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USF Artist "Imagines" Peace Billboard Exhibit
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Rican artist Raphael Trelles' work, along with that of 10 other
international artists, will go on exhibit May 26 in San Francisco, as
part of a billboard art show imagining peace. |
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Peace. What's it good for? And more importantly, what does it look
like? That's exactly what artists from 10 countries around the world
want Bay Area residents to contemplate when their work goes on display
on San Francisco billboards May 26.
The
larger-than-life art exhibit, "Seeing Peace: The Billboard Project," is
part of the ongoing "Seeing Peace: Artists Collaborate With the United
Nations" initiative by Richard Kamler, artist, curator, activist, and
associate professor of visual arts at the University of San Francisco.
Artists
from 10 member states of the United Nations, including South Africa,
Cuba, Tibet, Iran, Ukraine, and Israel were asked to imagine what peace
looks like from their unique cultural perspectives for the exhibit.
What they came up with is a "road map" for people to begin their own
process of visualizing "what peace could/might/can look like," Kamler
said.
"The aim is to incite members of our community to
imagine for themselves their own vision of peace," Kamler said.
"Because, if we cannot first imagine peace, we may never make it so."
Kamler,
whose work is among the 10, has been making issue-driven art since 1976
when he completed his first major installation, "Out of Holocaust," a
full-sized reconstruction of one of the barracks from the Nazi-era
Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. He has received many grants and
awards for his work, among them a National Endowment for the Arts
Fellowship, a California Arts Council Fellowship, and an Alaskan State
Arts Council/NEA grant.
The umbrella "Seeing Peace: Artists
Collaborate With the United Nations" project seeks to bring artists'
imagination to the table of the UN General Assembly by creating a
multinational vision of what peace looks like. The billboard exhibit,
as part of that, is a pro-active attempt to provoke a community
dialogue about peace with images that include a swaddled baby in a gun
sight, and a grime-covered, war tank split in half by white lilies,
Kamler said.
"Imagine, if you will, that Picasso had painted
'Guernica' before the bombs fell on Guernica," Kamler said. "Might it
have been different?"
For Tibetan-born artist Jamyong Singye,
taking part in "The Billboard Project" was a way of drawing on his
experience of Western culture to expand his usual work within the
600-year-old tradition of Tibetan thangka painting. For this project,
Singye was able to reach outside the thangka tradition, which forbids
the illustration of individual feelings due to strict guidelines
associated with the portrayal of religious icons such as Lord Buddha
and other deities, and create his own vision of peace.
Even
while incorporating his Western experience in his peace billboard,
Singye, who has lived in the United States for 25 years, carried
forward the Tibetan philosophy present in the thangka tradition that
"whatever you do should benefit others," he said.
In his work,
the Earth sits on a lotus flower, a sign of purity usually reserved for
deities, as the Holy Spirit's eyes watch over mankind compassionately,
Singye said. The fire that is war, hatred, and pollution, threatens
from below.
For artist Raphael Trelles, whose work depicts a
tank split up the middle by sprouting lilies, "The Billboard Project"
was an important opportunity to not only show his work outside his
native Puerto Rico, but to raise awareness about his country's colonial
status.
"The images are symbolic representations of the hope of
(Puerto Ricans) for the healing of their physical and emotional health,
and to restore the ecological balance and natural beauty of their
land," said Trelles, an affiliate of BorderZone Arts, a nonprofit
serving indigenous, historically under-represented, and emerging
artists around the globe.
Taking the artists' work out of
high-minded museums and into the public arena on billboards is an
integral part of creating a dialogue, Kamler said. "Why confine these
images to the walls of a museum, when we can take them to the community
and have a significant impact?"
Thoughtful in every respect,
the Memorial Day opening was chosen for it's commemorative association
to peace, and the remembrance of those who have died serving in the
U.S. military, Kamler said.
"Seeing Peace: The Billboard
Project," runs from May 26 to June 22, as a featured exhibit of the
2008 San Francisco International Arts Festival. Billboards included in
the exhibit can be found at Divisadero and O'Farrell streets, Cesar
Chavez Street and Evans Avenue, Mission and 17th streets, Mission and
6th streets, 22nd Avenue and Irving Street, Masonic Avenue and Fulton
Street, Valencia Street and Duboce Avenue, Broadway and Montgomery
Street, 3rd and 19th streets, and Judah street and 9th Avenue.
Six
of the participating artists will join Kamler and members of the media
and public on a May 26th bus tour of the billboards, which will include
a discussion of the works. For more on the exhibit visit
http://peacebillboards.org.
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