ACP Public Art Project
Atlanta Celebrates
Photography
This
page cronicles and documents the progress of Matt Haffner's work on a large
scale public arts commission through
Atlanta Celebrates Photography. This will be updated through the course of the
project. Check back periodically for up
to date information.
ACP Announces the Curator and Artist for its
2006 Public Art Project
Curator: Joey Orr
Artist: Matt Haffner
This year, Joey Orr became the first curator of ACP’s annual Public Art
Program. Orr founded and ran ShedSpace for
five years, 2000-04. He was the curator of exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary
Art of Georgia, Saltworks Gallery,
and Garage Projects.
“Atlanta Celebrates Photography’s public art project is an exciting
chance for me to further my curatorial practice begun
in ShedSpace, “ noted Orr. “What does how we live say about who
we are? What are some of our assumptions about the
spaces we live? By asking Matt Haffner to explore his street practice in the
context of the city of Atlanta, we are able to use
the medium of photography to engage the city in the unique vision of one our
own accomplished artists.”
Haffner began working on the street while studying at the Tyler School of Art
in Philadelphia. His early experiments
combined graffiti, drawing, wheat paste, and silver prints, and they used ambiguous
narratives derivative of film noir and
comic books. Some of these same themes will find their way into his 2006 project,
which will be specific to Atlanta.
The project will be accompanied by a DVD created by Chris Downs of TUBE Creative.
Haffner received his Masters degree from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia
in 1998. After moving to Atlanta, he
became the 2003-2004 recipient of the Forward Arts Foundation, Emerging Artist
of the Year Award. He is a studio artist
at the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center and was recently appointed as Professor
of Photography at
Kennesaw State University.
Notes About
the Project:
Working with ACP curator Joey Orr, who I've worked
with in the past (Atlanta's Shed Space, which was Joey's
brainchild), started an interesting new dialog between the two of us about ephemeral
street art and it's role in
the Atlanta art scene. I had done this type of work before, but on a smaller
and less legal scale. Now the issue
would be to make sanctioned, larger works that had a national backer like ACP.
Check out the ACP press release for more information.
Initally we had planned over 20 sites, though, through the process of getting
approval and time factors taken
into consideration, there will be 14 sites around downtown Atlanta and immediately
surrounding areas. Here is a map
detailing where most of these sites will be. There will be a final list once
all are approved. This list will be on this
site and be in the ACP festival guide.
Atlanta Celebrates Photography’s 2006
Public Art Project
Curatorial Statement
Architecture must be recognized today as a social system: a new economic condition
and a psycho-political experience. - Krzysztof Wodiczko
It is a known fact that we do not see with our eyes but rather with our brain.
- Robert Smithson
Place is mythmaking. But whose stories are being told and by whom? Every place
is mediated by some degree of authority. When intervening temporarily in the
public sphere, we experiment with the unspoken politics of space. What better
way to engage in this exercise than through narratives that entice our imaginations?
Not dictated, linear narratives, but an artistic practice that opens up new
spaces for experience and discourse.
Atlanta photographer Matt Haffner re-engages with his street practice in Atlanta
Celebrates Photography’s 2006 public art program. While exploring the
city for potential sites, I was struck at how buildings and their scale did
not match their corresponding images in my head, nor did their appearances generally
coincide with how I had verbally constructed them in conversation. In other
words, the city I lived in was not always congruent with its empirical evidence.
Haffner’s wheat pasted photographic scenes intervene, therefore, not only
in the built environment, but in our own constructed spaces, slipping quietly
around corners, scaling ignored architectural features, disappearing into the
layered surfaces of forgotten walls and reappearing transiently between our
assumptions about a city that exists only experientially…discursively.
By bringing Matt Haffner’s street work to the fore of ACP’s annual
investigation into photography, the work is seen, not in the context of a gallery,
museum or specialized visual art venue with its own set of rules and authoritative
codes, but within the context of the audience itself. The manner in which Haffner’s
characters can at times surprise or elude us, so it is with the occupation and
performance of space for us all. This kind of creative practice will always
have currency because it opens us up to possibility and makes an impact on what
and how we are able to perceive.
Joey Orr
Friday September 15th we began installation of the project.
Below are images from the install. This was a good trial run. It helped us get
a good idea
of the difficulty of installing something this large.
This site is on the east side of Youngblood
Gallery in Grant Park. Located at 629 Glenwood Ave. SE, Atlanta, Ga. 30312
- map
this location
check back to see more updates. We will be installing the
rest of the pieces over the next three weekends. I'll do the updates to the
site as fast as i can.
349 Decatur Street near the corner of Bell Street, just down
the street from Georgia State. - map
this location
1050 N Highland Ave NE, Atlanta, GA 30306 behind 20th century
antiques and Fontains - map
this location
corner of edgewood and boulevard in atlanta. across the street
from javaology coffee shop. - map
this location
Midtown
Bowl, Midtown Bowl 1936 Piedmont Cir NE Atlanta, GA 30324 - map
this location
319 Walker Street in Castleberry Hill - map
this location
Atlanta Contemporary Art Center - 535 Means Street, Atlanta,
Ga. 30310 - map
this location
Randall Brothers Building Material 665 Marietta St NW, Atlanta,
GA 30313 -
map this location
Midtown Prominade 931 Monroe Dr NE, Atlanta, GA 30308 - map
this location
Law offices of Daniel Kane, Stephen Murrin, Kristen Wedean
133 Nassau Street, Atlanta, Ga. - map
this location
239 Peters Street, Atlanta, Ga. 30313 - map
this location
Wisteria Restaurant 471 N Highland Ave NE, Atlanta, GA 30307
- map
this location
Thumbs Up Diner 573 Edgewood Ave SE, Atlanta, GA 30312 - map
this location