Cleveland Cultural Gardens

PAUL DRUECKE
SPACES World Artists Program
Artist in Residence, Cleveland, OH

Residency: Jul 25 – Sep 11, 2010
Exhibition: Sep 10 – Oct 23, 2010

Milwaukee-based artist Paul Druecke is interested in how cities are put together—or not put together, in some instances. His exhibition, ‘Cleveland,’ as part of the SPACES World Artists Program (SWAP), assembles the city though the eyes of an outsider. Druecke’s overall project, consisting of three works, invites questions about the city, its inhabitants, and their relationship to authority and to one another.

In ‘Where the Wild Dogs Roam Or No,’ Druecke sheds light on a common perception that the Gardens are more of a route, rather than a destination. Through the promotion of events happening anywhere but the Cleveland Cultural Gardens, Druecke will frame the Gardens as negative space, locate them in a psychological landscape, and perhaps make them the highlight of the evening.

On September 10 between 6 – 9 p.m., nothing will be happening at the Cleveland Cultural Gardens and Paul Druecke will be nowhere in sight. The Gardens and Rockefeller Park will be as they normally are; nothing will take place. Druecke’s piece Where Wild Dogs Roam Or No is a non-event and will transpire without a single audience member. The Gardens themselves are the reason for the artistic gambit. He says, ‘I love the Cultural Gardens. They have such a unique combination of factors that lead to their not being used, which is also an indication of their potential. I’ve organized lots of successful events as part of my art practice, but the gardens required something else, something both more and less dramatic.’

For a continuing list of events not happening in the Cultural Gardens, visitSPACESgallery.org/2010/swap/druecke/