One of Washington’s most interesting new art spaces doesn’t have a permanent home, and that’s by design.
Last year, arts incubator CulturalDC sold its G Street gallery space Flashpoint. Despite the lack of a fixed address, the organization has recently developed programming for Blind Whino and Dupont Underground. In its latest venture, the group takes this itinerant opportunity to bring art to the community—one ward at a time.
Launched by Cultural DC and hosted by developers Forest City, Space4 is a shipping container converted into a climate controlled gallery. For the gallery’s premiere season, Cultural DC will bring this mobile space to each of the city’s eight wards, and residents from each ward will be consulted for each installation.
‘We don’t want to just drop it in a neighborhood,” says Cultural DC Arts Associate Rachel Burley, who manages Space4. “We really want to understand the community, so we ‘re doing research ahead of time, getting in touch with local groups and having them be a part of it.”
This isn’t the first time the Washington area has seen art in a shipping container. Earlier this year, the Embassy of the Netherlands hosted Silent Room, a container that invited you to sit in a space devoid of sound and color. Dutch artist Simon Heijdens took a more minimalist approach to the restrictive space. But Space4 is the first area gallery to haul art around town.
It’s not just a shipping container, either. The hull has been altered, with the addition of MDF walls, glass doors at the entrance and an exit door, and even an HVAC system. With an entrance ramp, it’s ADA accessible.
With his participatory work String Room, Salvatore Pirrone is the first artist to tackle this space. Using yarn donated by residents of Ward 6, Pirrone installed 8,000 pieces of string on light plaster panels around the gallery walls. Visitors are invited to pull on the yarn, which releases a light snow of plaster, and leave their string on the gallery floor.
“The messier it gets in there, the happier I am,” Pirrone says.
As of Thursday, there were fewer than 2000 strings left, the remainder accumulating on the floor to leave a record of the previous visitors—and of the new space’s success.
Burley estimates that, since the gallery opening last weekend, she’s seen about 100 visitors every weekday, which is better foot traffic than CulturalDC ever saw at Flashpoint.
That may sound surprising, but Flashpoint may not have seemed as alluring or accessible to downtown pedestrians. On the other hand, the sight of a stylishly converted shipping container in the middle of Yards Park has fueled more curiosity from passers-by.
That come-hither atmosphere is thanks in part to panels that have been installed on the exterior of the container, which during the day add sleek perforated textures and at night comes alive with an LED display that at one end echoes the shape of the city.
Inside, Space4’s inaugural art installation issues a further invitation.
Pirrone, a professor of interior design at Marymount University with a background in architecture and fine art, appreciated the challenges of the small space. “The idea of doing something inside a shipping container did seem kind of restrictive in the beginning. So one of my goals was to not make it seem so small.”
It’s not just a matter of what to put inside. “It didn’t seem appropriate,” Pirrone continues, “to just walk in there, look at something and walk out as in a regular gallery. With that long rectangular shape, I thought it would be nice, since the walls wouldn’t be very far away from you, to let you pull them apart.”
Pirrone likes to make interactive art that is completed by the user. Members of the community helped create String Room, and will help destroy it. The detritus that results suggests the aftermath of a party. “It was intended to feel like a celebration. At the end of it, you should be standing in a confetti-filled room.”
The party will proceed throughout the city as Space4 moves to each ward. The gallery’s next stop is the National Zoo, as part of expanded programming for this year’s Zoo Lights celebration. From November 24 – January 1, it will be parked across from the Cheetah Conservation Station, with Maggie Gourlay’s Adaptation/Migration in the Anthropocene installed inside.
“We’re on track to hit all eight wards for the first season. We’re trying to hit communities that can benefit most from this,” says Burley.
Space4 will be at Yards Park through November 15. The gallery will be open Wednesday through Thursday, 2 to 8 p.m. and Friday through Sunday, noon to 8 p.m. Free.
