MOBILE, AL.- The Centre for the Living Arts announces the opening of Future Project (now until January 31, 2014), a nine month exhibition that examines future possibilities for the Gulf Coast, with focus areas that are both expected and unexpected.
Dawn DeDeaux (New Orleans, LA), whose Prospect 2, New Orleans Biennial installation was critically acclaimed, has created an environment at the Centre for the Living Arts that subjectively postulates the future through myth.
Her installation, which reflects the thinking of Carl Jung, William Blake and others, is infused with collective mythologies that foretell the future along with translations of hard mathematical and scientific equations that speak of a future not too dissimilar from myth. This is evidenced throughout the installation, most notably in the iconic horse perched on a ledge 20 feet above the main gallery staring at is reflection below.
DeDeaux invites the viewer into a mysterious real and examines the potential for an apocalyptic landscape through the lens of beauty, bringing into question the role of aesthetics.
Kenny Scharf (Los Angeles, CA) who rose to prominence alongside fellow contemporaries Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat in the East Village art scene in the 1980s, has recreated an immersive psychedelic experience through his “closet” series – offers an altered state of perception that functions as a portal into a multi-sensory future.
Also included are a dozen of his major painting, including the large-sized Tang, and Time Flies When You’re Having Fun!, plus The New and Improved Ultima Suprima, a customized Cadillac that reminds visitors of past notions of the future.
In addition, Scharf will be creating a pair of 120 feet long outdoor murals on the façade of the Centre for the Living Arts as a gift to the City of Mobile.
OTHER INSTALLATIONS INCLUDE:
Tom Leeser (Los Angeles, CA)
Director of the Art and Technology Program and Director of the Center for Integrated Media at the California Institute of the Arts, serves as a participating artist and curates 22 works by emerging and significant video artists in the Centre for the Living Arts Video Gallery, a 6,000 square foot raw industrial space with dramatic 30 foot high ceilings.
Xavier de Richemont (Paris, France)
For Futures Project, the artist has contributed a 3-D model with projections of a visionary proposal for a long-term Centre for the Living Arts commission, Pop Boat. This installation would be projected onto the World War II-era battleship, the USS Alabama (now a memorial park in Mobile Bay), transforming the former instrument of war into a symbol of peace.
2X4 (New York, NY)
In a world that is increasingly moving towards digital media over printed means, 2X4 creates an installation that explores the very act of translation – the way an idea translates from thought to form. Instead of predicting the future, 2X4 polls the internet using the key work “future”, and creates a two-part experience: intimate audio juxtaposed with large-scale visual graphics produced in the gallery and posted daily.
Candy Chang (New Orleans, LA)
For Futures Project, Chang has created The School of the Future, a new commission which uses the abandoned Barton Academy, the oldest public school in Alabama, as a springboard to contemplate the ways in which children learn, and the role schools play in shaping who student become, both individually and as a society. The School of the Future features an onsite participatory installation collecting visitor ideas for the future of education, and an offsite intervention at Barton Academy drawing attention to is redevelopment potential.
