Bethlehem, PA….Just as Central Park served as the backdrop for “The Gates,” the abandoned plant and offices of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation – once the second largest steel producer in the United States – will provide a dramatic setting for an exhibition of works by fifty artists who live and work in a region working its way back from the industrial decline Billy Joel immortalized in song.
“Some Serious Business – Art of the Lehigh Valley” will open on August 25 in a hulking six-story building that once functioned as the hub of plant operations for an industrial behemoth whose blast furnaces and rolling mills symbolized the manufacturing might of a nation.
The building sits in the middle of the country’s largest privately owned urban brownfield, but it is currently being renovated by Northampton Community College to serve as a center for lifelong learning, workforce training, culture and commerce. That project is “a work in progress,” says Dr. Paul Pierpoint, NCC’s dean of community education.
More than 1200 students have taken advantage of classes offered at the site since the College purchased the building in March of 2005, but the “canvas” is a large one. While renovations to the upper floors continue, the College has provided 25,000 square feet of raw space on the lower level as a unique venue to showcase professional quality art by faculty from the region’s many colleges as well as other artists who reside in the Lehigh Valley and whose works are included in collections at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and in exhibitions juried by curators from the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of the artists, a native of Iran, worked with Pei Cobb Freed & Partners on the design of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
“Some Serious Business – Art of the Lehigh Valley” was the brainchild of Joseph “Mick” Chapuk, an artist who teaches adult literacy classes at Northampton Community College’s Fowler Family Southside Center. With Pierpoint’s approval, in May he sent an e-mail to colleagues at other colleges and well-respected independent artists inviting them to participate by displaying painting, sculpture, photography, video, mixed media, installations, performance or conceptual work. “The walls in this space will be torn down after the exhibit,” Chapuk explained, “therefore artists may paint on, draw on, write on, scribble on, experiment with, hang from, scream into, defile, desecrate, or beautify the space as long as they maintain the integrity of the electrical and plumbing systems. Site-specific works are encouraged.”
The response exceeded Chapuk’s expectations. From August 25 through September 16 the fifty artists listed below will fill 42 rooms with their creations. The show will be open to critics and to the public from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on weekdays and from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on Saturdays. The opening reception is scheduled for Friday, September 1, from 6-9 p.m. to coincide with First Friday, a monthly celebration that attracts large crowds to South Bethlehem for live music, art, shopping, open houses and refreshments. Many of the artists will be on hand to answer questions about their work.
Participating Artists: Virginia Abbott, Pat Badt, Katina Sossiadis Bozikis, Peggy Campbell, Joseph M. Chapuk, Anna Chupa, Michael Chupa, Jan Ciganick, Andrew Colbert, Jan Crooker, Karen de Balbian Verster, The EatArt Collaborative, Pouran Esrafily, Sherman Finch, Dan Finsel, Leslie Fletcher, Lucy Gans, Linda Ganus, Norman Girardot, Barbara Glazier, Cynthia Hawkins, Cheryl Agulnick Hochberg, Xavier Jimenez, Leigh Kane, Isadore Laduca, Sandra Levisay, Jeffrey W. Ludwig, Mark Mahosky, Anthony Marraccini, Dave Molloy, Tess Mondello, Danny Moyer, Alastair Noble, Jill Odegaard, Lydia Panas, Rick Salafia, Scott Sherk, Santa Bannon Shillea, Tom Shillea, Demetra Stamus, Krista Steinke, THE SUBTERRANEAN SISTERS, Jason Travers, Ricardo Viera, Bruce Wall, Rhonda Wall, Brian Wiggins, Mark Wonsidler, Bill Zehngut, Mary Zehngut
Reviewers are welcome. Images available upon request.
