TOWER OF POWER: Marro works on her 26-foot sculpture, dubbed a “fantasy castle cathedral.” |
The forgotten status of old industrial buildings in Eagle Square and Olneyville was a key factor in enabling this creative scene to take flight. What’s your view of how surging development in these areas has affected the underground, and what does it mean for the future?
Some of the artists have had to move a number of times. They basically moved to the Olneyville area in 1995, so we’re talking just a little bit over 10 years, and I know that they’ve lived in at least three places in that period, and that they’re faced with having to move at the end of this year. So I think it will definitely change the way people are living here. A lot of artists have moved from loft spaces, which are no longer available because they’re being turned into either residential or commercial spaces that are much more expensive and [beyond] what they can afford to live in. So they’ve actually moved to smaller places.I think that some of them might wind up leaving. At the same time, there’s a new generation who are still moving here, because there is this word-of-mouth that Providence is a really exciting place, particularly for young artists, to be. So it’s hard to say.
A lot of the artists are very involved in what happens to their community, and we have on the back of the cover of the [exhibition] catalogue a poster that says, “Olneyville needs [a] library, not luxury lofts.” [Laughs.] That’s a very current poster, you know, that we saw reproduced in other publications, so the artists have a real investment in their community. So I think right now, we simply don’t know.
Buying property in Providence has moved beyond the reach of a lot of people, not just artists. Does this suggest that more economically depressed cities, such as Fall River, might be the next frontier for movements like the one highlighted in “Wunderground”?
I think that’s a very good possibility, actually.
Related:
Going underground, Looking back, RISD redefined, More 
- Going underground
The project in which Michael Townsend and seven collaborators created a secret apartment at Providence Place began as an adventure in which four friends tried to live in the mall for a week.
- Looking back
The advantage of being a teaching museum is on full display at the Rhode Island School of Design in the exhibition “Re-Viewing the Twentieth Century.”
- RISD redefined
Rhode Island School of Design’s new Chace Center is the physical embodiment of the 131-year-old institution’s effort to rebrand itself as a more open place.
- RISD's hope-less situation
On August 3 it was announced by the Rhode Island School of Design that Hope Alswang had resigned as the director of the RISD Museum. Those who have followed the coverage of this story may be somewhat confused by the revelation that absolutely everyone acknowledged that Alswang was a superlative museum director and that absolutely no one involved in the arts scene at RISD or in the state of Vo Dilun thinks that she voluntarily "resigned." It was said that she loved the job, and the vague announcement that Alswang left to "pursue other opportunities" sounds as suspicious as elected officials dropping out of election campaigns to "spend more time with their families."
- Matter of the moment
Although Wunderground: Providence, 1995 to the present, an exhibition opening this Friday at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, encapsulates a very brief period of time, it also represents a dramatically compressed cycle of change in the life of the city.
- RISD takes to the streets to show 'What We Do'
"What We Do," an unprecedented, student-run event on April 11 at the Rhode Island School of Design, aims to capture, in a frenzied six hours at six locations, the spirit of Providence's most creative and offbeat college.
- New kids on the block
24-year-old Julie Kuceris decided her Rhode Island School of Design education was more useful elsewhere. .
- Brave new RISD
The Rhode Island School of Design, for all its artful ambition, is a conservative place. Students draw. They mold clay. They are awash in taxidermy. So there was more than a little anxiety when John Maeda — sneaker designer, MIT professor, digital media rock star — took over as RISD president last summer.
- Worth another look
In 2008, real estate and jobs dominated local art news.
- Somewhere in time
As we sip sherry, Mr. Salley points to a picture of Cinderella’s castle at Disneyland, that glorious patamechanical nexus.
- Print the legend
This exhibit offers an eye-popping, floor-to-ceiling survey of practically every poster produced to advertise under-the-radar Providence shenanigans from 1995 to 2005. Slideshow: Images from Wunderground
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Topics:
Museum And Gallery
, Visual Arts, Rhode Island School of Design, Brian Chippendale, More
, Visual Arts, Rhode Island School of Design, Brian Chippendale, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Judith Tannenbaum, Richard Brown Baker, Less
