Another great project Mel Chin has been working on is the Safe House project in New Orleans.
Click on the link below to listen to the artist speak about the project:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2009/04/17/gsif.fundred.dollar.bills.cnn

The FUNDRED DOLLAR BILL PROJECT is an innovative artwork made of millions of drawings. This creative collective action is intended to support OPERATION PAYDIRT, an extraordinary art/science project uniting three million children with educators, scientists, health care professionals, designers, urban planners, engineers and artists. Together they are working to make safe the lead polluted soil of New Orleans that places thousands of children at risk for severe learning disabilities and behavioral problems, including violent crime.

Once FUNDRED reaches its goal of 3 million artworks, a specially retrofitted armored truck, running on straight vegetable oil, will be deployed across the nation to pick up the 7,000 lbs. of FUNDRED DOLLAR drawings. FUNDRED guards driving the armored truck will deliver the art currency to Washington D.C., where we will request from Congress an “even exchange” of 300,000,000 FUNDRED DOLLARS for $300,000,000 in funds and services to support the implementation of OPERATION PAYDIRT’S solution to lead-related health and quality-of-life issues still challenging post-disaster New Orleans.

http://www.fundred.org/

This Monday, April 27, MOMA will be screening Mel Chin's "9/11-9/11" at 7:00 p.m.
More information on the film below.

Mel Chin (b. 1951) is an internationally celebrated and socially engaged conceptual artist whose work encompasses several disciplines. Already well known for interventions, earthworks, drawings, and works in other mediums, the Texan artist recently turned to filmmaking. In 2007 he completed his first animated work, 9-11/9-11, which confronts a pair of historic September 11s: Augusto Pinochet's 1973 coup d'état in Chile, and the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City. The video will be screened twice, and a discussion with the artist and the audience will take place in between.

9-11/9-11. 2007. USA/Chile. Directed by Mel Chin. Screenplay by Chin, Steven Foster. Produced and edited by Chip Schneider. Animation by Planovisual Estudio de Animación, Santiago, from the graphic novel by Ignacio Moreles. With Lili Taylor. Courtesy Frederieke Taylor Gallery, New York.

Jean Shin Common Threads
May 1, 2009 through July 26, 2009
Smithsonian American Art Museum

Friday, May 1
6-7 p.m. Exhibition viewing with Artist
at Gallery on the 3rd Floor
7-8 p.m. Artist Talk at Auditorium
8-9 p.m. Reception at the G Street Lobby

We are pleased to announce Jean Shin's major solo exhibition at The Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C. This exhibition features eight works created since 2000, including the new site-specific installation Everyday Monuments commissioned by the Museum in 2008.

And just in case you missed it, here is a link to the recent profile and review on Jean Shin from The New York Times.

In the Viewing Room: OFF THE BOOKS, curated by Benjamin Degen
Featuring works by Alex Degen, Eric Fertman, Justin Valdes, Anton Vojacek, Yuri Masnyj

"Off the Books" presents artists drawing in text-space. Using the vocabulary of typography, symbols, books, signs, newspapers, runes and digital space, these artists are engaged in an ongoing dialog about the changing nature of text and its place in art-making today. Text is presented as a bridge between the physical world and the metaphysical world; between narrative representational space and non-narrative abstraction.

Ellen Driscoll: FastForwardFossil, Part I

Ellen Driscoll

FastForwardFossil, Part I

Some images from our current exhibition on view through May 16.

The exhibition features sculpture and drawings by Ellen Driscoll which reflect her continued investigation of the impact of natural-resource harvesting and consumption on our landscape and its architecture.

Photography by Curtis Hamilton.