Artist Story: Alamo & Costello

Alamo & Costello, Appleseed Drop-off in the Esplanadinpuisto - Helsinki, Finland, August 2, 2004

I literally put the artwork into the public domain (invited or not). For some time, I have been producing projects that are designed to function in public spaces in addition to my straight documentary efforts. These artworks are not traditional public sculpture or murals, but are more aligned with the Message in a Bottle concept – ephemeral, require response, and free to take home for the random passerby. This approach is a continuation of the collaborative work I produced with Armpit: A Roving Street Gallery (1991-1997) and my interest in the relationship between perceptions and practices related to futility and trust in contemporary society. With Armpit, the majority of the projects were action-based and dealt with current political, social, and economic issues. These often fleeting attempts to interact in a grassroots format frequently brought fresh interpretation from persons not educated with art history or theory. This type of street-level contact with the general public was specifically designed to broaden the scope of who has the opportunity to interact with the art by placing it into the person’s everyday experience, and stems from activist performance approaches of the 1960s and early 70s.

In 1998, I received a CAAP grant from the Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of Chicago to produce Searching for Geomantrick. This project consisted of the creation of 60 photo-transparency light boxes that were distributed to 20 Chicago parks for casual passersby to find, keep and respond to via a self-addressed envelope or an internet website (www.alamo-costello.net). Searching for Geomantrick was my initial attempt to address issues of communication and trust through the creation of a democratic photo-based social experiment.

In 1999, I began the Appleseed International (1999-2004) project with the support of another CAAP grant from the City of Chicago. This project was developed to broaden the scope of Searching for Geomantrick to include international venues. Appleseed consisted of producing 280 more photo-transparency light boxes (Appleseeds) and traveling to 40 cities (20 in the U.S. and 20 abroad) to distribute them in city parks. As in Geomantrick, an introduction and invitation to participate in the project was included, but written in the predominant local language of each country visited. This information was translated into Dutch, French, Danish, Finnish, Italian, Russian and Swedish for the site visits. In addition to the U.S. deposits, works were placed in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Scotland, Sweden, and Switzerland. As of fall 2005, 72 Appleseed recipients have responded to the photo-object deposits with cards, letters, e-mail messages, and artworks from the finders.

One of the primary obstacles I have faced with these projects is embedded in the temporal quality of this type of approach. To address this dilemma, I documented the process with drawings, journaling, maps, photography, and video. However, probably more important to getting these efforts attention has been the ongoing corresponding I have done while producing the work. At the project’s inception, I selected a handful of curators, writers, and close friends who I felt might find interest in this type of practice. My selections were not arbitrary. I looked at curatorial records and writings, introduced myself to these persons at various functions, and sent press releases directly to each person who was to be corresponded with. Through the entire projects and specifically during the travel component, I sent letters and postcards from the road describing the activities, venting my frustrations, and noting my next move. These correspondences have proven to be vital in calling closure to these efforts. In the autumn of 2004, I had completed the final site visits of Appleseed, and was uncertain of what I should do with the piles of photographs, hours of video, and other documentation. An exhibition seemed the obvious choice, however a close friend and book editor familiar with the work suggested that this information should be compiled into a catalog and project book first. This format is needed to produce something that merges all of the components into a single digestible unit that presents the varied information coherently. At this time, I am working with a small group of people designing the Appleseed catalog. The process consists of analyzing responses, flushing out inconsistencies, enlisting writings, and rendering a dynamic and lucid tool to use in approaching exhibition venues.

Alamo & Costello (aka Chester Costello) has chaired the Department of Visual Arts at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, IL since 1999. His work has been reviewed and published in the Chicago Tribune Magazine, Public Art Review, Chicago Sun-Times, the New Art Examiner, De Telegraaf - Amsterdam, The Irish Times - Dublin, The Herald News, and other publications. Costello received his Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from John Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, IN, (1992) and his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Photography from Columbia College Chicago (1998).