Friday 16 October 2015

Stony Island Arts Bank

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Nobody could imagine that an abandoned bank of 1920, on the South Side of Chicago, would turn into an Arts Center.
 
Artist and urban planner, Theaster Gates bought this abandoned building for just $1.00 from the city of Chicago! This was the price of the 20,000-square-foot building which was hit with rain and snow for decades, damaging almost every inch.
 
The Stony Island Arts Bank is as a platform for site-specific contemporary art commissions and exhibitions, a venue for artist and scholar residencies and is the new home to Gates’s non-profit Rebuild Foundation which was founded by Theaster Gates in 2010. Rebuild Foundation is an organization focused on using cultural projects to influence urban redevelopment and community revitalization.
 
Gates also wanted to maintain the bank's history. He preserved the cracked plaster moldings and some of the paint that had blistered on the walls.
 
Via: https://rebuild-foundation.squarespace.com

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