City of Rochester
News Release
(Monday, Dec. 21, 2009) – Mayor Robert J. Duffy announced today that juries have selected two artists to create major gateway pieces for the expanded ARTWalk outdoor museum in Rochester’s Neighborhood of the Arts.
“I want to thank the citizen volunteers who dedicated so much of their time and energy toward ensuring that ARTWalk continues to thrive as a major cultural attraction in our city,” said Mayor Duffy. “ARTWalk has become one of this community’s true success stories and the installation of these works promises to take it to an even higher level.”
Alfred State graduate Cliff Garten was selected to develop the suspended light sculpture near the intersection of N. Goodman St. and College Avenue and internationally recognized artist / inventor Adam Frank was selected to develop a media sculpture at the corner of University Avenue and Prince Street. The art pieces will be the anchoring elements at the northern and western gateways of the ARTWalk2 project.
Tate Shaw from the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester was on the selection committee for the New Media Sculpture. “I believe this will be a remarkable addition to Rochester, strongly tying the City's cultural organizations together and will be well received locally and internationally,” said Shaw.
Eric Kunsman who owns Rochester’s Booksmart Studio was on the jury tasked for selecting the Suspended Light Sculpture artist. “We’re pleased to get an internationally recognized artist that has worked with other cities and communities to create an original art piece which will draw people to ARTWalk,” said Kunsman.
These artists were selected from a pool of local, regional and national candidates. In total, 74 artists applied for the suspended light sculpture piece and 32 artists applied for the media sculpture piece. The artists were selected by local art juries which were comprised of nine representatives from the community including: three art or design professionals, two public artists, one representative from the ARTWalk of Rochester Organization, one representative from the Neighborhood of the Arts, one representative from the Bergmann Design Team and one representative from the City of Rochester.
The City intends to have these artists under contract in early 2010 to begin designing the art works which will be installed in late fall 2010.
The ARTWalk 2 project is an extension of the initial ARTWalk Project that was started in 2001. The project entails replacing aging streets and sidewalks along University Avenue between N. Union Street and N. Goodman Street with a continuation of an innovative urban art trail. The intent of ARTWalk 2 is to create an outdoor museum and gathering areas for the entire community, where residents of all ages have free, safe, everyday access to extraordinary creative experiences. This project, which received $3.8 million dollars of federal stimulus funding, is being designed as a regional destination to attract visitors to the city and to boost real estate values and create opportunities for small business owners. ArtWalk2 is also intended to strengthen Rochester’s competitive ability to attract and retain knowledge-based workers, jobs and investment. Public art, lighting, rain gardens, artistic seating, way-finding kiosks, artistic signage and unique interactive sidewalks are all currently being considered as key elements throughout the project corridor.
Artists interested in applying for the remaining 19 art pieces can respond to Requests for Proposals which will be posted in January 2010 on the ARTWalk of Rochester Website at www.rochesterartwalk.org.
About Cliff Garten.
Cliff Garten is a former area resident, having received a Bachelor of Arts from the New York State College of Ceramics in Alfred, New York. Garten earned a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, and a Master of Landscape Architecture with distinction from the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
In recent years he has won wide recognition and many awards in environmental, design and engineering excellence. He is a tenured professor in the Department of Art at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn., and was a visiting critic at Harvard University, UCLA School of Architecture and the South California Institute of Architecture.
Mr. Garten’s work often involves highly durable and environmentally sensitive materials such as stainless steel and LED lighting, and is designed to use drastically less energy than conventional lighting systems. Many pieces have programmable lighting and color components. He has created landmark work in a range of cities across the United States. His iconic works in light and steel energize many urban spaces, including projects in Fort Worth, Calgary, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis and Phoenix.
For more information about Cliff Garten his Web site is www.cliffgartenstudio.com
About Adam Frank
Adam Frank is an internationally shown artist and truly innovative product inventor. His body of work represents an ongoing investigation of light and interactivity. Mr. Frank is currently designing and producing artwork, products and toys that directly utilize his unique expertise in projected environments and virtual interactive characters. He was an artist-in-residence at the LMCC World Views program in The World Trade Center and produced a large-scale installation in co-production with The Banff Centre for the Arts. Mr. Frank is famous as the inventor of work that is interactive and that is powered in unusual ways, including solar technology, light projection and computer technology. Each of his works is unique, and the Rochester piece is expected to break new ground by creating an artwork that is primarily a presentation vehicle for countless local artists of all ages in the coming years.
Mr. Frank’s designs include a “rain” of drops of sunlight down the façade of a science center that is powered by the sun itself. He invented the world’s first virtual pets (18 million have been sold to date) and groundbreaking 3D digital effects for the theater that interact with actors onstage. Another Adam Frank project was selected to represent the United States in an exhibition at the Athens Summer Olympic Games. Frank’s team includes an aerospace engineer to ensure the long-term reliability of the work.
For more information about Adam Frank, visit his Web site at www.adamfrank.com.
Additional information about these artists and the ARTWalk2 project can be found at www.rochesterartwalk.org.
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News media: For more information, contact ARTWalk2 Project Manager Paul Way at 428-7383.