Lipe Art Shark
A Collaborative Project of the Stewards of Lipe Art Park and Brendan Rose
The Art Shark is an installation design that has arisen out of a collaboration between the Stewards of Lipe Art Park (SLAP) and artist Brendan Rose with the aim of helping to further establish the identity and sense of place at the park. The project, which is also a focus of Rose’s master’s degree thesis, and has involved focused community design meetings that generated a collaborative process of project visioning and design critique (see meeting response forms at the back of this material). Installation of the project is scheduled for the month of April, 2010. It is the aim of the project to continue engaging a diverse group of participants through the fabrication and installation of the work, potentially fostering individuals’ investment in the art park and the city of Syracuse.
Materially, the Art Shark is an installation exploring the interlock of a vertical and horizontal surface within the large open landscape of the art park. These two intersecting surfaces, each with unique characteristics, will frame views across the site, signify human presence, and provide sensual experiences of solidity and porosity. The vertical surface, composed as a simple geometric square, is divided in half by the horizontal, differentiating an upper and lower section. The lower section is a solid concrete surface that will act as a mural wall. The mural art on this will be
rotating under the curation of SLAP and will be presented to the Public Arts Commission in a separate application. The contrasting upper section of the wall is a transparent mesh, providing a visual extension of the vertical surface without the solidity of the bottom half. The horizontal surface is perforated skin that will generate a patterned light and shade experience. The Art Shark is oriented so that this experience of light and shade becomes an extension of a corresponding experience provided by the park’s lone, centrally located tree. Support for the horizontal surface will be anchored by additional concrete masses, providing opportunities for seating below the porous shading.
