GAR Foundation offered a competitive granting fund to Knight Arts Challenge winners to support 12 projects.
Art review: Curated Storefront makes downtown windows vibrant
Cities are living organisms that change from day to day and year to year. As time passes, some parts of a city can get left behind. This happens for a variety of reasons, because of lack of money, or because the pressure to make a substantive change is too great, and people just can’t comprehend it.
Akron is no different than countless cities throughout North America. Parts of Akron highlight the robust, diverse and quality community we know it to be and other parts seemingly limp along. While we would all love for them to become more vibrant, and of course we would support that type of growth, how to start that ball rolling might be out of our grasp.
Superchief and Hieronymus Objects Fill An Abandoned Storefront in Akron, Ohio With Art
Superchief Gallery and Hieronymus Objects teamed up for a blowout exhibit in Akron, Ohio as an unofficial exhibit for the Front Triennial, a multi-city event that goes on until September 30th, 2018. Hieronymus Objects is a massive collection of artworks that resemble the work of 15th-century Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch, including work from Keith Haring, Salvador Dali, Shepard Fairey, Takashi Murakami, Koak, Bonethrower, and many more.
Curated Storefront works to attract investment to downtown Akron through public art displays
Curated Storefront is a 2016 $100,000 Knight Arts Challenge winner that aims to showcase buildings that are abandoned, with a few under renovation, through ongoing, curated exhibitions. The current multimedia work ranges from brilliantly lit LED displays to digitally printed, cut and folded paper houses.
The idea is to draw people into downtown and activate the properties, some of which sat empty for years but sold or were rented within months of being highlighted through the project, said Executive Director Rick Rogers.
ACF funds distribute $2.2 million in quarterly grants, Curated Storefront a recipient
Today, Akron Community Foundation’s board of directors approved grants totaling $2,217,890, including $588,500 in competitive arts and culture grants chosen by the foundation’s Community Investment Committee.
This quarter’s arts and culture funding included a $5,000 grant to The Curated Storefront to bring vibrancy to downtown Akron through window art displays in vacant street-level buildings.
Western Reserve PBS show, Around Akron with Blue Green, Features Curated Storefront and Other Downtown Family Fun Destinations
Spoils of Akron Podcast: Episode 116 Highlights Curated Storefronts and a Unique Vantage Point of Akron's Landscape
WKSU Reports: Curated Storefront Puts Art at Downtown Akron's Street Level
"Passing through downtown Akron will now be a little more colorful thanks to a project called Curated Storefront. The project puts art installations in buildings at street-level, including vacant spaces, in an effort to make urban areas more welcoming. There are 13 installations in all."
Click the title link to experience the full segment by WKSU Producer, Andrew Atkins.
Artist Ron White Featured in Western Reserve PBS TV Show Around Akron with Blue Green
Things to Do, Aug. 17: Music-themed Third Thursday in downtown Akron; ‘Doctor Who’ film; it’s all Greek (food) in Canton
Take look at Black Keys posters
Concert posters aren’t as ubiquitous as they used to be, but some bands still embrace the art form, including Akron’s own Black Keys (many of them designed by Pat Carney’s artist brother, Michael). A selection of posters from the Keys’ travels, collected by Dan Auerbach’s parents Mary and Chuck Auerbach, is on display in the windows of the Polsky Building as part of the Curated Storefront project. Check them out as you wander around downtown Akron for Third Thursday between 5 and 9 p.m., which is themed to Akron’s music history this month.
O'Neil's Storefront Inspired by New Dance Festival Coming to Akron June 2017
Hip-hop dancers, graffiti artists collide in Neos Dance Theatre’s latest work
Fenn also explores relationships between classical and urban artists by integrating art curator Courtney Cable into the dance. The arts administrator is program coordinator for the Akron Art Museum’s Inside| Out project, which places art reproductions around town in public spaces, and also runs Curated Storefront, a Knight Arts Challenge project that installs artwork in vacant or under utilized storefronts in downtown Akron.
For dance.r.evolution, videographer Trowbridge has captured Cable organizing the Storefront. She also interacts live with Neos dancers Matt Roberts, Kassie Lee and Katherine Tackett, “curating” their dance by handing them each numbers that represent different music phrases. At each rehearsal, the dancers execute the phrases in different sequences each time she gives them different numbers.
“Every time we do a rehearsal, it’s different,” Cable said. “We all need to be flexible with one another and listen.”
Knight Arts Forces Combined: #Overlooked teams up with Curated Storefront
How are you collaborating with The Curated Storefront to bring art to the streets of downtown Akron? (Devil Strip)
"I am so fortunate to collaborate with The Curated Storefront. My Knight proposal included displaying my portraits in outward facing windows along Main street. I would have had a real hurdle in transforming a space myself and it was a very lucky coincidence that Rick’s project proposed to do this very thing. Fortunately they accepted my work through their curation process, and I will benefit from their previous experience curating a storefront in Akron. I think that there is a trend to make artwork more accessible, so I am not surprised that both of our ideas had similar elements." - Shane Wynn
Hearts are Aglow in Akron
Akron can now wear its heart on its storefront.
And depending on how much love you show for our fair city, the hearts will grow and grow and grow and grow and grow.
Five Zelda-like hearts -- yes, like the video game -- were installed this week in the windows of the Akron-Summit County Public Library along South Main Street.
The temporary art installation is part of the Knight Foundation-funded Curated Storefront project that is putting artwork into empty storefronts in town.
Knight Arts Challenge Winner Spotlight: The Curated Storefront
As Rogers puts it, "We have been very lucky to be able to work with a handful of very generous property owners who have made their spaces available for this project. the project has involved coordination across a variety of stakeholders - artists, property owners, a production team, etc. this has been challenging but rewarding." Rogers hopes that his project revives part of downtown, "creating a public forum for culture and a venue in which local artists can experiment, push new ideas, and engage with the history and urban fabric of our city." In ten years, he would like to see the downtown area even more vibrant, and filled with residents who appreciate everything that the city has to offer. He sums up the project in three words: "Art activates Akron."
Arts, Culture, Akron? by Amani Abraham
Thousands are expected to head to Downtown Akron this week to ring in the new year. And this year, the fireworks display won't be the only thing that lights up the city.
“It gives them a new conversation,” said Courtney Cable with The Curated Storefront. “Something new to talk about, and brightens up the space and makes them more lively and more vibrant.”
It starts with filling dozens of empty storefront windows in downtown Akron with local and international art.
The Curated Storefront is leading that effort, thanks to a grant from The Knight Foundation, to give visitors a chance to reflect on the local arts culture and give vacant buildings an opportunity to shine.
The Curated Storefront Awarded Knight Arts Challenge Grant
On March 15, 2016, Richard Rogers was awarded a $100,000 grant from the Knight Foundation to realize The Curated Storefront in downtown Akron. Rogers was named as one of 27 grantees whose projects will "engage and enrich the city through the arts." The winning proposals were selected from a pool of over 500 applications.