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Urban Evolution:
Robert Longyear
Robert Reads “Seven Ten Split”
Jun 4, 2010 | Posted in From Robert, Urban Evolution
Robert Longyear reads his “Seven Ten Split,” which goes with the exhibition for Urban Evolution.
Tomorrow: Gallery Talk
May 28, 2010 | Posted in About Robert Longyear, Urban Evolution
Last Saturday afternoon, Robert’s friend Dickson Beall recorded a couple snippets of Robert describing working with kids at Craft Alliance:
The video was taken during an in-gallery discussion Robert led on his installation. This Saturday, May 29, at 1pm, Robert will continue the conversation and read his thought-provoking piece “Seven Ten Split.”
Robert Longyear talks with visitors about his exhibition for Urban Evolution.
Exhibition Unveiled for Transformation Project Walk
May 21, 2010 | Posted in The Transformation Project Walk, Urban Evolution
A high school student explains how she helped with Robert Longyear’s exhibition, and visitors share their thoughts on the installation during the Transformation Project Walk, a celebration of all the Transformation programs.
Visitors attend the opening of the Urban Evolution exhibition.
To see more photos from the Transformation Project Walk, visit the Pulitzer’s Flickr set.
At the Workshop
May 12, 2010 | Posted in About Robert Longyear, Urban Evolution
Yesterday afternoon, the Woolworth Building was brimming with activity. High school students were there, dusting off found books and cutting confetti, and some of Robert’s friends from Craft Alliance were helping with the massive spray paint undertaking. Saturday is sure to be an even bigger party.
Kahlil and Maggie, two of Robert Longyear’s high school assistants, talk about cutting up player piano scrolls for confetti for Robert’s exhibition. Other assistants help spray paint objects for the show.
A Little More Color
May 11, 2010 | Posted in About Robert Longyear, Urban Evolution
As predicted, Robert Longyear has been emptying those paint cans left and right. On my way to see what was going on today in the Woolworth Building, I was struck by beaming Americana–neon painted bowling balls and pins–sitting in windows to the alley. Inside, Robert had only one chair left to paint and many more ideas coming together. By the way, those particular “artifacts” I couldn’t recognize yesterday are actually the bottoms of the chair legs that Robert cut off, so that the chairs lean forward. For more photos from Transformation, visit the Pulitzer’s Flickr collection.
Chairs and Other Artifacts
May 10, 2010 | Posted in From Robert, Urban Evolution
Robert Longyear talks about the chairs in his installation and how they relate to the theme of “congregation.” Like Gordon Matta-Clark, who used titles like “A W-Hole House” and “Reality Properties / Fake Estates,” Robert also incorporates word play into his artwork.
Over the past few days, Robert Longyear, and high school students he works with as Community Outreach Manager for Craft Alliance, have begun installing work into the Woolworth Building for the Transformation Project Walk. In these early stages, Robert has been mulling over different objects he’s salvaged from Grand Center and deciding what will be included in the exhibition. Last Saturday, when I visited the space to take photos and video of the process, the objects below, some of which I couldn’t identify, lay in definite formations near the front window. Although how the exhibition will look isn’t entirely planned, I have a feeling it will involve a lot of neon-colored spray paint. I’ll let you know more this week, or even better, you can come see for yourself on Saturday during our big Transformation bash.
CONCEPT–CONGREGATION
May 10, 2010 | Posted in From Robert, Urban Evolution
Chairs are stacked in the Woolworth Building last Friday. They will be part of Robert Longyear’s installion for the Transformation Project Walk.
What about the fate of our neighborhoods? Our neighborhoods filled with unoccupied structures, abandoned warehouses, idle factories, and empty lots.
Is fate malleable? Is there a metabolism to real estate?
Through allocations of time and circumstance, I’m taking advantage of a great opportunity to talk about the dynamics at play in our neighborhoods. My engagement is ongoing and constantly in flux, much like the built environment itself.
I’m building a dialectic that fuses architecture and site, living experience and the making of objects as artifacts of an experience. I treat material on multiple layers of scale and behavior, altering the integrity of built structures as a way to compromise and transform.
My engagement in Grand Center will serve to give the Gordon Matta-Clark exhibition at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts a larger Grand Center dimension, while inciting questions about the evolution of a district. Read More
From the Artist: Robert Longyear
Mar 10, 2010 | Posted in From Robert, Urban Evolution
A bureaucratic effort, a subversive action – peg-leg up, his name is Smith an’ he left his deeds behind with unpaid tax bills like 50 caps tilted stylishly to the side shading a 24 oz. surrogate version of property.
A bugle, some soft-shoe, an’ a little rope…
About Robert Longyear
Feb 8, 2010 | Posted in About Robert Longyear, Urban Evolution
Robert Longyear is a St. Louis-based artist, who received his BFA in design and metalsmithing from University of Kansas in 2000 and is currently pursuing his MFA at SIU-Edwardsville. He is the Community Outreach Manager and Metals Studio Chair at Craft Alliance. He considers himself an “urban tourist,” who – like Matta-Clark – is drawn to urban structures and our interactions with them.