The Art of Simple Living to Show in New York, Thanks to UC Sculptor

An ongoing Midwestern artists’ project amidst the lunar landscape of the west Utah desert will soon give rise to another in a New York City courtyard on Madison Avenue.

Based on work that University of Cincinnati artist Matt Lynch and his colleague, Chicago artist Steven Badgett, have been doing on a former air force base in the remote Utah desert, New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art invited the pair to construct an architectural art work in the museum’s courtyard, to remain in place during the institution’s Whitney Biennial from

March 11-May 30, 2004

.  Only 108 artists or collaborative groups were invited to participate in the prestigious Whitney show.

Leading up to the biennial exhibit is work that Lynch, assistant professor of fine art in UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, and Badgett began this past summer in the 100-degree Utah heat.  There, they are remaking – in a project that combines architecture and art – a former military Quonset hut on the now-defunct Tibbets Air Base into a livable sculpture of simplicity.  At the base, amidst the salt flats where men once trained for World War II’s Enola Gay mission which eventually led to the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan, Lynch and others are now making a space for a simple, energy-conscious lifestyle in the context of a harsh, even damaged site.

Thanks to their efforts, the Quonset space – which they title “Clean Livin’” – now sports patched bullet holes; a dense peppering of small, oval windows with colored-glass panes (recycled from truck caps); and solar panels replacing the structure’s long-unused coal boxes as an electric power source.  The work is ideal for the small group – known as SIMPARCH (for “simple architecture”) comprised of Lynch, Badgett, an organic farmer, a boat builder and a handful of others – who see themselves not only as artists but as problem solvers.

Lynch added, “As a sculptor, teacher and problem solver, I use humor and play to raise issues of materials, traditions of art, and social commentary.  I like to make people laugh.  In SIMPARCH, we aim to create… social interaction through experimentation with materials and design as opposed to a more traditional art object.  The project we construct at the Whitney will have an interactive, playful element in addition to its environmental focus.” 

The structure they build in the Whitney courtyard, which will parallel what’s already been accomplished in the Southwest, will eventually be dismantled and incorporated into their ongoing work in Utah.  “The New York piece will be site specific with the… designed space [there], but we will want to reuse these elements as a means of recycling one project into the next,” explained Lynch.

The pair’s work in Utah builds on prior projects they’ve instituted throughout this country and in Europe that invite public interaction with structural art.  For instance, one past project, titled “Free Basin,” consists of a semi-portable, kidney bean-shaped skate-boarding arena that has traveled museums throughout the country – including Chicago and New York – and will next exhibit in San Francisco in summer 2004.  “That work was about the expressive creative activity of a marginalized group and their interactivity with architecture.  Skate-boarders were invited to come into the museums to use the piece,” stated Lynch.

Another former work, referencing architecture, was a representation of a trailer home constructed out of recycled, opaque plastic sheeting.  Badgett and Lynch constructed the Southwest project as a reference to the region’s history of temporary, manufactured housing. 

The final form and shape of the Whitney site-specific piece, to be built in a courtyard space measuring about 25 by 80 feet, is yet to be determined, but it will reference shelter, energy, and a simpler life as an art form.