OMR Commission 1999
Public Art Fund
Ron Baron "Birds"
photo by Matt Suib
OMR Commission 1995
Nadja Press
"Fox Sleep" Artist book
text by WS Merwin
art by Mark Schwartz
OMR Commission 1995
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The Greenwall Foundation
SPOTLIGHT ARTICLES
Oscar M Ruebhausen Commission
May 2006
In 1993, artistic directors of theater companies that were current or recent Greenwall grantees were approached to nominate emerging playwrights they wished to work with, and a panel selected Manhattan Class Company's nominee, playwright Jacquelyn Reingold. Her play, Girl Gone, was produced at MCC. In 1994, 17 curators, visual artists and museum and gallery directors nominated emerging sculptors/installation artists, and James Cathcart was chosen to create and exhibit work at Storefront for Art & Architecture.
In 1995, looking for a less familiar and rarely-supported artistic discipline in which to commission new work, it was suggested that the award be given for creation of a limited edition artist's book. Proposals were requested from New York City-based small presses and book arts organizations. Public interest had been piqued by a 1994 exhibition, "A Century of Artists' Books" at MoMA, and it seemed a perfect time to announce a Greenwall commission for an emerging visual artist in a field with a small but passionate following among artists, writers, and other aficionados. The commission was awarded for Nadja Press's project, Fox Sleep (a poem by W.S. Merwin) with original paintings by Mark Schwartz and a handmade paper cover by Dieu Donné's master papermaker, Paul Wong. Ten of the 20 books created with the Commission were on exhibition at the Cooper Union Humanities Gallery for five weeks in the fall of 1997, and several of the books entered important collections of book art, such as the New York Public Library's.
Because of the nature of the proposed commissioning project in 1996, it was not possible to invite nominations or proposals: the discipline would be choreography on ice and there was only one known company in New York City that could realize it, Ice Theater of New York. The company was asked to suggest several choreographers who were familiar with the challenging form, and the decision was made to commission Lar Lubovitch.
The panel was reinstated in each of the next years with commissions awarded in Writing and Photography, in conjunction with New York University's International Center for Advanced Studies (writers Keila Cordova, Hillary A Joyce, and Brenda Shaughnessy, and photographers Vera Lutter, Wei-Li Yeh, and Tomi C Yum received commissions); Public Art/Sculpture, in conjunction with the Public Art Fund (artist Ron Baron received the commission); the Nonfiction Essay (after a nationwide open call for submissions Lawrence Malkin won the award); Music Composition (composer Derek Bermel was commissioned to create a new work for the instrumental ensemble eighth blackbird); and Works on Paper, in conjunction with The Drawing Center (artists Clarina Bezzola and Sarah Oppenheimer were commissioned to create new work for solo shows in The Drawing Room).
In 2003, Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City received the award to commission three artists (Leo Villareal, Matthew McCaslin, and Jude Tallichet) to create large sculptures in light that would be visible along the East River and the opposite shore of Manhattan. The following year an independent panel awarded the commission to a young digital filmmaker, Liisa Roberts, in conjunction with the new media organization Eyebeam. In 2005, artist members of The Builders Association received the commission to assist them with creation of the multimedia theater work Super Vision. And in 2006, Cabinet Magazine (Immaterial Incorporated) received the award to commission 15 visual artists and an essayist to create work for a new hardcover book, The Cabinet Book of Stamps.
Effect
As might be expected, the projects that have been supported through this commissioning program have received varying degrees of attention and met with varying degrees of critical and popular success. At least as important is the artist's appreciation of what was accomplished in the process of creating the work and how it may have subsequently affected his or her career.
Jacquelyn Reingold's play, Girl Gone, produced by Manhattan Class Company, was favorably reviewed in The New York Times and its run was extended and sold out. It received the Kennedy Center's 1994 Fund for New American Plays Roger L Stevens Award; was a finalist for the international Susan Smith Blackburn Prize; and paved the way for the playwright's admission to New Dramatists and her introduction to individuals in film and television. The playwright remarked upon the Foundation's "willingness to take a chance on a project that was as daring, risky, and potentially controversial" as her play.
Ron Baron's Birds, painted buoys resting on the old pilings of Pier 34 at Canal Street and the Hudson River, was the result of the 1998 Commission. A photograph of the installation appeared both in The New York Times and Time Out New York, the latter with the caption, "Proving that even a dilapidated old pier can be a place of beauty..." A second Times article referred to it as "a subtly poetic installation...creating a focus for meditation on one of the fundamental natural facts of Manhattan's island existence." The installation was supposed to be temporary – up for a matter of months – but it has never been removed, has been much admired by a walking and bicycling public, and is now included in the Hudson River Park Conservancy's plan for the new Park.
Derek Bermel's 2002 OMR Commission to compose an instrumental piece for the ensemble eighth blackbird led to the creation of "Tied Shifts," played by the group on tour more than 20 times in the last two seasons. Composer Osvaldo Golijov specifically recommended that "Tied Shifts" be performed on eighth blackbird's tour on a program with his own work "Ayre." In concert in New York City, "Tied Shifts" was called by critic Mark Swed "exciting, original music, and eighth blackbird gave it an exciting and original performance."
Brenda Shaughnessy, one of three poets and three emerging photographers selected for the 1997 OMR commissioning project to create work on the theme "Divided City" (the topic related to a yearlong academic project at NYU's International Center for Advanced Study), saw a collection of her poems published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux two years later under the title Interior with Sudden Joy. Subsequently she was awarded a fellowship to pursue advanced work at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She now teaches at Columbia University and Lehman College and is poetry editor of Tin House magazine.
Vera Lutter, one of the three photographers awarded the shared OMR Commission the same year as Brenda Shaughnessy, had only been showing work in New York for a couple of years when she was chosen by the OMR panelists to exhibit work at NYU's Juan Carlos Center. She went on to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship and gallery representation, and her work has since been exhibited internationally in major museums and galleries and can be found in major collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
While a significant number of the artists' projects accomplished through the OMR Commission have been reviewed in the press or have otherwise garnered attention, others have escaped critical notice. This is hardly surprising in a city with the extraordinary number of artists and artistic events that New York boasts. And certainly some projects have been received more enthusiastically than others. Although it may be impossible to quantify the impact of the Oscar M Ruebhausen Commission on every artist's career, the artists themselves are aware of it.
A biographical sketch of James Cathcart in a recent newsletter of the University at Buffalo, where he was the 2005 John and Magda McHale Fellow at the School of Architecture and Planning, noted an "Emerging New York Young Sculptor Fellowship from the Greenwall Foundation." More important, however, is the letter we received from him in March 1996:
I cannot overemphasize the impact that the grant has had on the development of my work. Support of this kind for the individual artist becomes increasingly crucial as national and local government support for emerging artists wanes. In my case, the support provided by your grant has allowed me a greater amount of time to develop ideas, execute projects in a number of different sites and conditions, and finally, to plan the upcoming exhibition. The past year has been one of the most productive of my creative career.
May 2006
The following OMR Commissions have been awarded to date:
2006
Art Book: The Cabinet Book of Stamps: 15 artist commissions (Cabinet Magazine, Immaterial Incorporated)
2005
Multimedia Theater: The Builders Association
2004
New Media/Digital Film: Liisa Roberts (Eyebeam)
2003
Public Art/Light Sculpture: Leo Villareal,
Matthew McCaslin,
Jude Tallichet
(Socrates Sculpture Park)
2002
Music Composition: Derek Bermel (New York Foundation for the Arts for eighth blackbird)
2001
Works on paper: Clarina Bezzola &
Sarah Oppenheimer
(The Drawing Center)
2000
Essay: Lawrence Malkin (New York Foundation for the Arts)
1999
Choreography/Music Composition: No award given
1998
Public Art/Sculpture: Ron Baron
(Public Art Fund)
1997
Writing and Photography: Keila Cordova, Hillary A Joyce, Vera Lutter, Brenda Shaughnessy, Wei-Li Yeh, Tomi C Yum
(New York University, International Center for Advanced Studies)
1996
Ice Choreography: Lar Lubovitch (Ice Theater of New York)
1995
Artist's Book: Nadja Press with Mark Schwartz (New York Foundation for the Arts)
1994
Sculpture/Installation: James Cathcart (Storefront for Art & Architecture)
1993
Playwriting: Jacquelyn Reingold (Manhattan Class Company)
1992
Choreography: John Kelly (John Kelly and Company)
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