IN FLUX will brighten downtown Phoenix for the third year in a row on May 3, as the temporary public art initiative brings its annual multi-city tour from Scottsdale Public Art into the city for its fifth cycle.
Fifteen pieces of art by local artists that were installed beginning November 2014 will be highlighted in seven different cities on the tour. Most artworks will remain on display until October 2015.
IN FLUX: Cycle 5 partnered with 11 organizations in seven cities throughout the Valley to temporarily install artwork by local artists.
The downtown portion of the tour will feature Arizonan artist Eric Boos’ “The Re-birth of Venus,” a contemporary recreation of Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus.”
“I think what’s interesting about the downtown piece, in addition to its use of color, is its reference to art history,” said Rebecca Rothman who worked directly with Boos’ project as public art project manager of partnering organization City of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture. “Not everyone who walks on the street is going to know automatically that Botticelli and ‘The Birth of Venus’ is this famous painting, but they’ll recognize it on some level, because it’s such an icon.”
Boos’ artwork is currently on display at the Phoenix Convention Center, facing Monroe Street behind glass, and will be up through May 2015. The artist will be speaking with Rothman on the tour about his contribution to IN FLUX.
“When you fill a space that was otherwise void or vacant, it brings attention to the street, it brings attention to the buildings surrounding it, and it basically enlivens a space that otherwise was being passed,” Rothman said. “So our hope would be that the community would see this area as a bright spot.”
To create the piece, the artist utilized materials that were nonexistent in Botticelli’s day — bright pigments, synthetic flowers and more — to depict the famous painting in a modern light.
“I’ve always been fascinated with art history in a lot of ways, and the way we as human beings perceive ourselves over the centuries,” Boos said. “I feel this connection to all these people on whose shoulders we stand, and I wanted to … make that connection between modernity and how we see things today, and how they did things back 500 years ago or so.”
Other pieces in the tour include IN FLUX’s first-ever purely projected piece — “Animal Land” by Lauren Strohacker and Kendra Sollars — at the Mesa Arts Center, and Mary Neubauer’s “The Weather Room,” a three-dimensional display in Glendale.
“Not only do you go see all 15 artworks in one day, but you literally tour the entire Valley in one day,” said Kirstin Van Cleef, manager of IN FLUX. “I think that’s really interesting for all of us who maybe travel similar routes in the Valley in our daily lives, but rarely tour the whole thing.”
This type of opportunity to view public art is important to raise awareness of culture, among many other aesthetic aspects of society, Boos said.
“It doesn’t reinforce what you already know or believe or perceive,” Boos said. “It changes it a little bit. It makes you see things in a different way that you didn’t consider before, and anything that expands consciousness in any way is good, as far as I’m concerned, because it makes you aware of things.”
Van Cleef said she believed that the IN FLUX projects are not only beneficial for the artists’ exposure and experience, but they also help the communities surrounding the public art pieces.
“It’s a really great way for cities to engage their communities in a very attackable and sustainable way,” she said. “These projects are smaller budget because they are temporary, so it’s more accessible and offers more opportunity for artists in the local economy, as well as just for having those projects exist, and the benefits that cities get from having those projects.”
The tour, guided by professional speaker Tania Katan, will also feature speakers at each art installation, a local band during a scheduled lunch break, and games and prizes on the way to each location.
This entertainment reflects Boos’ depiction of public art as important to increasing the liveliness of everyday life.
“Even bad public art is good, because the alternative is pretty drab and boring, and we’re not boring creatures, we’re human beings,” Boos said. “We have imaginations, and we like to play around with things in goofy kinds of ways, and art does that kind of stuff … All of that ought to be out in the world, on display.”
Tickets to the Cycle 5 Multi-City Tour on May 3 are currently on sale online for $15.50 each.
Contact the reporter at Emily.Liu@asu.edu
