Mighty blog-poster and crazed artist James Bailey passes along details of his latest project - I've always wanted to do something with those dead spaces inside highway cloverleafs... Here's the info:
Introducing: Temporary Anti-Public Art Project (TA-PAP ™)
The experimental photographer/littoral artist James W. Bailey is pleased to introduce Temporary Anti-Public Art Project (TA-PAP ™).
TA-PAP™ is a Littoral Art Project that attempts to reposition found objects as temporary sculptural creations in an environment that is extremely hostile to the public.
Project Location: Dulles Toll Road Interchange at Hunter Mill Road in Reston, Virginia.
Project Description: This Temporary Anti-Public Art Project (TA-PAP ™) consists of concept development for aesthetic improvements at the interchange of Hunter Mill Road (Route 674) and the Dulles Toll Road (Route 267) in Reston, Virginia. The project involved the relocation of cut tree limbs and arrangement of same in the form of a sculpture for temporary placement at the above location underneath the overpass.
Funding Considerations: The project is funded completely by the artist James W. Bailey. The total fully audited costs for design, development and construction of this project are $11.23. 87% of the project costs were expended for gas, food and drink for project assistants.
Project Timeline: Notice to Proceed was issued by James W. Bailey to the project assistants at 11:30 pm on July 09, 2005. The project was completed on time and on budget by 1:30 am, July 10, 2005. The project will remain available for anti-public viewing until removed by the Virginia Department of Transportation.
TA-PAP ™ Core Mission and Philosophy: TA-PAP ™ seeks to render unsuitably hostile anti-public environments as principal territory for aesthetic improvement. TA-PAP ™ intentionally bypasses the conventional public art context and practice of artist created/government sanctioned collaboratively approved taxpayer financed public art projects by asserting art in the anti-public sphere with no government approval or funding. TA-PAP ™ encourages viewers to risk their comfortable public art viewing patterns by stepping into hostile aesthetic terrain. TA-PAP ™ is inspired by the dearth of public art in the anti-public suburban space. Phase 1 of TA-PAP ™ is designed, planned and engineered to create and manifest art in the hostile anti-public bleak aesthetic suburban realm of Northern Virginia.
How Can I View a TA-PAP ™ Sculpture?
Upon completion of a TA-PAP ™ sculpture, viewers will be provided with the location of the art object in question on the TA-PAP ™ web site.
All TA-PAP ™ sculptures are intended for temporary display (for the most part they will be constructed on space that is anti-public by definition of being difficult, hazardous or dangerous for public access).
Interested viewers of the TA-PAP ™ sculptures will be encouraged to visit the disclosed sites ASAP prior removal by regulatory agencies and/or authorities that have legal jurisdiction over the space where the sculptures have been constructed.
All completed TA-PAP ™ sculptures will be photographed for archival purposes.
CONTACT FOR MORE INFORMATION:
James W. Bailey
TA-PAP ™
1 comment:
Dear Warren,
Thank you, sir, for the kind post about Temporary Anti-Public Art Project (TA-PAP ™).
TA-PAP ™ exists to bring fresh art to the wilted souls and stressed lives of the spiritually distressed, morally repressed and emotionally depressed commuters of the Northern Virginia region – it also seeks to aesthetically enhance the paved-over anti-public spaces that dot the bleak suburban realm where the Lord has seen fit in his infinite wisdom to presently locate my Deep South estranged ass.
I’ve had several people email me since the project debuted last week, mostly your usual uptight Northern Virginia anti-tax anti-art I’m-an-angry-Republican-who-lives-in-a-majority-Democratic-enclave-of-Reston-who-can’t-get-my-liberal-homeowners-association-to-return-my-endless-phone-calls-about-why-I-think-my-association-should-only-contract-with-grounds-maintenance-companies-that-employ-English-speaking-only-gardeners-who-were-not-born-in-Latin-America, types demanding to know if this project has received any tax-payer based funding.
I want to make sure that all know, especially those in the Northern Virginia region who have been forced against their will with a gun held to their frontal lobe to pay increased tolls to fund the now questionable under-budgeted extension of Metrorail to the Wiehle Avenue exit in Reston, that TA-PAP ™ has received absolutely NO funding from VDOT or the Dulles Toll Road/Dulles Metrorail Project or any other local, county, state or federal office or agency.
This project was totally funded out of my back pocket from coins collected from vending machines located in a local upscale spa in Reston that were left by rich white ladies who don’t bother themselves with stooping over to collect mere nickels, dimes and quarters after pushing a dirty dollar bill into a machine to get a Diet Coke.
However, having said that, I am actively lobbying my state representatives for an inclusion of a “per cent for arts” line item in the final appropriations bill that will be needed for release of state funds that are committed to the Metrorail Project.
It is my eventual hope to be able to secure a major multi-million dollar commission for a future TA-PAP ™ sculpture that will have a much higher above ground public profile.
I already have draft plans for the project titled, “Mommas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys!”
It will feature a cardboard scale replica of an aircraft carrier with a cut-out of George W. Bush in a pilot’s uniform standing next to a Navy S-3B Viking. Flying over his head will be a gigantic banner that reads on one side (the side that can be seen by drivers and passengers in their cars from the highway) “New Mission Re-Accomplished!” and that reads on the other side (the side that will be facing pasture land and thus viewable only to the cows, birds and flies) “Haliburton in Association with HBO Films Presents ‘The Neverending War in Iraq’ an Oliver Stone Film Written by Sean Penn and Directed by George W. Bush. Executive Produced by Dick Cheney, Tony Blair and Michael Moore.”
It’s my intent to secure a location for this TA-PAP ™ sculpture near the exit for the National Air and Space Museum Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center on Route 28 in Northern Virginia.
I also intend to contract on the side for cash only with the artist known as Borf to have him "vandelize" my sculpture with anti-capitalistic graffiti so I can then turn around and rat him out and file a criminal complaint against him in Fairfax County with the intent of generating front page Washington Post coverage for the project.
I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the financing legislation as it snakes its way through the greased palms of the Highway Appropriations Sub-committee in Richmond.
James
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