Colossus
May 1 - July 11, 2009 // 104 Gold St. Lofts by 516 Arts, Albuquerque, NM516 ARTS presents COLOSSUS, a collaborative, site-specific art installation in the Gold Street Lofts in Downtown Albuquerque, with guest artist Karl Hofmann and the students of Bret Aaker at Amy Biehl High School. The groups will produce a large-scale interpretation of the mountain Grosser Mythen in the Swiss Alps, a famous subject for Romantic artists and writers for centuries, revisioned out of scrap wood, cardboard and junk mail. The goal of this ambitious project is to create a thought-provoking, visually powerful installation using waste-stream materials to explore contemporary and historical ideas of the Sublime as a source of inspiration. A soundscape by students of Blake Minnerly at the Media Arts Collaborative High School will accompany the piece.
May 1 - 9 is the preview for the project, with a public reception on Friday, May 1, 6-9pm. It continues as an off-site project for LAND/ART in conjunction with the exhibition at 516 ARTS titled Here & There: Seeing New Ground, June 2 - July 11. This exhibition of contemporary artists examines the landscape from perspectives that are both visual and cultural, including artists who subvert landscape perspective to examine issues of the environment and human beings' relationship with nature. LAND/ART is a collaborative exploration of land-based art in New Mexico during June through November, 2009. For more information about this exhibition and LAND/ART, visit landartnm.org.
During May 1 - 9 and June 2 - July 11, the COLOSSUS installation at the Gold Street Lofts is open to the public Saturdays and Sundays, 12-4pm.