cpsperanza public art portfolio

8/14/2019 CPSPeranza Public ART Portfolio

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CAROLYN P! SPERANZA

PUBLIC ART PORTFOLIO

In 1993 Carolyn Speranza was commissioned for Literacy Windows, the first in a seriesof public art that she would co-author with artist Lisa Link. Subsequent projects by the twoartists, My Bread Tastes Sweeter and End of the Line: Building Bridges with Pittsburgh'sBusways were published in Lucy Lippard's Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a

Multicentered Society and Malcolm Mile's Uses of Decoration: Essays in the ArchitecturalEveryday. End of the Line toured Russia in the "Engaging the Urban Environment," exhibitionat the Centers for Contemporary Art in St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, and Moscow.Speranza and Link were appointed fellows at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at CarnegieMellon, noted for their adoption of new uses of the computer in making art, their multi-strata

and democratic approach to engaging non-artists in artistic collaboration, and being amongthe first to give public art an added, accessible dimension by using the World Wide Web.

In 1990 Speranza began working with light in the forms of neon, projection and

illuminated imagery. She turned to video in 1997 in her desire to make images move whilekeeping them illuminated. She built a block-long, video projection piece inside a traffictunnel for First Night Pittsburgh. Urban Aquarium was selected by Americans for the Arts forits 2001 "Year in Public Art," observing her unusual collaboration with a chiropractor, martialartists and a musician playing the theremin. Speranza's video work shifted to the narrative

form while a 2002 Heinz Endowments Creative Heights recipient at Pittsburgh Filmmakers.She continued her endeavor in public collaboration, however and close to a thousand peopleparticipated in making the film, Sight of Stillness, a series of meditation workshops atFilmmakers and in a symposium presenting scientific research on meditation, health andmedicine at the Carnegie Science Center.

In its theme of health and healing, Sight of Stillness was preceded by its progenitor,The Listening Project, a sound, projection and video installation Speranza conceived for theSchneider Museum in Oregon. The Listening Project examined mind/body disorientation in

the information age, self-transformation and cross-gender communication issues.

Speranza began exhibiting art in 1985 with solo and group shows followed byperformance work, screenings, telematic and web-based art exchanges. Lucy Lippard, RobertAtkins, Elizabeth K. Menon and British scholar, Malcolm Miles published her work in their

anthologies. Her collaborators include MIT author/scientist Alan Lightman and herbibliography includes the Los Angeles Times, New Art Examiner and Orion Afield. Speranzahas completed residencies at the Center for the Study of Health, Religion & Spirituality,Indiana State University, New Orleans Glassworks and Sculpture Space, New York. She has

held the endowed, Stephen L. Barstow Artist in Residence position at Central MichiganUniversity and has received grants from the Heinz Endowments, NEA New Forms program,Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Central Michigan University and The Ohio State University.

Speranza's artist books are in both the Carnegie Mellon and the Art Institute of Chicago

Joan Flasch Artist Book Collections. She has authored articles for the ARLIS Journal, ArtcomElectronic Network and has presented at the Metanexus Institute Conference, the InvencaoConference and the Museum Network Conference, among other symposia. She has developedcoursework and taught classes at Central Michigan University, Carnegie Mellon, Carlow

University, Pittsburgh Filmmakers, the Andy Warhol Museum and the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. She has administered programming for the Wexner Center, the Greater ColumbusArts Council and the City of Pittsburgh's Arts in the Parks. Ms. Speranza lives and works inPittsburgh, Pa, an increasingly green city with a growing public art program.



[email protected] | 5855 ALDERSON STREET | SUITE 8 | PITTSBURGH, PA 15217 | 412.403.4545PAGE 2 OF 9

Invisible Clock wascommissioned by the city of Manhattan Beach, just outsideof Los Angeles. Three pairs of

park benches weredeteriorating in Parque Culican.Invisible Clock revamped these

benches with new backs, newseats and a series of digital

artworks printed on vinyl. Eachpair of benches presented ameditation on the nature of time, using text from Alan

Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreamsand dreamy, collaged imagery.




End of the Line: Building Bridgeswith Pittsburgh’s Busways is acommunity-based public artworkcreated by Lisa Link and CarolynSperanza while fellows at the STUDIO

for Creative Inquiry at CarnegieMellon. The artists held workshops atneighborhood Carnegie libraries, andfour common themes surfaced fromparticipants’ interviews, photographsand artwork: The Unsung Hero, Urban

Removal, Rebuilding Our Neighborhoods and Community Gardening. Digitally collaged artworkwas created from these themes,printed on vinyl and displayed on a

fleet of city buses.

The project was funded by a regionalNEA grant with additional support fromAllegheny County’s Port Authority andthe Carnegie Libraries.




My Bread Tastes Sweeter when the street is clean likea table were the words of immigrant Mario Ezzo wholived in Aliquippa,Pennsylvania during the

Great Depression. Likemany, Mario was living onpublic assistance. Hebecame a folk hero bysweeping the main street of Aliquippa everyday, saying itwas the least he could do inreturn for the governmentcheck he was receiving.

Co-authored with Lisa Link,

this billboard was installedon Aliquippa's main streetfor a community artsfestival, and subsequentlypublished in Lucy Lippard’sbook, Lure of the Local-Senses of Place in aMulticentered Society.




Literacy Windows was commissioned by the

Times Project; co-authored with Lisa Link andManchester Craftsmen’s Guild students; andfunded by the Heinz Endowments. Imagery forthe 20' x 30' vinyl mural was based oninterviews with literacy program participants.

Fluidity Electrique at thePittsburgh Biennial. Acrossthe front of Pittsburgh Centerfor the Arts, Mellon Park, inPittsburgh, PA, a!series of

twelve lightboxes covered thebuilding’s windows. Digitallycollaged images were printedin black and white on mylar,

and then sandwiched withplexi glass, paint, color gelsand illuminated from behind.




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Streetside LightboxesGallery storefronts wereconverted into lightboxesby using transparencies,large scale graphics paintedon frosted mylar andflourescent light fixtures.Rolls of colored cellophanewere used in these

installations as well.

PullFor this installation, a falseceiling was built usingfrosted, light diffusingmylar; fluorescent lights;transparent gels and large

scale graphics transferred tothe mylar. Looking upwardswe see wooden dymaxionglobes, encrusted withencaustic and illuminatedfrom within.




Gender Balance is a fifty footlong installation at the NewOrleans Glassworks. Collagedimagery is illuminated byneon tubing and painted oneach segment of the plate

glass housed in the railing.Objects are hung in eachniche, referencing St. Jude’schapel at a nearby NewOrleans cemetery.




a

The Critical Path was inspired by abook by Buckminster Fuller. This wallsculpture was made with neon,astroturf, wall paper, enlarged xerox

graphics and handmade, wooden,dymaxion globes – illuminated from

within by blue neon and wrapped byorange neon. The bright orange neontubes creating a visual path aroundthe wall-sized image were softenedby painted-on silicone gel.

Neon Paintings were installed in ahallway glass cabinet in a publicbuilding. Made with neon, frosted mylarand black ink, these images wereoriginally made by collage. They were

then enlarged and transferred in ink tofrosted mylar. The color you see is fromentirely from neon tubing.




CAROLYN SPERANZA

ART IN THE PUBLIC REALM

2002-3 Sight of Stillness: What Do You See When You Meditate? Over 750 people engagedin meditation through the creation of a film; a symposium at the Carnegie Science

Center; weekly workshops; web site and documentary of the artist-activist process.¬ Funded by Heinz Endowments’ Creative Heights Initiative

In residence at Pittsburgh Filmmakers

2002 Earth Breathing through its Elements is a duet between human breath and theelements. In a dual screen video the elements are personified by an Africandrummer as Earth, a Kundalini yogi as Fire, an aria singer as Air and a competitive

swimmer as Water. The soundtrack is composed from sampled sounds of humanbreath, the body moving, and the environment.

¬ Co-authored with composer Eric Moe • Commissioned by First Night Pittsburgh

Additional funding by PA Partners in the Arts and the PITT Office of Research

2001 Urban Aquarium paired the movement of a martial artist with its counterpart innature on multiple video screens. With this imagery and a Theremin soundtrack,

the video aquarium gave viewers a meditative space in a city traffic tunnel.

¬ Collaborators: Ben Opie, composer; Cary Simons, chiropractor; and

Karen Hyleman at Oom Yung Doe • Commissioned by First Night Pittsburgh

1999 Community Forums Online was the first interactive web site for The Andy WarholMuseum. Online forums discussed Disney’s architecture from Pop Culture to Urban

Renewal, and in the process, shifted the museum’s approach to using the internet.

¬ Commissioned by The Andy Warhol MuseumSponsored by Electronic Information Network

1996-7 End of the Line: Building Bridges with Pittsburgh’s Busways connected diversegroups of people through their common concerns. At workshops in city libraries,participants shared their old photos, and talked about the issues and history of

their neighborhoods. Common themes were illustrated and displayed through busadvertising. The web site archive includes an interactive response log.

¬ Co-authored with artist/photographer Lisa LinkFunded by the NEA New Forms programCo-sponsored by the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon,the Carnegie Libraries, and Internet Services Corporation

1996 Invisible Clock~ With photomontages and text from Einstein’s Dreams on parkbenches, this public art project explored the nature of passing time in a seasideneighborhood park.

¬ Collaborators: 89 year old Helen Sinsabaugh and MIT scientist, Alan LightmanCommissioned by the City of Manhattan Beach, California

1994 My Bread Tastes Sweeter to keep the streets clean like a table . . . is a billboardhonoring the life of Mario Ezzo, a Depression era immigrant who swept the streetswhile on public assistance. Mario was a folk hero in his time and again as anemblem of contemporary efforts to revitalize an old steel town like Aliquippa.

¬ Co-authored with artist/photographer Lisa LinkCommissioned by Aliquippa Alliance for Unity and Development

1992-3 Literacy Windows is a mural expressing the hopes and dreams of people grapplingwith the challenges of literacy. It is the first mural in Pittsburgh to be designedand printed digitally and now resides in the Southside.

¬ Co-authored with artist/photographer Lisa LinkCommissioned by The Times Project • Funded by the Heinz Endowments

cpsperanza public art portfolio

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