Chattanooga Pulse

Art lovers heading to New York will have a chance to see work by Chattanooga artist Rondell Crier at the Guggenheim Museum. Crier has contributed pieces to the installation that will become the visual staging for the museum’s production of Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev. Tickets are currently on sale.

Rondell Crier arrived in Chattanooga four years ago, after his place in Metairie, Lousiana, was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Crier remains the executive director of New Orleans-based art collective YA|YA (Young Aspirations|Young Artists). YA|YA was commissioned by the Guggenheim to produce ten pieces, including all the Peter and the Wolf characters.

For this installation, Crier and fellow New Orleans artist Runtherion Ratiff are the YA|YA project leaders and art directors. This production will feature the Julliard Ensemble conducted by George Manahan from the New York City Opera. Isaac Mizrahi will narrate, and Jennifer Tipton will animate the performance through lighting design.

Crier himself created the character “Grandfather,” “an essence of grandfather featuring a long copper tie and including the clock concept.” He also created “Peter,” made from a chair with wheels. Crier expresses his genuine gratitude to local sculptor Isaac Duncan and Greg Ross of Estate of Confusion for their assistance with his fabrications. Wood remains a preferred medium for Crier, but he works with a range of media, including stone, metal, fabric, video and graphics. Other YA|YA members created the pieces that complete this commission.

Crier joined YA|YA at its inception more than 20 years ago, when he was 14. Much of YA|YA’s work has involved furniture design, and, more recently, textiles. YA|YA was commissioned by Swatch Watches, and Crier did two Swatch designs.

In 1988, New Orleans artist Jana Napoli collaborated with Rabouin High School students for a public art project that involved painting business buildings in the school’s neighborhood. From this successful collaboration YA|YA emerged. The YA|YA dynamic combines youth vision with artistic mentoring. In his role as executive director, Crier embodies this dynamic, being an alumnus of the program.

Recently, the Patten Performance Series brought Waiting for Godot to UTC, in a production by the Classical Theatre of Harlem. Paul Chan, a multi-media artist from New York, was inspired by a field in the Lower Ninth Ward, which suggested “Godot” to him. My understanding is that Paul Chan invited the Classical Theatre of Harlem to New Orleans, and from this, the company’s vision of Waiting for Godot developed. Crier fabricated a bike, a tree and a cart/basket as set pieces, based on Paul Chan’s drawings. Chan also distributed street signs based on this play’s text all over New Orleans’ neighborhoods.

Rondell Crier has also worked on art projects that attempted to document the devastation of Katrina. He took more than 500 photographs of the debris, and mounted a video camera on his car in order to produce “On the Streets,” an installation in which vast remnants of objects left behind tried to encompass the enormous loss left in Katrina’s wake.

Crier also collaborated with Jana Napoli in the production of “Floodwall.” Napoli collected drawers full of objects left behind by the storm and Crier documented these drawers into a digital, interactive installation and database. Oral recollections from owners of the drawers also were integrated into the project.

From Chattanooga to New Orleans to New York, visions and the collaborations that realize these visions form the paradigm of artistic collectivity, moving art to move us.

Peter and the Wolf
Installation begins December 8
Production dates: December 10-14
Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue at 89th Street, New York, NY
www.guggenheim.org