NEON MUSEUM INAUGURATES ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM WITH CITIZEN SPEAK BY DAVID SANCHEZ BURR
Installation and Visitor Participation Project to Take Place in Neon Museum’s North Gallery April 18-19; Installation on View at Marjorie Barrick Museum April 27 – May 20
This April, the Neon Museum will host its first artist in residence, Las Vegas artist David Sanchez Burr. His work, titled citizen speak, will be built and exhibited in the Neon Museum’s North Gallery on Saturday, Apr. 18, and Sunday, Apr. 19, before being transferred to the Marjorie Barrick Museum at UNLV. citizen speak will be on view in the Barrick Museum’s lobby from April 27 to May 20; an artist’s reception will take place there from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, May 2.
A partnership between the Neon Museum and the Barrick Museum, the residency calls for artist-parents to create work inspired and enjoyed by their children—and, by extension, children of all ages. Both museums hope the residency becomes an annual event, with the first part of the project housed at the Neon Museum and the second part at the Barrick.
citizen speak will be an interactive work of art involving audio and video media, modified specifically for children. For this project, Sanchez Burr will create a portable version of his project nowhereradio, which began in 2011 as part of a personal journey to produce an artwork that would encourage meaning and interactivity with the audience as a social event and broadcast.
“I believe interaction and participation are important tools for enhancing the meaning of an artwork by incorporating the thoughts, ideas, reactions and physical activity of its audience,” explains Sanchez Burr. “This work combines my interest in analog radio signal broadcasts with my study of science-fiction Utopian and dystopian literature. My goal is to create an accessible, community space dedicated to open transmission and—by extension—endless possibilities.”
On April 18 and 19, families will be encouraged to visit citizen speak at the Neon Museum’s North Gallery and join in the “itinerant communal radio” experience. They will interact with the installation, which is composed of alternative and traditional radio instrumentation attached to a freestanding support system. In doing so, they will be able to play instruments, voice their thoughts and ideas and listen to the broadcast while investigating the range of transmission the piece offers. Following this installation, the piece will move to the Marjorie Barrick Museum, where select objects, as well as audio and video recordings from its Neon Museum installation, will be on view for a month. Also at the Barrick, a reception will be held for all participants in the piece.
“It has been a hope for many years to bring artist residencies to the Neon Museum, offering an opportunity to interpret and engage the collection in fresh and exciting ways,” says Danielle Kelly, executive director, Neon Museum. “We are thrilled to present the first of what we hope to be many artists’ residencies, and honored to partner with the UNLV Marjorie Barrick Museum in this endeavor.”
About the Artist
David Sanchez Burr is a mixed-media artist, currently living in Las Vegas, Nevada. Born in Madrid Spain, David began his experimental sound and visual work in Richmond, Va., while studying at Virginia Commonwealth University. He has exhibited nationally at art centers and cultural spaces, including the Yerba Buena Center for The Arts in San Francisco, UC Santa Cruz Intervene:Interrupt conference on new practices, Stanford University as part of Performance Studies International, In-Light at the 1708 Gallery in Richmond and H2O Film on Water at the Brattleboro Museum in Vermont. His international exhibits include the Cantocore Gallery in Guangzhou, China, and Loris Contemporary in Berlin. His work was exhibited as part of Memphis Social an Apex Art Franchise Exhibit, and had two solo exhibitions in 2013 at the Clark County Government Center Rotunda and P3Studios in Las Vegas. Along with his art practice, David’s curatorial experience includes The Wildlife Divide, a series of art events and workshops related to the high contrast between urban and natural habitats; Multiplexer Gallery Intercept Series; co-curated Tuba-Exotica digital collection; the ansurbana collaborative; and Citizen Gallery. He has received funding from the Nevada Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, The Art Production Fund and The Media Arts Project.
Citizen Speak will be open to public involvement at the Neon Museum North Gallery from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Apr. 18, and Sunday, Apr. 19. There is no cost to participate. For more information, call (702) 387-6366.
ABOUT THE NEON MUSEUM
Founded in 1996, the Neon Museum is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization dedicated to collecting, preserving, studying and exhibiting iconic Las Vegas signs for educational, historic and cultural enrichment. In addition to an approximately two-acre Neon Museum campus, which includes the outdoor exhibition space known as the Neon Boneyard, the museum also encompasses a visitors’ center housed inside the former La Concha Motel lobby; the Neon Boneyard North Gallery, a separate outdoor exhibition space which is open for educational programs, photography shoots, weddings and special events; as well as nine restored signs installed as public art throughout downtown Las Vegas. Public education, outreach, research, archival preservation and a grant-funded neon sign survey represent a selection of the museum’s ongoing projects. Both the Neon Boneyard and the La Concha Visitors’ Center are located at 770 Las Vegas Blvd. North in Las Vegas. For more information, visit www.NeonMuseum.org.
ABOUT THE BARRICK MUSEUM
The UNLV Marjorie Barrick Museum, a public arts unit under the UNLV Department of Art and the College of Fine Arts, strives to provide a welcoming environment in which students, members of the University community, southern Nevada residents and the public in general can study and learn by directly experiencing works of art. Our goal is to enhance the visitor’s understanding of art as an enduring human endeavor and to promote visual literacy for all patrons. To this end, the Museum acquires, exhibits, interprets and preserves works of art representative of past and present cultures, and artistic creativity. For current program and exhibition information, call (702) 895-3381 or visit unlv.edu/barrickmuseum