Palm Springs Art Museum Project To Benefit Local Youth

This week an unusual event took place at the Palm Springs Art Museum. A car was lifted by crane into the museum's lobby as artist Lewis deSoto stood by. He has been named the artist-in-residence this summer.

DeSoto's car will only be a small part of an overall exhibition he will be creating on site over the next few months called Ransom. 

According to the museum:

"Ransom will reinterpret the museum’s Mesoamerican collection and will feature commissioned videos and historical sculptural elements to create a multi-nuanced environment that will present the dynamic relationship between victor and vanquished. 

 The exhibition will be installed throughout the museum and will begin with a conceptual gateway of gold and silver leaf that juxtaposes Peruvian vessels from before (and after) the encounter between Europeans and native peoples of the Americas. Working closely with the museum’s Education Department, deSoto has created a video featuring Coachella Valley teens and young people as the “actors” in a reading of texts originally presented to the indigenous peoples of the Americas by Spanish conquerors. This video will run in the Video Projects Room throughout the run of the exhibition."

The car that was lifted into the museum is actually deSoto's 2004 sculpture CONQUEST, a simulation (“faux-riginal”) of a 1965 car that never existed. It will will remain on view through September 18, 2011.

What's even better is that deSoto will work closely with the kids of the annual Museum Camp as they transform a car into a work of art. Using Conquest as a model, deSoto will provide individual instruction and attention to camp participants as they add, change or take out sections of the car. 

This kind of interactive art project not only engages the public, but lends inspiration to all those young budding artists in our community who don't normally have access to live artists.

Palm Desert will soon reap the benefits of this kind of cultural education and outreach as well when the Palm Desert location of the Palm Springs Art Museum opens next year. Education to the youth is one of this location's main impetuses and it will be great to see the East Valley benefit from this great roster of new programming.