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Bridget Irish Exhibits in Tacoma
Tollbooth Junction 11th & Broadway" by Bridget Irish opens at the Tollbooth Gallery
Tacoma, WA (PRWEB) December 31, 2004 -- Tollbooth Junction 11th & Broadway" by Olympia-based artist Bridget Irish is the newest Tollbooth exhibition and opens on December 12th, 2004 and is on view through January 29th, 2005.
Tollbooth Junction 11th & Broadway" is a collection of various subway rides the artist, Bridget Irish, has taken over the past several years, and filmed on Hi-8 video.
Featured subway routes, shot when traveling above ground and during the day, include: NYCs D-Line Brooklyn to Coney Island route and back, Chicagos downtown loop from the Green Line, and Bostons Blue Line from downtown to last stop Wonderland. These videos are as much studies in motion, form and light, as they are travel diary excerpts. With the inclusion of an enlarged snapshot of a newspaper stand vendor at NYCs World Trade Center subway stop, the Tollbooth is transformed into a transit station portal where nothing stops except passersby long enough to take a look.
Tacomas own light-rail, LINK, is stealthily included in the installation loop. I like the idea that (the viewer) who is being presented with...unfamiliar territory, may experience a sense of dislocation when something familiar unexpectedly moves through the frame, especially as its not a depiction of the immediate surroundings but just one street over."
Filmmaker Bryan Connolly says that Bridget Irishs works, ...are documents of happenings most people take for granted -- the beauty of that directly in front of us or just outside the window."
Irish has been making films and videos for over 14 years. Her award-winning short work has shown nationally, including the San Francisco Cinematheque, Women in the Directors Chair, the Flaming Film Festival, X-Fest at Sarah Lawrence College, the Robert Beck Memorial Cinema (New York), 911 Media Arts, COCA in Seattle and Tacoma Art Museum. She has taught at San Francisco Art Institute, The Art Institute of Chicago, UC Berkeley, Boise State University, The Evergreen State College, and Saint Martins College. Bridget is currently volunteer director and a workshop instructor for the Olympia Film Ranch.
Irishs exhibition concludes the first full year of outstanding exhibitions at the Tollbooth Gallery which had its inaugural show last New Years Eve. In 2004 the Tollbooth featured 8 different exhibitions from artists working around the nation create work for this fantastic project.
The Tollbooth is the 'Worlds Smallest Gallery dedicated exclusively to video and paper based fine arts and is a project of ArtRod. The Tollbooth has garnered national attention as one of the most talked about projects of late, blurring the line between cutting-edge contemporary museum works and public art in a unique time-based format.
The Seattle Weekly says of the gallery, Tacoma takes the lead in cool public art ideas with the Tollbooth" (Seattle Weekly 6/30/04)
The Tollbooth presents some of the nation's freshest contemporary work by providing a setting for video, new media and interdisciplinary approaches that are typically, by their very nature, relegated to interior spaces." says the City of Tacomas Public Art Administrator Amy McBride This is a brilliant way to deliver street-level public art." The work of eight different artists or artist teams will be featured annually at the Tollbooths unique outdoor public installation space.
ArtRod is a 501(c)(3) non profit organization established in 1958. ArtRods mission is to facilitate art exhibition in nontraditional public arenas. ArtRod has grown out of, and in response to, a specific need to bring contemporary art forms out of a solid, conventional museum setting and directly into the communitys path. In addition to the Tollbooth, ArtRod produces the quarterly magazine, Toby Room, the experimental film series, Dont Bite the Pavement, and various experimental art events like last Novembers Tracy and the Plastics show for local students.
Dont miss Tollbooth Junction 11th & Broadway" an experimental video and paper art installation at the Tollbooth Gallery starting December 12, 2004 through January 29, 2005. The Tollbooth is located just north of the intersection at 11th and Broadway in downtown Tacoma. The Tollbooth is open to the public 24 hours a day and admission is free. ArtRod (253) 572-0995 www.artrod.org
For more information, to be sent mailings and materials, or to set up interviews with artist Bridget Irish, contact Michael Lent at (253) 572-0995 michael (at) artrod (dot) org
Publication Quality Photographs available for use at http://www.ArtRod.org/press specific photos available upon request.
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