Deadline for Public Art Dialogue Portfolio Review Requests: January 16, 2012

Posted: 
November 6, 2011
Public Art Dialogue Portfolio Review Thursday, February 23, 2012 Los Angeles, in conjunction with the Public Art Dialogue Annual Meeting at College Art Association Free to Public Art Dialogue Members DEADLINE: January 16, 2012 at 5pm EST Public Art Dialogue invites artists who are seeking guidance for careers in public art to apply for a Public Art Portfolio Review. Offered as a membership benefit of Public Art Dialogue, this is an excellent opportunity for graduate students, emerging artists, and established artists, who are seeking public art commissions, to be given feedback on their portfolios by experts in the field of public art. Each artist will have a 20-minute meeting with an experienced public art consultant, administrator, artist, or curator. Details The reviews are being organized by Renee Piechocki, artist and public art consultant. The roster of reviewers includes public art administrators, artists, and consultants: Jack Becker, Public Art Review; Margaret Bruning, LA County Civic Arts Program; Susan Gray, Community Development Agency of the City of Los Angeles; Letitia Fernandez Ivins, LA County Civic Arts Program; Helen Lessick, activist, administrator, and artist; Alan Nakagawa, LA Metro Art; Sarah Schrank, California State University, Long Beach; Rochelle Steiner, University of Southern California. The portfolio reviews will take place during the 2012 College Art Association Meeting in Los Angeles. The reviews will take place on Thursday, February 23, 2012. Artists are responsible for providing a laptop or other equipment for electronic presentations. Access to the Internet is not available on site. In order to schedule a free review you must be a member of Public Art Dialogue. To join PAD or to schedule a review, email: [email protected] To learn about last year’s reviews, visit http://publicartdialogue.org/news/2011-03-20/portfolio-review-wrap The deadline for review requests is January 16, 2012, at 5pm EST. Reviewer Bios Jack Becker is the founder and Executive Director of Forecast Public Art, a 33-year-old Twin Cities-based nonprofit. In 1989, he established an annual grant program for Minnesota artists and Public Art Review, an international journal devoted to the field. Jack has also served as a public art consultant since 1994. In 2007 he received an Award of Excellence from Americans for the Arts for his contribution to the public art field. As an artist with experience in the theater and visual arts, Jack has applied his creativity and creative problem-solving skills in many directions and in many places. Jack typically focuses on projects that connect the ideas and energies of artists with the needs and opportunities of communities. Jack previously served as Art in Public Places Program Coordinator for the City of Minneapolis (1987-89), Arts Development Manager for the City of St. Paul (1991-93), and instructor at the College of Visual Arts, St. Paul (1993-1995). Margaret Bruning is the Director of Civic Art at Los Angeles County Arts Commission. Margaret has a 16-year history advocating passionately and boldly for the arts and for cultivating community experience of place. As the newly appointed Director of Civic Art at the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Margaret has overall responsibility for planning, developing and implementing what is becoming one of the largest public art programs in the country, with close to 50 projects, ranging in size from $10,000 to $1 million, in various stages of development. The Civic Art Program, which began in 2005, allocates 1% of county capital projects for public art. Previously, Margaret served as Associate Director of Scottsdale Public Art and former Project Manager for 13 years, where she focused primarily on the production management of award-winning, permanent sculpture, integrated and functional art, and temporary art and events around the city. She also provided advocacy, leadership and strategic planning in the development of the comprehensive public art program. In 2009, she commissioned and managed artist D.A. Therrien's large-scale performance spectacle, Beautiful Light, for the new Scottsdale canal waterfront. The project was named one of top 12 U.S. projects by Public Art Review and was also chosen as the keynote artwork for Toronto Nuit Blanche later that year. Margaret holds an M.A. from Arizona State University in Art History with a specialization on the intersection of contemporary public art and infrastructure. She has consulted for Governor Janet Napolitano’s Committees for the 911 Memorial and the Iraqi War Memorial, the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Rural Economic Development Conference of Arizona, and the Copper Corridor Economic Development Coalition. In recent years, she has been a guest speaker for the Americans for the Arts, American Association of University Women, Arizona State University’s Canalscape Symposium for Sustainable Desert Urbanism, Phoenix Art Museum, and the University of Arizona. Susan Gray has over twenty years experience in planning and managing art projects for government, private developers, educational and non-profit organizations. She currently serves as the Cultural Planner for the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles (CRA/LA), where she oversees public art and cultural revitalization projects in Los Angeles’ most challenged neighborhoods. Artists commissioned through the CRA/LA’s Art Program during her tenure include Michael Amescua, Steve Appleton, Anne-Marie Karlsen, Christian Moeller, Erwin Redl and Jennifer Steinkamp. Previous leadership roles include: Adjunct Faculty, Masters in Public Art Studies at the Roski School of Fine Art; Senior Public Art Officer with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Metro Art Program, where she developed the preliminary art plan for the Exposition Light Rail, and managed a number of major public art projects for Los Angeles’ subway system; and Public Art Program Director for the Long Beach Public Corporation for the Arts, where she administered the percent for art program for the Redevelopment Agency of the City of Long Beach; and Project Manager for the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Public Art and Civic Design Review Programs, where she worked with artists such as Vito Acconci and Patricia Johansen. Susan has also held various arts consulting and educational positions in Australia, where she graduated with a Master of Arts in Visual Arts (University Medal) in studio practice from the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University and was awarded fellowships to exhibit and study in Manila, the Philippines and at UC Irvine. Letitia Fernandez Ivins is the Assistant Director of Civic Art with the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. She and the Civic Art Program staff collaborate with artists, government stakeholders, capital project managers, and community members to produce innovative, socially relevant and transformative artwork for public spaces. Civic art projects are integrated at a range of facilities across LA County from hospitals and parks to libraries and fire stations. Ivins has worked in the nonprofit arts sector for over 10 years at the Getty Foundation, Ryman Arts, and the Arts Commission. She is a board member of the Pilipino Workers’ Center, a board advisor to Outpost for Contemporary Art, a co-chair of the Public Art Coalition of Southern California, a member of the Americans for the Arts national Emerging Leaders Council, and a founding member of the Emerging Arts Leaders Los Angeles network. Helen Lessick is a creative practitioner working with public place and private observation. Her artworks include sculpture, installation, performance, and site-related conceptual overlays in the form of signage, brochures and pamphlets distributed in public places. Helen has been honored with solo exhibits in Bellevue, Tacoma and Reno Art Museums. She has been awarded a Pollock Krasner fellowship, funded artist’s residencies, and multiple project grants from private and municipal foundations. In 2010-11 she completed permanent public art commissions for the city of Los Angeles and the Assistance League of Southern California. Her current public art project in Kenya examines the relationship between soil and community health. Working in Nairobi’s Kibera slum with Kounkuey Design Initiative, the community art works will debut in January 2012. Also a civic arts advocate, Helen brings creativity and expertise to public art administration and civic planning. She has served cultural programs in Los Angeles, Seattle and Houston as a public art program and collection manager, and managed international conservation contracts for the J. Paul Getty Trust. As a consultant she worked with the cities of Austin, Norfolk, Portland and San Diego; Washington State, United Indians of All Tribes and the University of Southern California. She was a founding member of Socrates Sculpture Park, an artists-initiated effort to turn a dilapidated waterfront pier on New York’s East River into a living sculpture and community arts space. Helen is currently spearheading WRAP, a national effort to ensure web-published public art resources are findable in general searches with Forecast Public Art and 18th Street Art Center. A Philadelphia native, Helen went west to earn her BA in art from Reed College in Oregon and MFA in studio art from the University of California/Irvine. A peripatetic creative, Helen has contributed to art and artists communities in southern California, the Pacific Northwest, New York, and Europe. She is currently based in Los Angeles. www.lessick.net Alan Nakagawa is Metro Art’s Senior Public Arts Officer. Alan has been part of the Metro staff since 1992. His experience at the agency spans the entire gamut of temporary and permanent public art for public transportation. His responsibilities have included coordinating community participation and input coordination; artist outreach and selection coordination; design management; design team coordination; and fabrication and installation management. Nakagawa was also the public art coordinator for the Metrolink commuter rail system via Metro from 1992 through 2002. He has also lectured and participated as an artist selection panelist for agencies nationally, in Japan and Mexico. Before arriving to Metro, Nakagawa spent two years as the Mural Coordinator for the Social and Public Art Resources Center, working with artists, youth and communities across the City of Los Angeles. In addition to his position at Metro, he has been a Public Art Committee Member for the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, Committee Member for the National Assembly of Arts Organizations, directors one of LA’s oldest multi-disciplinary arts collective, Collage Ensemble Inc and curates the weekly experimental music webcast Ear Meal. Nakagawa holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Otis Art Institute, a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of California Irvine and is a Monbusho (Ministry of Culture and Education, Japan) Scholar. Sarah Schrank, the author of Art and the City: Civic Imagination and Cultural Authority in Los Angeles (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), is associate professor of history at California State University, Long Beach where she teaches courses in public art theory and history, urban history, and American Studies. She has written extensively on the politics of public art in urban centers, with specific emphases on murals, municipal commissions, and alternative artworks. Professor Schrank has been involved in the preservation campaigns for Self-Help Graphics, Noah Purifoy's Desert Museum, and the Watts Towers. She is a member of the editorial board for the journal, Public Art Dialogue, and has been involved with PAD since 2007. Rochelle Steiner is Dean of the Roski School of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California. A recognized curator and writer, she has organized over 60 major art exhibitions and large-scale public art projects in the United States and Europe. From 2006 to 2009, Steiner was Director of Public Art Fund in New York, and under her leadership the nonprofit organization commissioned 35 public art projects with established and emerging international artists, including Olafur Eliasson’s The New York City Waterfalls, one of the most ambitious works of public art ever realized. Other major projects include commissions and exhibitions by Chris Burden, Peter Coffin, Anish Kapoor, Damian Ortega, Sarah Morris, and Sarah Sze, all presented in New York City’s outdoor public spaces. As Chief Curator at the Serpentine Gallery in London (2001–2006), Steiner curated one-person and group exhibitions with internationally acclaimed artists including Glenn Brown, John Currin, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, Ellsworth Kelly, Takashi Murakami, Gabriel Orozco, Nick Relph & Oliver Payne, Cindy Sherman, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. From 1996 to 2001, she was Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Saint Louis Art Museum, where she organized the large-scale group exhibition “Wonderland,” which included new works by Ernesto Neto, Olafur Eliasson, Jennifer Steinkamp, and others, as well as the Museum’s “Currents” contemporary exhibition series, including one-person shows with Peter Doig, Tom Friedman, Elizabeth Peyton, and Gary Simmons, among many others. She has also served as a consultant to the Miami Art Museum, developing a plan for the museum as it embarks on construction of a new Herzog & de Meuron–designed building. Steiner is currently part of the curatorial team for the 2011 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, working with a group of faculty and students from the USC Roski School of Fine Arts, the USC School of Architecture, and the USC School of Cinematic Arts to develop an exhibition titled “6 Under 60,” which examines six cities across the globe that have emerged during the last 60 years. Steiner earned PhD and MA degrees in Visual and Cultural Studies from the University of Rochester, and a BA from Syracuse University in English and Advertising. In 2009 she was one of ten fellows selected from U.S. museums for the Center for Curatorial Leadership program in association with Columbia University Business School’s Executive Education program. Steiner’s more than 50 essays and interviews with artists have appeared in numerous exhibition catalogues, journals, and magazines including Parkett, Modern Painters, Art Review, and World of Interiors.