There’s something magical happening at Lenox Square.
It’s not for sale. It’s not useful or trendy. And it will disappear at the end of March. Gyun Hur’s “Spring Hiatus,” a rainbow-striped carpet made of the finely shredded petals of silk flowers, is a gift of temporary public art.
Well, duh, you might say. The 16-by-30-foot piece in front of Macy’s department store is a work of art in a public place. The term, however, connotes a set of values of which this piece is an exemplar. Artists involved in public art are particularly interested in engaging a broad audience; the best projects pull viewers out of the ordinary moment and give them a memorable experience.
Between Feb. 28 and March 11, passers-by were able to watch the young Marietta artist and her helpers -- including her parents, who are stalwart participants in all her projects -- on their hands and knees spreading mounds of silk flowers along a wood batten, one stripe at a time, with the edges of calling cards. When colors strayed beyond their boundaries, they were removed with tweezers. Imperfection was not an option.
Sharing the installation process with the public was an important part of the project. Watching the soup get made, so to speak, brought home the precision and discipline this labor-intensive work required.
Hur, who frequently stopped to talk to inquisitive viewers, is also sharing a bit of personal history. The striped composition alludes to her mother’s traditional Korean wedding blanket. For the artist, who emigrated here with her family as a teen, it signifies both the comfort of roots and the discomfort of being uprooted.
The cut flowers, which she first saw in an American cemetery, bespeak ephemerality and vulnerability, a point accentuated by the fragility of the piece. Hur uses no fixative; a breeze or stray foot could easily ruin it.
For many visitors, Hur’s story will be a way to relate to the work. We are, after all, a nation of immigrants; most of us are emotionally attached to our heritage. But “Spring Hiatus,” which fuses abstraction, process art and performance, also functions very comfortably as contemporary art.
It’s quite something to come upon this jolt of color in the mall and particularly striking viewed from the second floor, the optimum spot to see the vibrating effects of zingy orange and vivid red and lime green against softer blue and purple -- kind of an off-the-wall version of Color Field painting. That is the way Hur increasingly likes to think of the work now that America and the art world are home.
“Spring Hiatus” was commissioned by Flux Projects, which will present three more projects this spring. The interactive video piece “I Go Humble,” a darkly comic look at street harassment by Stefani Byrd and Wes Eastin, will be on view March 21, 9 a.m-6 p.m., in downtown Atlanta at the corner of Edgewood Avenue and Park Place. For more information, see www.fluxprojects.org.
Catherine Fox is chief visual arts critic of ArtsCriticATL.com.
Art review
"Spring Hiatus." Through March 30. 10 a.m.–9 p.m., Mondays-Saturdays; noon-6 p.m. Sundays. Lenox Square, 3393 Peachtree Road, Atlanta. 404-245-5853, www.fluxproject.org. Gyun Hur plans to be on site most weekday afternoons during the installation's run to talk to visitors about the project.
Bottom line: Hur's first public art project is a winner.
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