"NO PRESERVATIVES"
Student Project for
ARTS FIRST 2006
The Public Art Program also sponsored a student-designed public artwork, displayed during the 2006 ARTS FIRST Festival. May 4-7. Artist Gary Duehr guided students in the development and installation of the project. (Photos: Jessica Watkins)
Artist Statement:
"The life that surrounds us grows, evolves, and changes constantly. The fabric of the everyday is never stationary or un-breathing. Yet in order to study our natural environment, we collect it, catalog it, restrain its motion and stop its breath. The museum institution self-appointed guardian of nature and humanity works incessantly in this process of conservation and preservation.
The grid draws attention to the absurdity of this desire to collect and enshrine by applying an artificial structure to objects that litter our everyday lives. Plastic encases the mundane, while the synthetic scent of cardboard evergreens punctuates the air. As art historian Rosalind Krauss states: '[The grid] is what art looks like when it turns its back on nature.'
Our grid, however, will disintegrate, rot, entropy. As in all captured artifacts, nature takes its course as time unfolds, despite the best efforts at preservation. Ultimately we ask: will these constantly evolving objects overcome the static structure of the grid? "
Alice Lee '09
Stephanie Tung '06
Stefan Zebrowski-Rubin '08
"Fragments"
Student Project for ARTS FIRST 2005
Last year, sponsored by the Public Art Program, Duehr worked with undergraduates to create “Fragments,” a student-designed artwork installed in Harvard Yard during ARTS FIRST 2005. See image above and below. (Photos: Gary Duehr)
Gary Duehr is co-director of the Invisible Cities Group, which creates “large-scale urban detours” combining performance, poetry, and installations of visual art. He has been awarded a public art grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts and a commission from the MBTA for an installation at North Station. Duehr has also received an artist grant for photography from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and has shown his work internationally in museums and 
galleries from Boston and New York to Belgrade and Havana. He reviews photography for Art New England, and has written about the arts for numerous publications. He has published four books of poetry and has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship. Currently, Duehr manages Bromfield Gallery in Boston’s South End, and is Managing Editor of Arts Spectrum for the Office for the Arts.
For more information about getting involved with the ARTS FIRST public art project, you may email the artist at gduehr@mindspring.com.
About the Program
By commissioning public artworks by professional artists, engaging students to learn from participating artists, and creating opportunities for students to create public art, the OFA encourages students to see their familiar environment in new ways.
