Exhibitions

Sculpture on the Grounds is an ongoing series of temporary outdoor art installations coordinated by the Arlington Arts Center in partnership with the Arlington Commission for the Arts and Arlington Cultural Affairs.

The 0 Project (The Zero Project)
Dates: October 2, 2007 - March 1, 2008
Reception: October 5, 2007, 6-9 PM
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11 am - 5 pm

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The Arlington Arts Center is pleased to launch The 0 Project, an installation involving worldwide participation. The centerpiece of the project is 0 ("Zero"), a 300-foot long, 15-foot high banner printed on DuPont™ Tyvek®, which will wrap the old building of the historic Maury School. It will be installed through February 2008. The image, based on a drawing created by Alexandria, VA artist Rosemary Feit Covey, shows a vast crowd of shouting faces looking out at an unseen event. The image, representing silent screams of the masses, serves to encourage viewers to speak out about societal concerns and contemporary events, thereby giving voices to the voiceless. Significantly, the image does not have a political bias and invites participation regardless of the cause.

Originally a small drawing, Covey expanded the image to suggest the infinite number of causes facing society. As a fine print artist, Covey became interested in Tyvek because it had a texture similar to Japanese rice paper, a material she frequently uses for her wood engravings. After months of consultation with DuPont Graphics and a FASTSIGNS franchise in Antioch, TN, 0 was digitized and printed on DuPont banner media. This is one of the largest fine art projects with which DuPont has been involved.

There are a number of ways in which viewers can participate, including:

• The evening reception on Friday, October 5 will include a performance piece in which the public is invited to participate.
• From 12-4 on November 17, the AAC will host Speaker's Corner, an open mic opportunity for anyone to come speak about causes important to them.
• A number of tyvek mural workshops are available for school groups.
• The public is invited to submit artwork, video, writings, or music on The 0 Project website and blog. The project also has a Second Life component.
• A complete listing of events and a link to The 0 Project: http://www.rosemarycovey.com/0/

Scheduled national and international partners for this project are located in Los Angeles, CA; Mumbai, India; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Toronto, Canada. The AAC first heard of The 0 Project in July 2006, during the organization's annual call for exhibition proposals. Covey's project was one of fourteen selected from a pool of over 250 applicants from across the Mid-Atlantic region.

Arlington Arts Center programs are made possible through the generous support of the Virginia Commission for the Arts/NEA; The Arlington Commission for the Arts; Arlington County Division of Cultural Resources; The Eugene & Agnes E. Meyer Foundation; Strategic Analysis; BB&T Bank; the Arlington Community Foundation; Arlington Catering, and our members.

Founded in 1976, the AAC is dedicated to presenting and supporting new work of contemporary artists in the Mid-Atlantic states. Located in the historic Maury School, it holds exhibitions, rents studio spaces, and conducts educational programs for all ages. Normal public hours are Tuesday through Saturday, from 11 am to 5 pm. For more information, call (703) 248.6800 or www.arlingtonartscenter.org. The AAC is located at 3550 Wilson Blvd., in Arlington, VA, just off the Virginia Square-GMU Metro stop on the Orange line.

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SCULPTURE ON THE GROUNDS

DISINTEGRATION: Artists: Cory Wagner, Margaret Boozer, Michele Kong.

Reception: Friday, April 13, 2007, 6 – 9 pm

Curator: Twylene Moyer, Managing Editor, Sculpture Magazine.

Cory Wagner, Give/Take, site specific outdoor installation. The artist will construct 150 - 200 poles with 5 inch diameter balls. Wagner considers the balls to be both art objects and toys.The impetus for the piece is to have the work disintegrate through an act of generosity, since the balls are available to anyone who wishes to accept the gift. However, the true gift comes at night when the phosphorescent balls glow, looking very much like heavenly bodies floating in space.

Margaret Boozer, Dis/ integration, evolving dirt drawing installation. This work consists of large chunks of different colored clays, mined directly from the earth, positioned on platforms of various heights over a slightly inclined frame. With rain, the chunks start to dissolve, the different colored slips running into the framed area below. Steel pieces change the direction of the flow, creating patterns in the resulting clay drawing/painting. The sun dries the slip, cracking it with respect to the intrusions and variations in thickness. Subsequent rain re-hydrates, continually evolving the painting over the course of the exhibition.

Michele Kong, Plot, site specific ground painting/drawing. This work was conceived as a project that could bring together two very different uses of the grassy area behind AAC: art and the need for an open field for children to play. The work is essentially a grid, or simple abstract pattern, painted into the field using the same material that demarcates boundary lines for soccer, football and other athletic fields. For Kong, it is also a way to explore how her recent drawings, which evoke architectual and map-like diagrams, can become a sculptural concept. The artist hopes the demarcations will generate an interactive quality with the art itself.

All Sculpture on the Grounds exhibitions are presented in partnership with the Arlington Commission for the Arts and Arlington County Cultural Affairs Division.