Thursday, October 08, 2009

Winston-Salem, you've been Jenkins-ed

DC's own Tape Dude does it again... check out the Winston Salem Journal report here.

Mark Jenkins"That's Jenkins as in Mark Jenkins, a famous artist who has stopped pedestrians around the world midstep with his life-size, life-like packing-tape casts of bodies positioned in sometimes strange, sometimes normal, always weird ways.

The commotion in Winston-Salem started about 1:15 p.m. yesterday, when police and medics rushed to the corner of Eighth and Trade streets downtown. They'd gotten a report that a woman's body was draped on top of a billboard. They got there, looked up, saw the body and started to climb.

When they got to the top, they found not a person needing rescuing, but a plastic "mannequin," put there as part of one of Jenkins' public art exhibits."
Mark has gone around the world and certainly has become one of the planet's premier street artists while virtually ignored by museum curators in his own city.

Remember the life-sized car that he made for his Fraser Gallery Georgetown solo show in 2005? Or these below that he installed outside the Warehouse Gallery for "Seven" also in 2005?

1 comment:

The Right Reverend James W. Bailey said...

Mark Jenkins is hands down one of my favorite artists from the D.C. area. His playful creations are one of the most inventive steps foward for the concept of public art that I've ever seen. And he does it without being vetted through a public art committee, obtainining required permits or securing public funding - you know, going through the usual public art process that more often than not results in public art projects that are a pile of banal crap. Donkeys and Elephants come to mind.

"Mark has gone around the world and certainly has become one of the planet's premier street artists while virtually ignored by museum curators in his own city."

Too many museum curators in D.C. are like cops on Mayberry R.F.D.'s payroll - they couldn't find a donut in a donut shop.