Press Release
Artist Bio
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installation and performance

Parklife

October 9, 2002 -
September 15, 2003

MetroTech Center, Brooklyn

Public Art Fund and the Commons Associates are proud to present a new exhibition of contemporary art at MetroTech Center. Parklife continues MetroTech's commitment to supporting the work of emerging New York artists. Each year artists are asked to respond to the Commons, the public spaces surrounding the vibrant downtown areas of MetroTech Center and Brooklyn Polytechnic. The artists selected for this year's exhibition - Isidro Blasco, Liz Craft, Peter Gould, Elke Lehmann, and Franco Mondini-Ruiz - have each created new works that react to the area's landscaped surroundings.

For the lobby of MetroTech Center One, Mondini-Ruiz has created Polvo en el Viento (Dust in the Wind). Working with a local Peruvian-Ecuadorian band, he made a life-size, photographic cut-out of an Andean flute band in concert. For three days in early September, Polvo en el Viento toured New York City, appearing briefly in Times Square, Astor Place, the Chelsea gallery district, and elsewhere. During that time, viewers approaching the two-dimensional cut-out heard a recording of the band, Agua Clara, playing their rendition of popular songs like Kansas' Dust in the Wind and Frank Sinatra's My Way. Playing up the fact that bands of this sort sometimes seem ubiquitous, Mondini-Ruiz's humorous and engaging exploration of art and societal issues addresses cultural globalization and appropriation, political correctness, high versus low art, and recent Latin American history.

Artist Bio
In the early 1990s, artist Franco Mondini-Ruiz abandoned a successful career as a lawyer and purchased a botánica, a Mexican folk-healing shop. He transformed the traditional space into a contemporary boutique, art installation, and salon. The store, entitled Infinito Botánica and Gift Shop, offered products used for spiritual cleansing and folk remedies such as candles, potions, and herbs alongside ancient and Spanish colonial antiques, and contemporary art from Texan and Mexican artists. Since moving to New York, Mondini-Ruiz has re-created the botánica in gallery spaces and museums, exploring the intersection of art, commerce and globalization in his installations and performance-based projects.

Sponsorship
Parklife at MetroTech Center is part of an ongoing program organized by the Public Art Fund and sponsored by MetroTech Commons Associates, an organization that consists of MetroTech companies Bear Stearns & Company, KeySpan Energy, JP Morgan Chase Bank, Forest City Ratner Companies, Polytechnic University, Securities Industry Automation Corporation (SIAC), DOITT and E-911. Special thanks to First New York Management.

Public Art Fund is a non-profit arts organization supported in part with public funds from The New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs and through generous contributions from corporations, foundations, and individuals.

Location
MetroTech Center is situated in the in the Civic Center/Borough Hall area of Downtown Brooklyn.
By Subway: M, N, or R to Lawrence Street Station or the A, C, or F to Jay Street/ Borough Hall, exit at Myrtle Promenade.