The AJC took another look at the ACP 10 Public Art project “Within Our Gates” at the water tower in the Old Fourth Ward. The installation is only open for three more days; this Thursday, Friday & Saturday. I don’t have a workable link to the AJC site, so here’s the review, in full:
VISUAL ARTS
Tower setting powerful for ’60s video montage
By Catherine Fox
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, October 19, 2008> The project: “Within Our Gates,” a three-channel video installation inside a century-old water tower by Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry.
> The back story: The sound-and-image piece stands, like much of these artists’ work, at the intersection of race and memory. Even the location is symbolic: The Old Fourth Ward has an important place in the civil rights movement, and the 100-foot-tall tower is a relic of the cotton industry. The video is drawn from news footage of the civil rights movement and its opponents.
> Be sure to: Stop and listen to the speech in the anteroom. You might surmise that the stirring words about protecting liberty and freedom date from 1776. In fact, and ironically, Alabama Gov. George Wallace delivered the speech in the 1960s in response to desegregation. It is a telling counterpoint to the revolution depicted inside, where scenes of marches in particular suggest the tides of change and the force of will that eventually drowned out the words and ways of Wallace and his ilk.
> See it because: It’s the most sophisticated and important public art project in Atlanta in recent memory. To stand inside this unexpectedly cathedral-like space and watch images flicker on the scarred surface of the interior as the insistent rhythms and passionate voices of gospel/protest music resound around you is a powerful experience.
> The 411: “Within Our Gates” runs 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. today; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday; at Auburn Avenue and Irwin Street. Free. A project of Atlanta Celebrates Photography.
