You’ve all seen them. Hanging on the walls of your parents’ homes, in your great-half uncle’s living room or even in your cousin’s grandma’s best friend’s hallway. They aren’t pretty. Maybe one day they were, but these days those out-dated prints in the beat-up metal frames can be considered anything but art. Until now, that is. The Periodical Project—a print-based project dedicated to making Halifax’s “visual arts more visible”—is hosting HOTEL/MOTEL, an auction fundraiser to raise money for the project. The items to be auctioned off? Twenty-five used-to-be identical watercolour prints in matching metal frames. I say used-to-be because the landscape prints—showcasing a washed-out coastal scene with lovely hues of pinks and blues—have been tweaked and adorned by the fine hands of 25 of Halifax’s local visual artists. “It’s a creative exercise,” says Chris Foster, co-founder of the project. “It’s a funny challenge because these objects are so terrible and people are able to work this challenge on their own terms—there were very little rules—so it’s kind of like a call and response.” Curious what the artists will come up with? So are we. –
Fri Apr 13, Khyber Centre for the Arts, 1588 Barrington Street, 8pm, $2
This article appears in Apr 12-18, 2012.