“Chance Meeting” by Linda Hesh, Art in Odd Places 2010 artist, wins award from the "Americans for the Arts Public Art Network "

One of the projects featured at last year's Art in Odd Places 2010  was a winner of the  Public Art Network (PAN) awards. Since its inception in 2000, the Public Art Network (PAN) Year in Review program "continually recognizes outstanding public art projects through an open call submission and juror selection process." For its 2011 "Year in Review", the organization selected Linda Hesh as one of the recipients of the award for her work called "Chance Meeting" that appeared in our 2010 festival exploring the theme of 'chance'. Linda's interactive public intervention was selected in the category of Community Engagement and Social Activism by this year's jurors, Gail Goldman, Kendal Henry and Richard Turner, and announced at the Americans for the Arts Convention recently in San Diego. A record number of 430 submissions were received and 47 final projects were selected.

According to the description by the curators: "In recent decades, members of the community have been increasing encouraged to participate in the creation of the artwork itself. They sometimes become the artwork. The recent evolution of this trend has seen a number of pieces that go beyond celebration of community values to critique of environment or societal problems. A number of this year's entries have been artworks used as vehicles for inspiring community activism. In doing so, they have challenged conventional notions of art, intentionally confusing the distinctions between permanent and temporary, audience and performer, formal qualities and function."

The AiOP team is very proud and honored to have Linda  representing Art in Odd Places. 

Linda Hesh (Photo provided by the artist)

Linda was kind enough to share what she wrote to PAN:

“Chance Meeting Doorknob Hangers” is a temporary public art installation created for the Art In Odd Places exhibit that took place October 1-10 in New York, NY. White paper doorknob hangers, the type that advertisers use, were hung along all of 14^th Street from 10^th Ave. to Avenue C. They were printed in bold black type with eight different statements that capture a chance encounter: Is it really you?- It's been a long time - I was just thinking of you - How have you been? - What's new with you? - It's great to see you - Give me a call - Let's meet again soon. 

Photo provided by Linda Hesh

Imagine purposely walking down the city street, destination in mind, distractions on the brain. Suddenly a message appears on a door, seemingly speaking to you. This project is innovative in the unexpected location of a doorknob. Public art is usually in a park, raised up on a dais, not in a pedestrian doorway. 

It's also on a more personal scale than most public art, promoting a private moment between artist and viewer. Each hanger is small, but when the whole street is installed, the work exists across the width of Manhattan. It takes 500 hangers to cover both sides of the length of 14^th. For Art in Odd Places, a total of approximately 2000 were installed.

I know this work was successful because I saw pedestrian's reactions. And the day after an installation, all but 2 or 3 of the 500 would be left, finding new homes with happy viewers. They created a moment of desire and then a satisfying realization that one could simply take the piece home.  This project is temporary in the amount of time it spends outdoors, but lasting in the private experience it gives.    

Congratulations again, Linda!  We hope to hear more great things from you. 

Read more about Linda Hesh and her experience during the 2010 AiOP Festival. You can also visit her website (http://www.lindahesh.com/) to get to know her better. 

Find more about the rest of the Public Art Network "Year in Review" honorees here.

Paul Notzold's work is probably better than your Blackberry Messenger.

Our next AiOP artist is a big believer of projection, not the Freudian term, but the use of  projectors in public spaces. Let us meet Paul Notzold. His project for the festival, TXTual Healing,  will require the following things: a projector,  a text message-capable cellphone and a building facade. Oh,  I also have to mention this only happens at night time. Still a little unclear? Here is a sample of his previous work.


TXTual Healing hits Chelsea Art Museum; working with actors in the windows from paul notzold on Vimeo.


Amazing, right? This is another reason why you should not miss this year's festival.

In true texting form, Paul gave us a brief synopsis about him and his work.


AiOP: Tell us about Paul Notzold.
PN: Paul Notzold is an artist, performer, and conceptual thinker. His most well know work TXTual Healing (since 2006) is an ever evolving interactive performance piece inviting an audience to get involved via text messaging.

Photo courtesy of Paul Notzold

AiOP: How did you hear about Art in Odd Places?
PN: An invitation from the curators

AiOP: What made you decide to submit a proposal for the Festival?
PN: I liked the AIOP mission statement and I'm always excited to put work up in my hometown of NYC.


AiOP: How is the preparation coming along for your piece this October?
PN: Very well thank you.


AiOP: What's your favorite spot on 14th street?
PN: I suppose we'll find out after I put my work up.


AiOP: Do you have a hidden talent you would like to share?
PN: I can blow spit bubbles off my tongue

AiOP: Any message to the people who will be in 14th street during the festival?
PN: Bring your profound thoughts and Participate!

AiOP: Where do you live? (as in borough or city)
PN: Gowanus, Brooklyn

For more information about Paul, visit his website http://www.txtualhealing.com/

In the event you ended up wandering around 14th street around night time during the festival, prepare your texting thumb for this interactive art piece. Locations of his projections can be found at our website.

Happy texting!

Did you get the facebook invitation about the Festival? No? The invitation can be found here!

A frARTernity of artists: BroLab Collective - Art in Odd Places 2010

The Art in Odd Places team is in full swing gearing up for the upcoming festival. We are thrilled to have such great artists this year to present their work on Manhattan's 14th street. Excited to know who are artists included this year? Well, check in with the AiOP blog since we will be featuring all of them.

To kick things off, we have a group composed of Rahul Alexander , Robert Amesbury , Jonathan Brand , Adam Brent, Travis LeRoy Southworth, Ken Madore, Ryan Roa, collectively known as "BroLab". Each of them hail from a different background joined together by camaraderie and their passion for art. They are definitely an interesting group, emphasizing the need to grow both as a group and individual artists. One might say the name "BroLab" invokes a sense of "frattiness". But here in Art in Odd Places, we celebrate their commitment to become a brotherhood of artists in a much a higher degree with a word that fully encompasses who they are: A "frARTernity". And that, ladies and gentlemen, is something you don't see everyday in college.

Let's proceed on getting to know them better, shall we

(From Left to Right) Ryan Roa, Jonathan Brand, Ken Madore, Adam Brent, Travis LeRoy Southworth, Rahul Alexander

Aiop: What is Brolab?

BC: BroLab started from our semester in the AIM Program. We liked each other and the work we were doing and we thought why not continue meeting after the program is over. Essentially, BroLab is a bunch of like-minded artists who like to share ideas,have studio visits, drink, and make art. In one way it is an outlet- a way to diversify our individual work and work collaboratively. It is also great fun and we want to continue to grow our collective.

Ryan Roa One on One, 2008

Jonathan Brand Battle Axe, 2007

Travis LeRoy Southworth
The Growing Metaphysical Void at the Center of My Bedroom Ceiling 2010

Aiop: So what's with the name?

BC: long story short is that we were having a bit of fun with "colab". We had a speaker or two in AIM that leaned heavily on references to "Colab" noting the DYI art market we are heading towards that is similar to the 80's. I think it was after a studio visit with some of the guys, we were at the Sycamore Bar in Ditmas Park, that we said lets start a collective and lets call it "BroLab" given that we are all guys. The capital L came later to add a little panache.

Adam Brent I’m OK with it 2010

Aiop: How did you hear about Art in Odd Places?

BC: We heard about it through a fellow artist Christy Speakman who participated in it last year.

Aiop: What made you decide to submit a proposal for the Festival?
BC: We were searching for a venue to pitch an inaugural project when we ran into AiOP’s call for proposals for works along 14th Street. The 2.3 mile span, centralized location, and AiOP framework seemed like an ideal opportunity to explore some of our potential ideas and put them into action.

Aiop: How is the preparation coming along for your piece this October?
BC: We are rolling along and have for the most part finished our yokes and taken some practice runs. We have been joking around that we should probably get in shape given that our performance includes one 24 hr bucket relay from river to river. We have come to discover that water is heavy. We still have to get volunteers and solve some water access issues.

Aiop: What's your favorite spot on 14th street
BC: To the far east and to the far west, where it is always wet.

Aiop: Do you have a hidden talent you would like to share?
Sure, we can form 6-man pyramid.

Aiop: Any message to the people who will be in 14th street during the festival? BC: Come check out our performance, for more info visit http://inthenameofbrolab.org/ or follow us at http://twitter.com/brolab.

Thank you, BroLab. The possibility of the 6 man pyramid is another reason why you have to be on the lookout for this group this October.

OPEN CALL FOR ARTIST SUBMISSIONS Art in Odd Places 2010: CHANCE

Art in Odd Places (AIOP) invites artists working across disciplines to propose projects for the festival's sixth installment (October 1 – 10, 2010). Taking place along 14th Street from Avenue C to the Hudson River in New York City, we encourage proposals that explore this location's rich history, configuration, and heterogeneous communities. The forthcoming edition of AiOP is informed by various interpretations of the term CHANCE, including proposition, luck, randomness, risk, and opportunity. Within this context, artists are given the opportunity to apply their practice to an unconventional structure—playing off the idiosyncrasies inherent to the urban plane.

With emerging formats of communication, our culture has become a fertile ground for broad intersections between individuals, ideas and situations. This has resulted in unpredictable exchanges, relinquishment of control, surprise collaborations, and instances of spatial revelation. AiOP 2010: CHANCE intends to provide passersby with a new perspective of an otherwise familiar environment through site-specific installations, social and spatial interventions, video and audio projects, performance, new media, and other inventive practices. In addressing the distinct manifestations of chance, the festival aims to broaden the public’s outlook on art, city dwelling, and social conventions.

2010 guest curators: Yaelle Amir and Petrushka Bazin.

AiOP Founder and Director: Ed Woodham.

Visit http://www.artinoddplaces.org/ for artist application and guidelines.

Application Deadline: May 14, 2010, midnight