, Bret McCabeGBCALandscape Architecture Magazine, and BmoreArt.

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The Ragged Edge of Rockville

After SiteLines, I  was invited to develop a New Public Sites project exploring the invisible sites, contradictory features and historical spirits embedded in downtown Rockville for Come Back to Rockville, a two person show with Naoko Wowsugi at VisArts curated by Laura Roulet. Naming my project, “The Ragged Edge of Rockville”, I created a gallery installation, shot new videos and staged a series of tours in and around VisArts, the Rockville Library, the Beall Dawson House and a special gravesite. Along the way we learned that Rockville twice entirely razed its downtown. What’s since emerged is an uncanny image of pedestrian urbanism embedded with the beginnings of civic spaces while hiding parking garages for car-bound shoppers. Thankfully the various redevelopment schemes spared the town’s historic Catholic cemetery – final resting place for literary icons F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Meanwhile, Mark Jenkins at the Washington Post took a stroll through the gallery and wrote this review.

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New Public Sites – McDaniel / Westminster

Immediately following my Rockville drift, I began work on another New Public Sites tour and installation, this time in collaboration with McDaniel College students and residents of Union Street in Westminster, Maryland. I was honored to have “New Public Sites – McDaniel / Westminster” commissioned by curator Izabel Galliera for her group show Alternative Cartographies. Through a new map, bulletin boards and Shards of Site, we investigated the overlooked yet meaningful public spaces between an idyllic hilltop and historic neighboring streets. New Public Sites are not just in big cities, but also among rural towns and suburbs alike. Rebecca Juliette from BmoreArt still made it up and posted this on the group show.

Infinite Thanks for all the support. Let’s keep on projecting thoughts from radical walks through 2016 and beyond. Check back for updates on my forthcoming tour shattering Baltimore’s Inner Harbor Spectacle, and other delightful spring walks.

Cheers,

Graham signature teal

 

 

 

PS: Many thanks also to Baltimore Clayworks and School 33 for the opportunities to lead wanders through Mount Washington and of Baltimore City’s amazing murals.

SiteLines videos begin today, show opens April 24

SiteLines - banner internet

Explore Baltimore’s invisible public spaces through sharable videos, walking tours and an immersive gallery installation.

ICA Baltimore presents Baltimore public artist Graham Coreil-Allen presents SiteLines, a multimedia collection of online videos, experimental walking tours and an immersive art installation at Current Gallery featuring banners, photography, typography and cartography derived from nearby invisible public spaces.

Sitelines

Art exhibition, walking tours and online video series by public artist Graham Coreil-Allen
Institute of Contemporary Art, Baltimore @ Current Space
421 North Howard Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Exhibition Dates:
April 24-May 15, 2015

Open Hours:
Saturdays and Sundays, 12 p.m. – 4 p.m.

Opening Reception:
Friday, April 24, 7 p.m. – 10 p.m.

Artist Talk and Closing Reception:
Friday, May 15, 6 p.m. Artist Talk, 7 – 9 p.m. reception

New Public Sites YouTube Channel
youtube.com/npsvt
First SiteLines video posts Friday, March 13
New videos will be post every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10 a.m. through May 8

Walking Tours Schedule:

  • Saturday, April 25, 2-4pm – Crossing the Highway to Nowhere
    • Explore interchanging embankments around The Highway to Nowhere
      while boldly crossing where many have walked before.
  • Saturday, May 2, 2-4pm – Formative Drift
    • Experience the drama of theaters in ruins and on the rise, and feel Baltimore’s enduring Formstone facades through site-specific performances, tasty sandwiches and foldable sketches. Tour in collaboration with artists Laure Drogoul, Carly Bales and Gary Kachadourian.
  • Saturday, May 9, 2-4pm – Wandering Shards
    • Bring your personal expertise to help lead an improvised group tour of nearby public space while collecting found object souvenirs to be displayed in the gallery.

All tours are free and open to the public. We walk for 45-60 minutes at a moderate pace. Voluntary physical activities include climbing stairs, laying down, and stepping over obstacles.

Sitelines is a translation of Coreil-Allen’s New Public Sites walking tours into a participatory video web series capturing the artist and walking tour participants as they playfully explore public space while he shares the sites’ histories, design, and uses. The ongoing New Public Sites project interprets the overlooked and invisible sites within cities, investigates the negotiable nature of public space, and pushes the boundaries of pedestrian agency. Filming for the first season of SiteLines began in September 2014 with four tours: Crossing the Highway to Nowhere, Reservoir Chill, Old Town Walking Revival and Power Plant Alive! These collections of new public sites are connected by suburban style development in an urban context, including freeways and pedestrian malls. Videos from these walks will be incorporated into a larger installation of banners, photography, typography, found object sculptures and a gallery-size map at Baltimore’s Current Gallery, opening on April 24. During the course of the three week exhibition, Coreil-Allen will also lead three walking tours in collaboration with additional artists working in the surrounding Bromo Tower Arts & Entertainment District. All tours are free and open to the public.

Contact:
icabaltimore@gmail.com
currentspace@gmail.com
graham@grahamprojects.com

Graham Coreil-Allen – grahamprojects.com

Graham Coreil-Allen is a public artist who explores the constructs and contradictions of public space through videos, maps, crosswalks, and walking tours. Coreil-Allen recently completed the Hopscotch Crosswalks in downtown Baltimore and his walking tours have been showcased around the United States and at the US Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Current Space – currentspace.com

Current Space is an artist-run gallery, studio, and a headquarters for cultural production, nourishing an ongoing dialogue between artists, activists, performers, designers, curators, and thinkers. Operating since November 2004, we are committed to showcasing, developing, and broadening the reach of artists locally and internationally.

ICA Baltimore – icabaltimore.org

ICA Baltimore is a collaboration of volunteers working to stage contemporary art exhibitions in available spaces in  Baltimore. Sitelines is the fourteenth exhibition by the ICA since 2011.

Additional information and high-resolution photos are available upon request.

More info: newpublicsites.org/sitelines | grahamprojects.com | youtube.com/npsvt

SiteLines is being made possible in part by a Rubys Artist Project Grant from the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance.

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NPS-PST: Views From Below in Hope Against Hope at the Phoenix Shot Tower

Hope Against Hope
Exhibition Dates: October 8 – December 4
Curated by: Michael Benevento + Andrew Shenker
Curatorial Advisor: Angel Oloshove

Opening Reception October 8, 6-10PM, Cash Bar
Live performance by Laure Drogoul, Dustin Wong, and H. Honne Wells

Phoenix Shot Tower
corner of Fayette and Front (near President st, end of I-83)

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From the theft of fire [by Prometheus], to contamination through water [Leviticus]; echoing the home of invention and the cornerstone laying by Charles Carroll of Carrollton; a commercial enterprise dissolves the myth of bullets and opens onto hope as poison at the bottom of Pandora’s box.

Scattering the fragments of history to the sound of falling water, this once tallest building in the US becomes a site of modest explorations and play.

Featuring site specific performances, video, drawing, installation, food, and lectures.

Adrian Lohmüller, Anthony Boening, Dane Nester, Dustin Carlson, Dustin Wong, Elizabeth McTernan, Eric Leshinsky, Fred Scharmen, Gram Coreil-Allen, H. Honne Wells, Heda Hokschirr, Jan Razauskas, John Ellsberry, Jordan Bernier, Julianne Hamilton, Kathleen Mazurek, Kristen Anchor, Laure Drogoul, Lee Freeman, Lou Joseph, Marian Glebes, Patrick Caulfield, Mike Washington, Ms. Nagle’s March Middle School Class, Robby Rackleff, Ryan von Dohlen, Sometimes Dining, Stewart Watson, Susie Brandt, Teddy Johnson, and Tim Doherty.
www.currentspace.com
www.carrollmuseums.org

*This exhibition is in collaboration with the Carroll Museums and will be hosted at the Phoenix Shot Tower

Phoenix Shot Tower on Google Maps

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New Public Sites – Phoenix Shot Tower: Views From Below


Exchanging historical vistas from the tower’s rooftop with street-level contemporary sites, Views From Below re-views the iconic Phoenix from overlooked, interstitial vantages. Hanging within the frame of the “Views From the Top” educational display, pedestrian photos of the tower hover directly in front of skyscraper views from the tower. Instead of looking out from above, the participant looks towards from below. Free maps locate the vista-reversals, encouraging participants to see the new public sites for themselves. Drifting pedestrian views subvert the tower’s rarefied vistas by situating the participant within accessible moments of invisible public space.

New Public Sites
Situated within disparate urban zones of overlap, rupture, ambiguity and interstice, the ongoing New Public Sites project addresses how lost spaces and overlooked features of the city are experienced at a pedestrian level. The project starts with a radically expanded understanding of civic space and proposes alternatives for representing and activating the potential for such under-recognized sites.