Part of my job as a director of an art project is to find creative ways to exhibit and promote the younger artists to new and different audiences so they can all have the opportunity to consume art in their daily environment.
The week before the Puerto Rican Parade in Humboldt Park in Chicago, I saw an empty building in the hood and I asked around what was the deal with that building. They told me the had rented it out but the lease began on June 16th. The parade was set to be June 13-15. So I asked for permission to do a pop-up exhibition because the building that is spotted in a premium corner had an all windows display around the whole building front.
I asked around and talked to the owners and explained we were going to have a week long art exhibition with the artwork looking outwards towards the street so people in the parade could enjoy some art while waiting for the parade to start. They thought it was a creative way to expose kids and families that don't consume art to expose them to it and so Jumboldt Jibarito was set to go.
Called Crayon Papi whom I know has a lot of work always ready to go and has a lets do this thing spirit and he said yes from the get go, fortunately at the time of the approval, I was in Puerto Rico and went to his studio, selected the drawings and brought them with me to Chicago. Arrived on June 7th, put the show up in one day and we were ready for the opening on the 9th.
Called my best friend and graphic designer Jesus Chu Diaz and told him I needed a flyer in one day, sent him photos of the artwork and he created the cool looking flyer you see here.
Not everything is about sales, for me most times if not all is about the art. This was an exhibition for the people with no intention of selling as the spaced had to be closed. We had fun doing this with the from today for tomorrow pressure it is always refreshing, like when you start out in the art world a DIY effort.
The exhibition was up for a week and hundreds of families and kids of all ages got to enjoy some artwork without really understanding why it was there?, what it meant? or how did it got there? Was really awesome taking some pics and see the kids enjoying the work as they are created with Crayons in a naive style so kids would really feel a connection.
Here are some pics of the exhibition and some of the works exhibited:
No comments:
Post a Comment