BENCH UPDATE!
As of the week of October 13th 2008, The west end Wealthy Bench has gone missing!!!
A project of the Civic Studio Wealthy Project. The three benches are now installed and will be along the street for one year for the public to enjoy.
Curatorial Statement
The cast concrete benches are a product of the Civic Studio's recently completed project "Wealthy End to End." The benches serve multiple functions; public furniture, public art, and a physical model of the full length of Wealthy Street. One result of the studio's investigation of the street was the recognition that Wealthy Street terminates at each end in a massive land form: Reeds Lake in the East and the former Butterworth Landfill in the West. Each of these forms are illustrated in the form of the benches. When considered as material and spatial evidence of shared public space and enterprise they hold valuable historic, and contemporary information. The project highlights various environmental, cultural, and civic issues by making these forms public.
The three benches will be placed at individual locations along the street for one year.
- The Eastern bench will be placed next to East Grand Rapids High School.
- The Western bench will rest along the end of the bike path.
- The Central bench will be on the midpoint of Wealthy in the 600 block. This is also in front of the site of the studio's project which ran from January to April 2008.
The Civic Studio is a project of the Department of the Art and Design at Grand Valley State University. The studio works to connect public life and citizenship to the practice of contemporary visual art. It was developed with the support of the Dorothy Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley.
Participants
Artists Kyle Fleet, Sarah Dekievit, Michael Wolf, Rachel Gleason, Otis Bray, and the Studio
Curator Michael Wolf
Installation crew Kyle Fleet, Jackie Jurgens, & Michael Wolf
