Creative Time and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
Invite Everyone in New York to Visit
Freedom of Expression National Monument
—AND MAKE THEIR VOICES HEARD!
Foley Square, Lower Manhattan, August 17 - November 13,
2004
“You are cordially invited to step up and speak up,” reads the
plaque adorning Freedom of Expression National Monument, a public artwork
by architect Laurie Hawkinson, performer John Malpede, and visual artist Erika
Rothenberg presented by Creative Time and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
From August 17 through November 13, 2004, this enormous red megaphone will
occupy Foley Square in Lower Manhattan, nestled between the bustling federal,
state, and city courthouses, and provide a platform for New Yorkers to speak
their minds during the upcoming election season.
Inspired by the concept of
a soapbox, Freedom entices passersby to climb its gently sloping ramp and
embrace the megaphone to voice their thoughts, poetry, grievances, and hopes.
Providing a public forum for dialogue on the dynamics of free speech, power
and powerlessness, and a multiplicity of social and cultural concerns, the
artwork engages individuals and groups to use the space in the tradition of
a town square. The artwork is both celebratory and ironic and directly addresses
public frustration over getting its voice heard.
Originally installed in 1984
for Art on the Beach (1978-1985), Creative Time’s annual program that featured
collaborations between architects, performers, and visual artists on the Battery
Park City Landfill, Freedom captured the imagination of New Yorkers. For one
memorable summer, thousands seized the megaphone on the windswept beach to
speak their minds to the world. Freedom brought contemporary issues to the
fore—from the AIDS pandemic to homelessness in New York—and asserted the importance
of standing by our right to express ourselves. The artwork also provided the
community with a platform for song, poetry, and performance.
Although there
has been great change since then, the range of issues for the public to weigh
in on has never been as vast. Nor have the stakes been as high. As presidential
campaigning got underway last year, Creative Time recognized Freedom of Expression
National Monument’s continued relevance. We weren’t the only ones. Architecture
critic Herbert Muschamp proposed in The New York Times last year that Freedom
be rebuilt at Ground Zero. He wrote, “The need for such a public platform
has never been greater than it is now.” (NYT, 8/31/03)
In both form and experience,
Freedom disarms and empowers. Freedom evokes the struggle involved in making
change, while reflecting the public’s desire to break through mass media and
partisan politics where individual voices tend to diminish. Freedom also challenges
our assumptions about the role of civic architecture, which the artists gesture
towards by naming the artwork a “national monument.” Unlike Washington D.C.’s
monuments, this temporary intervention is constructed on a human scale with
affordable materials. Rather than venerate great men and enduring institutions,
Freedom honors the ordinary and everyday.
Creative Time and Lower Manhattan
Cultural Council have invited a wide range of visual artists, performers,
writers, politicians, community activists, and individuals to engage with
Freedom. For an up-to-date list of events,
dates, and times, please go to www.creativetime.org/programs.
Support
Thanks
the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation and the Office of the Mayor.
Freedom of Expression National Monument is made possible, in part, with public
funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; the New York
State Council on the Arts, a State agency; New York City Council Speaker Gifford
Miller; New York City Councilmember Christine Quinn; New York State Senator
Thomas K. Duane, and with private funds from The Gunk Foundation and Mr. Steven
Horowitz.
Artist Biographies
Laurie Hawkinson is a partner of Smith-Miller
+ Hawkinson Architects - a New York City-based architecture and urban planning
firm founded in 1983. Ms. Hawkinson's work derives from an ongoing investigation
into the general culture of architecture - its history, as well as, its complex
and changing relationship to society and contemporary ideas. The firm has
conceived public and private projects across the United States, ranging from
institutional commissions and parks to corporate buildings, housing, public
transportation terminals, theaters and museums. Recent and current projects
include the $62 million expansion of the Corning Glass (1999), a planning
study for LMDC entitled Strategic Open Space: Public Realm Improvement Strategy
for Lower Manhattan, The Museum of Women’s History at Battery Park, the Wall
Street Ferry Terminal at Pier 11, and an outdoor cinema and amphitheater at
the North Carolina Museum of Art. Her team was a finalist for the NYC 2012
Olympic Village, and her firm will exhibit in La Biennale di Architecttura
di Venezia in Italy, in September 2004.
John Malpede founded the Los Angeles
Poverty Department (LAPD), a theater comprised of homeless people. "Olympic
Update: Homelessness in Los Angeles", was developed and performed as part
of the Freedom of Expression National Monument Project in 1984, and marked
the beginning of his involvement with poverty issues. As a director and performer
he has been the recipient of numerous awards, including Dance Theater workshop's
Bessie Creation Award, the San Francisco Art Institute's Adeline Kent Award,
and a LA Theater Alliance Ovation Award. Current projects include direction
of "RFKinEKY" a site specific performance that retraces the 200-mile route
of Robert Kennedy’s 1968 investigation of poverty in Appalachia (Sept 8-11);
performing the role of Antonin Artaud in Peter Sellars’ production of “An
End to the Judgement of God” (LA and San Francisco, October); and direction
of LAPD's "Agents & Assets" (Cleveland, November).
Erika Rothenberg is a visual
artist whose work takes many forms, from paintings and drawings to museum
installations to large-scale public sculpture. She has been exhibited at museums
and galleries around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York,
Documenta IX, Kassel, Germany, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Her newest public art work, “The Road
to Hollywood,” was lauded by the Los Angeles Times as “an exceptional work
of public art…it ranks among the best public art projects in L.A.” Rothenberg
lives in Los Angeles and is represented by Zolla/Lieberman Gallery in Chicago
and Rosamund Felsen Gallery in Los Angeles, where in 2005 she will exhibit
a new a series about cemeteries and memorialization.
Creative Time. As New York City’s most adventurous non-profit public arts
presenter, Creative Time has taken arts of all disciplines by international
artists virtually everywhere in the cityscape over the last 32 years. From
the landmark Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage and Times Square to artist-designed
skywriting, fireworks and Tribute in Light, the lauded temporary light memorial
to September 11, 2001 in the skies over Manhattan, Creative Time delights
and provokes millions each year. www.creativetime.org.
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) is an essential part of Downtown's
cultural landscape and principal player in its redevelopment-as it has been
since 1973. Through cultural planning, artist workspace programs, art services
and funding opportunities, and free events in the performing, visual, and
new media arts, LMCC takes a holistic approach to enriching New York City's
creative capital. Following the loss of their office, studio and programming
venues at the World Trade Center, LMCC has re-emerged as a new and improved
cultural force. Find out more about LMCC at www.lmcc.net. New York City Department
of Parks & Recreation Parks’ temporary public art program has consistently
fostered the creation and installation of temporary art projects in parks
throughout the five boroughs. Since 1967, collaborations with arts organizations
and artists have produced hundreds of public art projects in City parks, from
international exhibitions in flagship parks to local, community works in neighborhood
parks.