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6/5/2005

Project in the projects

Martinez Gallery, New York

Project in the projects

NEW YORK – Martinez Gallery is pleased to present PROJECT IN THE PROJECTS, an alternative intervention on the most intimate of public spaces, opening on May 7.

PROJECT IN THE PROJECTS is an innovative experiment in interiorism, in which art, architecture and design are brought to focus upon the often grim and unwelcoming space of a public housing project apartment.

But beyond that, it is a deeply political and social statement, emphasizing a firm belief in individualism and egalitarianism and a rejection of the cynicism in public life that has allowed these spaces to become fields of battle for the economic, cultural and psychological warfare waged on the city’s poor. PROJECT IN THE PROJECTS is an affirmation of life in the moribund space society provides its poor.

Over the past three months, the Martinez Gallery team has been at work on a low-income apartment in New York, recreating and beautifying the all-too depressing space demarcated by the walls the city built. The finished project employs innovative use of materials, abundant art and use of a customizable system furnishing and design, and serves as a prototype for a system of low-cost refurbishing that could significantly improve the living spaces of countless thousands of people, not just in New York, but worldwide.

PROJECT IN THE PROJECTS serves as a brilliant reminder of the conditions of project life, ranging from depression to health and environmental risks to virtual invisibility before cold bureaucracies, and confronts those problems in a collective, inclusive manner. The message is that beauty and a good life does not have to end where the projects begin.

Martinez Gallery director Hugo Martinez will exhibit the apartment, at an unspecified location in Manhattan, through August. It includes art by 15 artists, including Kez 5, Ghost, NATO and VFR. Total cost of the ennobling redecoration was roughly $7,000, as compared to upwards of $10,000 that the city charges taxpayers for a public housing makeover.

PROJECT IN THE PROJECTS is the second multidisciplinary intervention by Martinez Gallery, following the footsteps of last fall’s “Pediatrics 207,” in which a standard pediatric clinic was transformed into a creative, inviting space, reinventing the experience of a child’s visit to the doctor’s office.

PROJECT IN THE PROJECTS wil be viewed by appointment at an unspecified location in manhattan’s lower east side through August 31. Photos and live webcast at www.martinezgallery.com

Opening reception Saturday, May 7, 6-8 PM / After Party from 8:00 PM / Two day preview Saturday and Sunday May 7 from 12 Noon – 6:00 PM at Storefront for Art and Architecture located at 97 Kenmare Street in Soho.

Symposium Saturday, June 4, 6-8 PM at Bluestockings Bookstore at 172 Allen Street on the Lower East Side.

PROJECT IN THE PROJECTS:
Artists: Bama, Case 2, CoCo 144, Earsnot, Flint 707, Ghost, Giz, Les, Kez 5, Nato, Rate, Mösco, Skuf, Tracy 168, and VFR

Curator: Antonio Zaya

Design: Kaptein Roodnat

Editor: Ken Bensinger

Photography: Phil Mansfield & Frank Oudeman

Martinez gallery
37 Greenpoint Avenue
New York

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