RADAR 10 - Fashion
Publication Date: April 14, 2004
Building Alteration Project
1634 Guilford Avenue
www.stationnorth.org
February 14 through natural deterioration of work

Baltimore is boarded up. Vacant lots and houses are among our biggest problems, economically, sociopolitically, and visually. Enter the gentrification current and you've got a figurative surface seemingly impossible for art to permeate. The physical properties, however, are ripe with decorative potential. People are making art on and about these "dead" spaces--take for instance Jay Perry's recently premiered Book of the Dead , a beautiful video examination of Baltimore 's architectural and social changes and the spirituality therein. Perry is an example of the young middle-class artists populating our "up-and-coming" neighborhoods; he attempts to scrutinize and engage his newfound urban community, with the hope of enacting some change through an educational art form.

On the other hand, is there anything wrong with simply beautifying a surface rather than using it as a vehicle for change or restoring it to its original functionality? The Building Alteration Project is similar to last year's Door and Window Project ; through the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, and The Station North Arts & Entertainment District, twenty-one artists have applied visual works to the 1,200 square feet of window boards on what was once the Mildred Monroe Elementary School #32, a 1970s-era building-become-eyesore. The school was closed in 2001, and use of the window spaces was donated by the Baltimore City Public School System for this project.

Formally, the project is smart and diverse, held together by the theme of pattern-based work. There is blatant political commentary, printed fabric, cut paper, hip graphic conceptualism, and muralistic iconography. Some are in color, some are black-and-white; some are many of the same image repeated, some are one image stretched across more than one panel; some look like flyers, some look like paintings. The artists (who came from various cities including Baltimore , St. Louis and New York ) were presented with the idea that their works would be temporary, applied with wheat paste adhesive, and left to the elements. This didn't stop Youngmi Song from assembling an intricate, three-dimensional photographic work, and it may have added to the fleeting feel of Sarah Templin and Bruce Willen's looping text. There are postured art references coded for the academic, and graffiti derivatives echoing nearby tags.

When these writers were photographing the finished work, a woman pulled over after her windshield was cracked by a group of kids with a brick. This section of Guilford Avenue is one of Baltimore 's "in-between" areas--a corridor for travel between vastly different neighborhoods. Decoration by itself does not outweigh or absolve urban inequity, and could never bridge such a large gap. However, a fresh coat of art makes anything look better, even if it is just a temporary diversion. It serves the community as much as the community acknowledges its presence. A visual experience is an experience nonetheless, and worth having. Whether these projects have a lasting function may only be known after the rain removes the artist's efforts.

Lauren Bender and Seth Adelsberger