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RISD Tops the Year in Review

10/27/2010

Filament/Firmament by Ellen Driscoll, photo: Phyllis Bretholtz

A remarkable eight of the 40 projects selected for the Public Art Network’s 2010 Year in Review were created by RISD alumni and faculty. The annual award program recognizes outstanding public art projects created and installed around the US; this year, curators Helen Lessick and Fred Wilson reviewed more than 390 submissions before making their selections for the most compelling projects

The RISD alumni and faculty whose work stood out are Bill Davenport 86 SC, who won the award for his Giant Mushroom Forest in Austin, TX; Ellen Driscoll, professor and head of RISD’s Sculpture Department, for Filament Firmament in Cambridge, MA; Cliff Garten MFA 78 CR and Cliff Garten Studio for Sentient Beings in North Hollywood, CA; Brad Goldberg BLA 78 for his collaboration with Diana Goldberg on Fair Park Station in Dallas, TX; Annie Kwon BArch 01 of the League of Imaginary Scientists, E.K.K.O. choreography collective, for Waterways in Brooklyn, NY; Carolyn Law 93 GD for Sky to Earth in Portland, OR; Alan Michelson, a senior critic in Foundation Studies, for Third Bank of the River in Massena, NY; and Janet Zweig, has taught at RISD for many years, for The Opposite of a Duck in Fall City, WA.

The Public Art Network initiated the Year in Review program in 2000 in order to advance the field of public art and recognize the exceptional work created for public appreciation throughout the country. Lessick commented on this year’s selections: “The best in contemporary public art uses public space and public language, municipal architecture, and vernacular sites for contemporary creative practice.” The winning projects were presented at the Public Art Network Preconference in Baltimore in June and collected on the 2010 Year in Review CD.