New show from CRUXspace and Mural Arts gets muralists off the wall

CRUXspace, Philadelphia’s new media art gallery, will be hosting a gallery show called Community Tech, which will feature the technological creations of mural artists, bridging the gap between their interactive projects and their wall-borne creations.
The show is free and open to the public and will run from June 12-July 26. The opening reception will be held June 12 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
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The gallery show began as a kernel of an idea from CRUXspace owner and director Andrew Cameron Zahn. His question: “How could we make a show that’s street art meets technology?”
He reached out to Brian Campbell, executive assistant at the city’s Mural Arts Program, to see if he would be interested in curating a show where street art intersects with new media. Campbell joined forces with RJ Rushmore, social media and marketing manager of Mural Arts, as well as the site runner for Vandablog. Together they handpicked three artists from the Philadelphia area that exemplified this merging of various forms of media.

• Ben Volta’s work on murals is enriched by community collaboration with school children, who use patterns, math and science to create designs he uses as inspiration in his murals.
• Meg Saligman has many murals adorning Philadelphia, but it was her work experimenting with the use of LED-synced lighting against her painted murals and glass works that made her a perfect fit for the show.
• Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib, who are recent Guggenheim winners, were chosen to display their murals as large, outdoor projections on buildings. They’ve used new media to transform how murals can be viewed.

“A really big piece of this show is that street art has become more mainstream and Mural Arts has been bringing a lot of non-traditional artists to Philadelphia,” said Zahn. “The show is truly a collision of a unique piece of Philadelphia and new media art.”