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June Issue 2004
Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh, NC, Offers Public Art Installation
Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh, NC, announces a public art installation at its future home entitled Portal. This public art installation designed by Cici Stevens created with assistance from students from Exploris Middle School will be on view from June 5 through Nov. 2004.
The west side of Contemporary Art Museum's building has been transformed with vibrant color and an impressive architectural structure, drawing attention to this entrance to the warehouse, and creating a transition from the street to interior space. The hard-edged brick and concrete of surrounding buildings give way to forms found in nature. This public artwork designed by Cici Stevens in collaboration with students at Exploris Middle School creates a point of entry where the viewer is greeted by a sense of ceremony, a - threshold to an experience.
Five post-and-limb structures are installed along the ramp leading down to the garage door. Echoing its square frame, six-by-six posts stand upright, and tree limbs embellished with bold colored designs and found objects are lashed as cross pieces.
Approximating the color of red brick, the posts are stained dark sienna red, the color pulsing upward from the ground, a sign of CAM's vigorous role in the changing Warehouse District. In contrast, the garage door is painted cactus green, a color associated with regeneration and new life - a symbol of the museum's new initiatives here. And like the energy of the sun generating outward from its center, the steel railings radiate bold marigold yellow lines, drawing viewers to walk into and through the "ramp".
Looking up, one can see bold designs painted on oak limbs lashed high overhead. The use of root-like tree limbs relate to the rebirth of CAM and the revitalized warehouse district as well. Objects found in the neighborhood and secured to the limbs, visually and conceptually tie the artwork to its environment. The combination of organic, architectural, and industrial materials have transformed a once barren loading ramp into a vibrant artwork illuminating this point of entry as an artistic destination.
Whether seen from the car window, as drivers turn onto Martin Street, or pictured in close proximity, Portal draws attention to a new chapter in the building's history.
About the Artist: For the past 15 years Stevens's sculptural installations have sprouted up in galleries, storefront windows, a dance hall, cellar, and other outbuildings across North Carolina. Stevens's work highlights the interrelatedness of the natural world and industrial environment, as human construction imitates designs evident in nature. She is particularly interested in the process of decay - how structures change over time, and natural forces like oxidation, freezing and condensation exert pressure and assure the "unbuilding," from which construction begins anew. In the last two years she has created 'active installationsí with performers as part of a sculptural environment in moving water in Vermont and Wyoming.
In 2000, Stevens completed a series of 12 room transformations in the windowless interior of the Durham County Mental Health Center, partnering with clients and staff in the artistic process. She has taught creative arts with blind students, psychiatric patients, and prison inmates, and as founding director of SeeSaw Studio in downtown Durham, created a dynamic after school program in design involving a diverse group of high school students.
Stevens was selected as a North Carolina Visiting Artist, 1986-1990, receiveda Durham Arts Council grant,1991, and an Alternate Visions grant, 1996, to collaborate with a choreographer and a composer, respectively. In 1997, Stevens worked with David Dorfman Dance to design the stage set for a project commissioned by the American Dance Festival, and was invited as an Artist-in-Residence at Western Carolina University. In 2003 she was awarded artist fellowships at the Vermont Studio Center, and the Jentel Foundation. Stevens currently maintains her studio in Durham, NC.
CAM extends a special Thank You to: Christian Poirier, Chaz Preston, Thomas Sayre, BuildSense, Alan Stewart, David Solow, White & Satterfield, Askew Taylor, and our wonderful student artists from Exploris Middle School (Grace B., Alex C., Adrienne F., Derrick L., Katie G., Jordan O., Nedda P., Nicolas R., and Frankie S).
This project is funded in part by a New Works grant from the North Carolina Arts Council an agency funded by the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts, and the United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County.
Contemporary Art Museum is a non-profit organization supported by its members, individual contributors, corporate and foundation support, the City of Raleigh based on recommendations of the Raleigh Arts Commission, the United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County, with funds from the United Arts campaign and the Grassroots Arts Program of the North Carolina Arts Council, and the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts. Contemporary Art Museum is an educational organization, linking visual literacy to contemporary life.
CAM Warehouse is located at 409 W. Martin St, Raleigh, (west side of building, lower level entrance).
For further info check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call 919/836.0088, e-mail at (nw@camnc.org) or at (www.camnc.org).
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