Former Medina school will host big art project next month
Photo by Tom Rivers: The old Medina High School on Catherine Street will host 29 artists next month as part of the “PLAY/GROUND” initiative.
MEDINA – The former Medina High School on Catherine Street, which most recently was used as a church, will host 29 artists next month as part of a new “PLAY/GROUND” initiative on Oct. 12-14.
“This a very exciting project,” said Anna Kaplan of Anna Kaplan Contemporary, a Buffalo gallery. “It’s basically a raw canvas. We’re letting the artists come in and basically play around, to be free and experiment.”
The artists are from Western New York, New York City and Toronto. Kaplan is helping to manage the show. Click here for more on PLAY/GROUND.
The 90,000 square foot school was built in 1924. Kaplan said the school will be radically transformed for the weekend by the artists.
“It will not feel like an old school,” she said. “It will be fun.”
The show is run by RESOURCE:ART, a fine art consultancy group that includes three independent WNY gallerists: Kaplan, Elisabeth Samuels (Indigo Art) and Emily Tucker (Benjaman Contemporary). Kaplan, Samuels, and Tucker each have extensive curatorial experience and professional relationships with artists working in a wide range of media.
RESOURCE:ART also manages the execution of site-specific fine art and considers every project as a unique collaboration between the artist and the site, navigating aesthetic, formal and functional concerns. RESOURCE:ART’s most recent project is “The Corridors Gallery at Hotel Henry,” a rotating exhibition program in partnership with Hotel Henry in Buffalo. Click here for more on RESOURCE:ART.
Friday on Oct. 12 will be a big party with food and the options for alcohol. Saturday and Sunday (Oct. 13-14) there are ticket options for $10. A portion of the proceeds from all ticket sales will benefit the Orleans Renaissance Group, Inc.
The participating artists include Adam David Brown, Allen C. Topolski, Amanda Besl, Amanda Browder, Bethany Krull, Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art (Emily Ebba Reynolds/Nando Alvarez-Perez), Catherine Heard, Chambliss Giobbi, Colleen Toledano, Coryn Kempster and Julia Jamrozik, Elizabeth Cooper, Ginny O’Brien, Jim Morris, John C. Santomieri, Jonathan Casey, Julian Montague, Katherine McMahon, Kyla Kegler, Kyle Butler, Lyla Rye, Melanie Fisher, Michael Bosworth, NC Miller, Reinhard Reitzenstein, Roberley Bell, Steven Pestana, Virginia Melynk, Virocode (Peter D’Auria and Andrea Mancuso), and Yvette Granata.
The event has been made possible by all of PLAY/GROUND’s generous sponsors including Agency 15, Bootleg Bucha, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Hotel Henry, Imagine Staffing, Raclette’s, Rochester Contemporary Art Center (RoCo), and WNYBAC.
The school is planned to be redeveloped into unique loft apartments. That project is named “Mustang City” after the Medina High School mascot.
