Shoes at the Museum: Alive Shoes
posted by: brianka in General, Shoes at the Museum on April 13th, 2010
This week marked the launch of a new website: AliveShoes.com. This site serves as an online portal and art exhibit that, in the words of an AliveShoes spokeswoman, “is an art experiment that melds art and fashionable sneakers into wearable art. Artists from around the world, including New York artists such as Steven Siegel and Jonathan Allen have used a specific number of AliveShoes in the creation of each work of art. ”
This is an interesting concept for shoe lovers who are willing to look beyond shoes in their everyday role as personal fashion and into the realm of shoes as part of the artistic process. There are many shoes out there that are intrinsically formed to be wearable art. Rarely do we encounter shoes used as the base artistic medium from which to create larger works of experiential art.
Thus far, the artworks represented are installation pieces that incorporate large numbers of Alive Shoes in their presentation. Each shoe that is part of an installation has distinguishing marks added to it that identify with which artwork they belong. After the installations are ended, these shoes will be available for purchase by the general public and will help to fund the creation of future artworks.
Above: Screenshot – the “Alive Economy”
Shoe marked with installation information
Just to give you an idea of the types of art pieces they are presenting, here are some of the promotional photos of two outdoor environmental installations (Available in the Catalogue area of the website):
Panoramic View: ‘Beach Blocks’ by Steven Siegel
Detail: Beach Blocks by Steven Siegel. Video available at AliveShoes.
‘Piede a Terre’ by Sebastiano Mauri; video available at AliveShoes website.
A third piece ‘Through the Glass’ by Francesco Arena, is an installation piece with performance elements. It is available here at the AliveShoes website.
Now, if you are an established or emerging artist who is interested in creating your own AliveShoes project, there is an option on the site for you submit your own project ideas. Instructions and links are provided in a pop-up window:
So, they are obviously planning on moving forward with this collaborative process as an ongoing project and potential support network for artists.
Unfortunately, the current artworks are all geographically located at specific, separate locations in Italy (or in some cases have come and gone and only exist in film and photography records). So, the website is as close as I, and I suspect several others, are going to come to being able to view these initial exhibits. Which is a shame – since I tend feel that art, and especially immersive artworks of this type, is best experienced first hand.
Let us know what you think.
