PHILADELPHIA – The Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy’s (OACCE) Percent for Art Program and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation (PPR) are pleased to announce a new public art commission by artist Carin Mincemoyer at the Fishtown Recreation Center.
This site-specific artwork will feature historic and contemporary references to the Delaware River installed on the pool’s surrounding fence. The work begins with the understanding that the Delaware River has played a vital role in the heritage of the Fishtown neighborhood, whose very namesake is rooted in its river related industries of fisheries. In her research, Mincemoyer consistently found the river as the inspiration and subject of numerous photographs, paintings, and drawings.
This includes present-day photographs, as well as renowned historic paintings such as Mouth of the Delaware (1828) by Thomas Birch and Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851) by Emanuel Leutze. Using these images as source material, the artist will excerpt shapes from the water portion, and place them onto the fence. Fence panels will show ice floe forms from Leutze’s painting, and images representing ripples of water excerpted from present-day photography. The artwork will be on both sides of the fence, making it visible to both pool users and passersby. For renderings, please contact Jacque Liu at jacque.liu@phila.gov.
Speaking about her installation, Ms. Mincemoyer states:
“Water attracts us and transfixes us in part because it makes the ordinary mysterious. The familiar becomes transformed by glinting sunlight and constantly changing patterns that distort and partially obscure. The gently moving surface of water generates patterns that never repeat, yet are restfully familiar, inducing an almost meditative state. Having no form or shape of its own, water has the ability to take on all shapes – crashing waves, calm ripples, ice floes, fog.”
Carin Mincemoyer currently lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She received her Bachelors of Fine Art from Carnegie Mellon and her Masters of Fine Art from the University at Buffalo. Her work has been exhibited nationally, within galleries including the Rochester Contemporary, d.u.m.b.o. arts center, and Grounds for Sculpture. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art and the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture. Her awards include a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and two Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships.
This Percent for Art opportunity was announced nationally to artists and artist teams as an open Call to Artists in March 2017. Of 79 applicants, five finalists were selected to present proposals. The selection panel included Arden Bendler Browning, Artist; Susan Davis, Public Art Consultant; Jennifer McTague, Artist and Founder & Director, 2nd State Press; and Amie Potsic, Artist and Executive Director, Main Line Art Center. The Advisory Panel included representatives from: The Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, Buell Kratzer Powell, and a conservator from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The selection panel unanimously selected Ms. Mincemoyer’s proposal.
This commission is part of the Lederer Pool replacement project at the Fishtown Recreation Center. In addition to the pool itself, other site improvements include replacing the pool deck and the surrounding sidewalk, installing a large canopy to provide shade, creating a spray ground with built-in water features, upgrading the restrooms, and constructing a new pump room.
About the Percent for Art Program
The Percent for Art Program of the Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy commissions exceptional and enduring works of site-specific public art by renowned and emerging artists for City buildings and public spaces. Philadelphia’s public art collection is recognized as the largest and most remarkable in the world. Since 1959, more than 300 works of art have been commissioned through the City of Philadelphia’s Percent for Art Ordinance.
About City of Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy
The Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy supports and promote arts, culture and the creative industries; develops partnerships that ensure culture and creativity are essential components of Philadelphia’s community revitalization, education, and economic development strategies; and links Philadelphians to cultural resources and opportunities. For more information about the Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy, visit: www.CreativePHL.org, Facebook.com/CreativePHL and on Twitter @CreativePHL and Instagram @CreativePHL.