Beckman to project images on walls at and around City Hall
Bringing art to unexpected places and flirting with the element of surprise are the goals of 4Culture’s Site-Specific art programs.
In recent years, Redmond residents have delighted in encounters with roving musicians bursting into song on street corners — or being asked to sign adoption forms for small clumps of land known as CUVs (Cultivation Utility Vehicles). These whimsical arts experiences were co-sponsored by King County’s 4Culture and The Redmond Arts Commission.
Another is on its way.
Starting Feb. 28, artist Justin Colt Beckman will begin a “now you see it, now you don’t” outdoor exhibition of projected images on walls, at and around Redmond City Hall.
In a phone interview, Beckman noted, “Part of my body of work is these site-sepecific projections out in the community and out of the traditional, ‘white box’ gallery setting. It’s mostly projections of people who act as characters … electronic characters made of ones and zeros, digital images. I may do some video projections of me lip-synching to country music songs and miming. … At first glance, it looks very much like a real person.”
In prior jaunts, Beckman has had access to power from a building or from his car. This time, he’s bringing a mobile projection unit, a wagon with equipment powered by a generator.
“It frees me from being tied to a power source. The 28th is a practice run,” he said.
A former Los Angeles resident, Beckman now lives in Thorpe, Wash., a small town near Ellensburg. He leads a double life, making regular trips from Eastern Washington to Seattle, where he’s one of the owners of the Punch art gallery. He’s already scouted out a few downtown Redmond locations with the City of Redmond’s arts administrator, Mary Yelanjian, and looks forward to raising awareness of the juxtapositions between urban and rural lifestyles.
Explaining how he ended up a country boy, he said he initially stopped in Ellensburg “to crash at my mom’s place,” when he came to Washington state. “I fell in love with small town life … but Ellensburg is a bit isolated, removed from the regional art scene. The gallery in Seattle gives me more exposure and my fiancee lives here now, so we go back and forth. I’m intrigued by the cultural differences and stereotypes.”
As he pointed out, kids on Seattle’s Capitol Hill will wear camo t-shirts and overalls that you might see on truckers in Eastern Washington. And yet they make fun of folks on the other side of the mountains.
“I have an interest in rural activities but have a certain awkwardness because I don’t have a long history there,” Beckman added.
For example, “Hunting is handed down from generation to generation. As a city boy with country tendencies, I engage in these activities vicariously, thorough my art.”
Besides his singing cowboy projections, he might use images of wildlife, rural homes or “people sitting on a front porch” on Redmond walls.
Redmond is well-suited to his outdoor exhibition because “it has an interesting mix of urban and rural (characteristics), a long history of farms and still some farms around the periphery,” he said.
Look for Beckman, at random times and places, throughout the month of March.
For more information, visit www.beckman.ws
