Lendlease’s Clippership Wharf waterfront development project, which officially opened last week with much fanfare, will host its first art gallery show on Thursday.
Last year Lendlease made a call for art submissions from local artists for both the development’s outdoor public art space as well as the new contemporary ‘ClipArt’ Gallery.
On Thursday, Sept. 26 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Lenndlease, in collaboration with East Boston’s Atlantic Works Gallery, will celebrate the opening of ClipArt.
ClipArt Gallery will highlight local artists in a rotating exhibition program.
The first art opening will feature East Boston: Present Tense, curated by Marjorie Kaye, and will be on view until January 2020.
“East Boston has a proud history of being home to a thriving art community, and we are excited to continue that tradition at Clippership Wharf,” said Nick Iselin, General Manager for Lendlease Development in Boston. “The sculptures and gallery will highlight unique parts of East Boston’s history, and will be an attraction for both residents of Clippership Wharf and the public.”
The gallery, which will be curated and managed by the Atlantic Works Gallery, will be located on the ground floor of Clippership’s Slip65 Condominiums and will be open to the public on Saturday afternoons.
Clippership Wharf will also be home to two public art installations, the result of both nationwide and local competitions. “Islands,” designed by Volkan Alkanoglu, occupies a preeminent location on a newly created stretch of the East Boston Harborwalk and represents an interpretation of the five former Boston Harbor islands that form today’s East Boston. The brightly colored sculpture is fully interactive, inviting individuals to reorient and occupy the different shapes as they desire.
“Pillar” will reside in the courtyard at Clippership Wharf and was conceptualized by New American Public Art. The installation will tell two very different stories, evoking both the massive Lepidodendron trees found in prehistoric East Boston and the great Eastern White Pine trees later used by the shipbuilding trades on the East Boston wharfs, including Clippership Wharf itself. Plaques describing each vision will be at the site, inviting visitors to see which story resonates most with them.