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Artist information:
Kurt Perschke
New York, NY
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Kurt Perschke is showing at:
UICA UICA
41 Sheldon Boulevard SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
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Kurt Perschke
Artist bio: A native of Chicago, Kurt Perschke is an artist based in New York who works in sculpture, video, collage and public space. His most acclaimed work, RedBall Project, is a traveling public art project that has taken place in Barcelona, St. Louis, Portland, Sydney, Arizona, Chicago and Toronto, and recently received a National Award from Americans for the Arts Public Art Network. RedBall has been avidly followed by the media, appearing in over one hundred media outlets including magazines, television, newspaper and radio. In 2006, he presented the project in the Busan Biennale. In addition to RedBall, Perschke has completed commissions for several institutions including The Museum of Contemporary Art Barcelona, the Vienna Technical Museum, and the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis. Perschke continues to develop new projects, and is currently working on an eight city tour of a social sport broadcasting event, called Arena Pod.
Artist statement: Through the RedBall Project I utilize my opportunity as an artist to be a catalyst for new encounters within the everyday. Through the magnetic, playful, and charismatic nature of RedBall the work is able to access the imagination embedded in all of us. On the surface, the experience seems to be about the ball itself as an object, but the true power of the project is what it can create for those who experience it. It opens a doorway to imagine what if? As RedBall travels around the world people approach me on the street with excited suggestions about where to put it in their city. In that moment the person is not a spectator but a participant in the act of imagination. I have witnessed it across continents always issuing an invitation. That invitation to engage, to collectively imagine, is the true essence of the project. The larger arc of the project is how each city responds and what the developing story reveals about our individual and cultural imagination.

- Kurt Perschke
About the work:
Title: RedBall : Grand Rapids

Art form: 3-D, Performance

Medium: 1 RedBall, 1 City, 14 Days

Year created: 2001

Description of work: The RedBall Project is an inflatable mobile sculpture work that exists as a short series of daily architectural installations over a brief time of a few weeks. In short this project involves the following: an initial site visit by me this July to select a series of locations and create site drawings. Then follow up with securing permissions for the sites and selecting a final group. I will then return to oversee the daily installation of the RedBall in each location, document the event, and meet with the public.

The sponsor site will have documentation of the project's development in video and drawings with a map of the sites in Grand Rapids.

Work statement:

Technical details:
Work width: 180 inches
Work height: n/a
Work depth: n/a
Required venue ceiling: n/a
Required venue door height: n/a
Required venue door width: n/a
Required wall linear footage: n/a
Required venue square footage: n/a
Additional considerations:
Audio/video needed: Yes
Electrical needed: Yes
Lighting needed: No
Internet access needed: No
Ground floor access needed: Yes
Indoor space needed: Yes
Outdoor space needed: Yes
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