Seeing Spartanburg in a New Light brought nine temporary art installations to public spaces in ten neighborhoods throughout the city. The project is a partnership among the City of Spartanburg Police and Community Relations Departments, internationally renowned light and digital media artist Erwin Redl, the Chapman Cultural Center, and neighborhood associations in the city of Spartanburg. Seeing Spartanburg in a New Light builds on National Night Out, an annual event that promotes crime prevention efforts, police-community partnership, and neighborhood camaraderie.In late Fall 2015, artist Erwin Redl began collaborating with the city’s police department and selected neighborhood associations to design and develop LED light installations that would transform open spaces and create safer, more vibrant neighborhoods.
Meet Erwin Redl, who will join us at the Project Finale & Policy Summit on April 7th to discuss his innovative work. We look forward to hearing more about his many public projects across the globe and his recent work on Seeing Spartanburg in a New Light, another project funded through Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge initiative.
Erwin Redl was born in 1963 in Gföhl, Austria. In 1993, after finishing his studies at the Vienna Music Academy with a BA in Composition (1990) and BA in Electronic Music (1991), he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for graduate studies in computer art at School of Visual Arts, New York, NY (MFA 1995). The artist manages a large production facility in Bowling Green, OH and a studio in New York with several studio assistants and technicians.
The artist’s work was featured in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, covering the Whitney Museum’s facade with a three multi-color LED veils. In 2008 Erwin Redl created a sound and light installation for the Austrian Pavilion at the World Expo in Zaragoza, Spain. The Pacific Design Center’s new Red Building by Cesar Pelli features four permanent installations by the artist completed in 2013.
He won several major public art competitions with installations for the new New York Police Academy in Queens, NY, the Neuro Science Center at Wright State University, Dayton, OH and the Union Square / Market Street subway station in San Francisco, CA. Among the public art projects currently in production are installations for subway stations in San Francisco and Los Angeles, a walk-in steel sculpture for the Ohio State University campus in Columbus, OH and an interactive light installation for the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, RI.
His work is collected by prestigious national and international institutions, among them the Whitney Museum of American Art New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Milwaukee Art Museum and Borusan Contemporary Istanbul as well as by prominent private collectors.
About Seeing Spartanburg in a New Light
The City of Spartanburg was selected as one of four cities to participate as part of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge, a new program to support temporary public art projects that celebrate creativity, enhance urban identity, encourage public-private partnerships, and drive economic development.