The City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division and the Arts & Culture Commission announce Recent Public Art Installations in Pasadena, New Art Publications and Special Events, including the NEA Our Town funded Public Art Project and Fall ArtNight.

Fall ArtNight Save the Date: On Friday, October 9 from 6-10 p.m., Fall ArtNight Pasadena will present the kick-off event for the National Endowment for the Arts Our Town Public Art Project for the Civic Center: My Pasadena. Side Street Projects’ mobile outpost will be in place to promote the upcoming temporary public art projects, including the debut of the LA Freewaves new site-specific sound installation in the City Hall Courtyard. Visit www.artnightpasadena.org for the full list of free arts and cultural venues, performances and shuttle routes.
Pasadena’s “Best Arts Scene” Award

The City of Pasadena has been awarded the distinction of the “Best Arts Town” of the West by Sunset Magazine. The Sunset Travel Awards were inaugurated in 2015 to honor the American West’s top destinations in lodging, dining, cultural tourism, outdoor adventure, environmental stewardship and more.

“Pasadena has made an extraordinary commitment to the arts,” according to one of the judges. “From museums to performing arts, architecture to events, including the Rose Bowl, nothing is lacking.” Pasadena has five major museums-more museums per capita than most U.S. cities, several well-regarded theatres and performing arts companies, iconic architecture and, as an Arts For All school district City, a dedication to arts education for life-long learning.

Thanks are due to the Pasadena Visitors and Convention Bureau, which actively promoted Pasadena’s unique cultural community for this award. In addition to the over 60 identified arts and culture organizations that call Pasadena home, signature cultural tourism events such as ArtNight Pasadena, Make Music Pasadena and the many festivals that are presented each year all so contribute to the rich cultural atmosphere. Along with all 30 winners, Pasadena was featured in the June issue of Sunset Magazine. See the awards online: www.sunset.com/travelawards.

NEA Our Town Project Selections
Twelve New Temporary Public Artworks
Coming to Pasadena’s Civic Center

The City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division along with project partner Side Street Projects has selected civic engagement projects for the National Endowment for the Arts Our Town funded My Pasadenaproject. This exciting program will create a continuous series of events and changing artworks in the Civic Center area from September 2015-September 2016, transforming the Civic Center into a creative, vibrant public forum. The art projects will expand community awareness and involvement in the contemporary role of government in civic life.

The innovative My Pasadena projects are varied in inspiration and will include live performances, walking tours and visual art installations as well as dance, theater, animated projection, oral history and audio installation.

The City has contracted Side Street Projects to create a mobile outpost in the Civic Center area to gather community input, develop, market and publicize projects, create podcasts and a permanent archive of project images and stories. Other project partners include Pasadena Heritage, Northwest Programs Office, Pasadena Unified School District, Pasadena Public Library, and The Armory Center for the Arts.

Twelve projects, totaling $110,000, will be funded in part through the NEA Our Town grant received by the Cultural Affairs Division in 2014.

For a full list of selected projects visit: http://www.cityofpasadena.net/arts.

Recent Art Installations

Susan Narduli
Timekeeper
Installed March 2014

TimeKeeper, by artist Susan Narduli, is a four-panel video projection based on the theme of arts and science. The artist focuses on the concept of the dynamic and interactive way that people perceive and experience time “in both pragmatic and personal ways. “Making linkages with Pasadena’s ties to scientific research and endeavors, the project references both local and broader communities and explores the ways in which time is fundamental to the sciences, including biology, chemistry and geology.

The artwork addresses time from five perspectives: the language of time, time as a human construct, time as experience, time and the sciences and time made visible. Through these socio-cultural, historic and scientific lenses, the artist made selections of visual content for inclusion into the artwork.

Four LED screens, installed 15′ feet above ground at De Lacey Avenue and Dayton Street display three types of video that are combined into a cohesive, continuous loop of artist-generated animations, pre-recorded video loops, and streaming content including Rich Site Summary (RSS) web feeds and social media updates from the scientific community.

The panels are programed to have a day and night time presence and are readable and accessible from a variety of viewer heights, distances and by multiple audience types (pedestrian and motorist).

Meeson Pae Yang
Urban Oasis
Installed May 2014

Artist Meeson Pae Yang’s Urban Oasis at 61 South Fair Oaks is a three – panel sculpture based on the concept of trees – -their beauty, history and value. The artist conducted interviews with residents who reported their fondness of Pasadena because of its small town feel and abundance and variety of trees, creating an “oasis” in the middle of Los Angeles County. Pasadena hosts 62,000 street trees, ranging from oak, maple, pine, magnolia, cypress and elm, which cover 85 percent of the City.

In Urban Oasis, the artist has reinterpreted and abstracted the imagery of a tree including trunk, branches and leaves by constructing these forms on three laser-cut steel panels. The panels fill three openings, or bays, and depict different portions of a single tree articulated across all panels along the Mills Place pedestrian alleyway. The tree elements which, when seen as whole, compose a positive image of a tree and provide the feeling that one is walking among a grove of trees. This juxtaposition of organic imagery with synthetic materials echoes the contrasts between the site’s contemporary structure compared with the neighboring historical buildings.

Paul Tzanetopoulos
Solar Luna Reflections
Installed August 2015

In Solar Luna Reflections, artist Paul Tzanetopoulos pays tribute to Pasadena’s under-recognized but influential history of experimental art and design, including film and video, from the 1960’s and 1970’s. A participant in Pasadena’s burgeoning art community of the 1970’s, Mr. Tzanetopoulos was one of many artists that had a studio in the neighborhood around Fair Oaks Avenue and Colorado Boulevard.

Sited at 150 West Green Street in the Werk Paseo, the new illuminated artwork is composed of two elements: a ten-foot-tall triangular sculpture and six synchronized, color-changing uplights that extend the installation and add a kinetic element to the work. The artwork’s title Solar Luna Reflectionsrefers to the sun and moon and their relationship to time, our position in the solar system and the cycles of day and night. The double entendre also refers to the idea of thinking about, or reflecting upon, art and design history as well as the actual reflective qualities of the sculpture and its LED art lights.

Three types of glass were specifically selected for each of the obelisk’s sides to reflect and absorb light and imagery, provide a complex variety of color and patterns, and to act as a metaphor for a frame of film. The triangular lid features a circular glass oculus to reveal the sun’s rays at midday, as a sundial shows the passing of time, and activates the interior of the artwork to further enhance the sculpture’s ever-changing images, colors and patterns.

Kyungmi Shin
Road Blossoms
Installed June 2015

Animating the 210 Freeway underpass at Sierra Madre Villa, the recently installed Road Blossoms adds color and meaning along the Sierra Madre Villa Pedestrian Corridor between Colorado Boulevard and the Sierra Madre Villa Metro Light Rail Station in East Pasadena. Artist Kyungmi Shin’s installation utilizes the City light poles and retaining wall along the 210 Freeway underpass to improve the pedestrian experience along the east side of the Sierra Madre Villa Avenue.

This Capital Public Art project was developed jointly with the Planning & Community Development and Public Works Departments and creates a colorful, inviting environment that encourages pedestrian activity and enhances the recent underpass sidewalk expansion, lighting and landscaping.

The artwork’s theme contains descriptive and poetic transit-related words and images that encourage five alternative modes of transportation: bus, train, bicycling, walking, and running. Road Blossoms consists of painted metal “word sculptures” and poetry medallions that contain images and thematically-linked word combinations, such as “JOURNEY” with an image of a modern train, attached to five light poles and a mural on the 300-foot retaining wall.

The painted mural includes a combination of circular designs inspired by wheels and references the various modes of transportation. The selected color palette of orange, blue, yellow, green and chartreuse unifies installation and the shape references grapes, oranges and the sun–an homage to the cultivated farms of early East Pasadena’s agricultural settlements.

Ramon Velazco
The Performer
Installed July 2015

The Performer, an installation composed of a freestanding, bronze sculpture, seating and hardscape elements, allows for audience interaction and participation. The artwork elements contain text, quotes, exhibition and production titles, character names and symbols that incorporate Pasadena-specific content, intended to engage viewers beyond the initial encounter. The artwork includes references that are unique to the arts community of Pasadena such as the Pasadena Playhouse, Boston Court, Pasadena Art Museum, Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena Museum of California Art and Red Hen Press.

Three elements are combined in the interactive installation: ThePerformer as storyteller, a bench for the audience and a speaking tube to activate the artwork. Integrated within the courtyard space at 680 East Colorado Boulevard, the installation includes an audio component–a talking tube located approximately twenty-five feet from the figure – which allows viewers to talk into a microphone and “Speak up, Tell Us Your Story…” The sound is audible through a speaker in the sculpture’s base, providing an interactive viewer experience. The bench, located alongside the sculpture, encourages visitors to become active audience members, bringing the figure to life by listening to the stories it shares.