Tuesday, October 25, 2011
This is a fantastic fundraising effort seeking to continue an ongoing injection of great visual art into a community in a permanent, material and positive way. Every city needs initiatives like this and The Ministry of Artistic Affairs tips our hat to Auro Foxcroft and Village Underground for their efforts in London. Very cool.
You can learn all about the project via the video above or at The Wall's Kickstarter fundraising site. More details below from their website:
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The Wall: London’s Most Public Gallery
We’re turning 5 years old here at Village underground, and in celebration we’ve decided to try and make a dream happen.
We want to build London’s most public gallery. For years this immense wall on Great Eastern Street has been host to many artists painting in the wall’s 4m X 3m recesses, they’re oddly like natural picture frames, from Steve Powers and Shepard Fairy to incredibly talented local artists. We want to evolve this informal project, turning it into an amazing permanent art space.
Why We’re Coming to Kickstarter
To do this, we need to design, build and install bullet proof metal and glass frames over the recesses to protect the art work from theft and vandalism. Importantly, this means that artists can paint on board and canvas so the work can be kept. Its been really tough over the years to see such amazing work lost as the next artist paints over it.
Saving the art work will mean that artists can sell their pieces and earn a living. That’s obviously important, but it also means that we can exhibit art that’s not just painting – photography, digital art, mixed media, even interactive work: This takes the wall onto a whole new level.
Staying True
We’ve always been steadfast in remaining independent and much of what we do at Village Underground is on a not-for-profit basis. Supporting artists and providing an open and alternative space for culture is why we get out of bed in the morning. We’ve fought off the offers from advertising companies who what to use the wall, we want to raise our own money rather than having a corporate sponsor.
How it Will Work
We’ll invite guest curators and artists to contribute, programming The Wall with the same mixed-art approach as venue of Village Underground itself. Established artists will exhibit next to emerging ones, international artists next to locals.
We’re also creating The Digital Wall that will take the project much further afield. The Digital Wall will allow artists from all around the world to upload their own work in a bid to have exhibition time on the physical wall, this means we can go global, from New York to Istanbul. Art lovers can log onto the Digital Wall to follow this international stream of creativity, as well as download or order affordable art prints. This will generate income for both the artists and for the ongoing project costs, as well as Village Underground’s social programme of supporting young talent.
London traffic stats state that over 10 million cars pass The Wall every year - that’s more ‘visitors’ than Tate, The National Gallery and The Barbican combined. Add to that a few million more passengers, pedestrians and cyclists, and you’ll start to see why we’re more than a little excited about our plans. That's why we need your help.
A huge thank you from Auro, Abi and Orlando and all of us at Village Underground
And if you're interested, you learn more about who we are and what we do here: www.villageunderground.co.uk
Thanks to all the wonderful people who helped us create this film and project including Simon Drew, Anna Boberg, Mark Sloan, Steve Powers, SheOne, End of The Line, Dan Davies, Amelie Snyers, all those at Moniker, Monorex, Arnold Hattingh, Lisa Cadwallader and anyone else we've missed off (please let us know and we'll add you too!)
