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This is my first attempt of co-writing an article, any assistance is appreciated Piratec (talk) 13:05, 11 August 2012 (UTC)Piratec

Ralph Brancaccio

Ralph Brancaccio (born 1960 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American and European multi-disiplined, self-taught conceptual artist whose work is mostly social commentary or politically motivated, weather working in paint, installation/multimedia, or printmaking with an aesthetic that is clean-lined, refined, organized and precise.

He states, “As a child, I was educated to believe that I was living in a developed society. This I did not see. As my consciousness developed, I began to recognize the dysfunction of a world people call or think civilized."

Education

Graduated from East Catholic High School, Manchester, CT in 1979 and was awarded The Brother Robert Dandrow Scholarship for his commitment to social action. He attended Annhurst College in 1979 and was president of his freshman class. After its closing in 1980 he attended and graduated, class of 1983, from Providence College, Providence, RI with a B. A. in Humanities.

Work

Brancaccio's work falls inline with conceptual artists Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger for it is declarative, narrative, as well as identity based and made for public space. While Holzer and Kruger are often grouped as feminist postmodern artists his work is from a humanist, or gay prospective. Annotations are also an important component. Language plays a key role, giving the viewer food-for-though or insight into a presented social condition or controversial object in mediums that include public service announcements, stickers, posters, T-shirts, or installations.

He disrupts urban landscapes to engage the unexpected spectator in an art experience that they would miss if it were placed with the confines of a museum or his studio. Some of the work becomes performance art as he places himself in a community setting and becomes an integral part of the piece. He remains identifiably although the personage is not the focal point.

[It] was not until his late twenties that he realized art would be his life's work. The pivotal act that cemented this decision was a series of five manhole cover prints titled, "Mandela: a man and his Freedom" from Basel, Switzerland. It all began in the spring of 1990 when he tested the idea in New York City on East Forty-fifth Street and Third Avenue. The manhole cover became his printing plate. Sometimes he prints the entire cover, or sometimes he reproduces particular elements from its design.

These extrapolated elements divorce from the cover’s original blueprint and tell a story. Sometimes he lets dirt on the manhole cover transfer to the paper, leaving a ghostly impression of the original design. He controls an embossing effect by adjusting the pressure while pressing the paper against the manhole cover.

Color amplifies the narrative image and it can reflect the cultural environment of where he is working. The wear of the plate exposed to the elements creates its own magic.

When the prints are signed the exact street address, city, and country in which the cover was found as well as the date it was printed are recorded. The results are documents of a particular culture at a particular time, but they are also and unmistakably "Brancaccio's." For those who have encountered these bright, witty monoprints, the manhole will never be the same. Here are quite simply artists whose idiom changes the way we see our day-today environment: Dan Flavin's neon tubes, David Hockney's swimming pools and Daniel Buren's stripes have long since exerted such an impact. In sensitizing us to the art beneath our feet, Ralph Branaccio is thus in the best of company. He states, “By putting myself at people’s feet, I bring beauty up to their level which causes them to look down.”

An exhibition in the city museum Musee des Egouts de Paris titled "D'Egouts et des Couleurs" opened in June 1998. Nearly one hundred prints from major cities around the world were shown in underground tunnels. The City also commissioned a 1999 New Years Card, which was created using a Paris manhole cover on Avenue Rapp.

Brancaccio mastered the use of the public arena as a studio and exhibition space. “Silent March” was created in 1992 as a multidisciplinary arts project to help curtail the spread of HIV. Originally he intended to line up 25,000 pairs of shoes for a "Silent March: at New York's City Hall. New York Foundation for the Arts sponsored the project in 1995. Because of the funding challenges to fully develop the project Brancaccio took to the streets. Site-specific installations were produced using shoes belonging to people living with HIV, AIDS and of those who had lost their life to the disease.

Brancaccio personalized the impact the disease was having for he felt the general public was not paying attention to or recognizing how the disease was destroying lives. He felt shoes, a neutral, identifiable object, and the slogan “AIDS Makes No Choices, You Do” would encourage people to transcend a social barrier that was dehumanizing people; an attitude he felt reminiscent of the Holocaust. Groups such as ACT UP were screaming but people were not listening. Gays and drug usurers became expendable.

Grand Central Terminal and other public spaces in New York City became areas of reflection as passersby stumbled upon his presence. He stood with a sign stating “AIDS Makes No Choices, You Do”. The shoes placed before him were tagged with the individual’s names, birth date and if appropriate their date of death. Prevention literature provided by the Center for Disease Control was distributed.

"The Y Project" opened with “Y Discriminate” a bright pink sculpture in the shape of the letter Y. It was sited in New York City on Sixth Avenue and Ninth Street in 1998 on the Ruth Wittenberg Triangle; the beginning of Christopher Street where in 1969 the Stonewall riots began. The project is sponsored by New York Foundation for the Arts.

“The Y Project" a touring temporary public installation, uses the letter Y to represent the word why. Y steel sculptures stand ten feet tall and sport an engraved word running vertically down the letters base. (Y Art, Y Think, Y Care, etc.) Brancaccio asks, “Why do we live so comfortably with an imbalance of human equality and irresponsibility?” With its bold sculptures, the "Y" Project halts us in our tracks and is symbolic of the challenge of getting beyond the negativity to find the life-affirming positives in the world.

He proclaims, Our nations are a reflection of what we have allowed them to become. They suffer with the existence of discrimination, exploitation and dehumanization. Voices must unite by standing up for positive change. We need to develop responsible societies that accept and celebrate diversity while stopping repression based on skin color, social position or sexuality. We must stop mortality from causes such as malnutrition, curable diseases, religious conflict, illegal drugs and war.

"Y AIDS" was placed in Providence, RI at Washington Plaza through Convergence 11 an international celebration of the arts in June 1998. The City Of Providence, Vincent A. Cianci, Jr., Mayor, and Nancy L. Derrig, Superintendent of the Department of Public Parks and Bob Rizzo, Director of the Office of Cultural Affairs, produced it.

Brancaccio partnered in 2001 with ActionAIDS to bring “The Y Project” to Philadelphia, PA. While working towards authorization from the city to place ten Y sculptures, he collaborated with the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial and the Rosenbach Museum & Library. Fourth graders at Greenfield Elementary School were taught manhole cover printing as part of the program "Planet Greenfield: A Neighborhood Mapping Project". He also taught his printing technique to adjudicated youth at ArtScape, a Mural Arts Program, and lectured at Central High School.

A fundraising exhibition was held at the William Way LGBT Community Center March 2003. Auctioned off was his conceptual portrait of Elizabeth Taylor, created with footprints of her shoes. Shoes played a major role in another endeavor, a fund-raising project called "Putting Your Foot Down for AIDS." Following his idea with the manholes, Brancaccio began using the patterned soles of people's shoes as a printing plate. Some of the participants included celebrities such as actors James Earl Jones, Anjelica Huston along with designer Jean Paul Gaultier and director Pedro Almodovar.

Simultaneously the United States engaged in war with Iraq and due to a reduction in arts funding "The Y Project" for Philadelphia was put on hold. It was not until 2008 when the Cambridge Arts Council and the Puffin Foundation partially funded the project for an installation in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Four Sculptures were installed; Y AIDS, Y Discriminate, Y Think and Y Care. Brancaccio worked with the Community Art Center's Teen Media Program creating films around the project. He also gave a presentation at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. "The Y Project" has also been sited in Provincetown, MA, with the Provincetown Art Association and Museum; Whitinsville, MA and The University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.

In 2002 Brancaccio participated in a TransCultural Exchange project titled “The Coaster Project; Destination, the World”. Over 99+ artists transcended geographical, political and cultural boundaries to stage 99+ exhibitions throughout the world. Afterwards, all 10,000+ art works were given away in the guise of “coasters” at bars, cafes and restaurants. Brancaccio organized an event at Tokyo Eat at the Paris museum Palais de Tokyo. He also participated in The Tile Project: Destination, the World. He collaborated with artist Leo F. Hobaica, Jr. The piece is titled, "One Earth". Participants were asked to plant French soil in their country and send soil to them from their country. These soil samples were then mixed and used to create tiles.

He collaborated with artists Ed and Linda Calhoun on "Lima Lives!" a sound and video installation funded by Atlanta's Flux Projects 2010. "Lima Lives!" celebrates the life and spirit of Lima, the zebra that escaped from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus on February 18, 2010 and stopped traffic in Atlanta and later euthanized. The installation combines real 911 tapes with a fictionalized look at Lima's early life.

Selected Exhibitions

2007 - " A Visual Travel Dairy" - Floorz 3/4 Jinmao, Shanghai, China
2007 - "Manhole Cover" - Reed Whipple Cultural Center Gallery - Las Vegas, NV
2003 - "The Name Game" - Parsons School of Design Gallery - Paris, France
1998 - "Y Shadow Boxes" - The John L. Stewart Collection, New York, New York
Group:
2012 - "Letter of Pleasure" – Gallerie Kunstwestthuringer – Bad Langensalza, Germany
2011 - "DMZ Art Festival" - Seokjang-Ri Art Museum - Yeonchen-Gun, Korea
2011 - "360 We & Everybody" - Hampden Galleries - University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts
2009 - "Art Salat" - Seinajoen Taidehallissa, Seinajoki, Finland
2009 - "I Know U" - KIC Art Center, Shanghai, China
2007 - "Being" - Zhu Qi Shan Art Museum - Shanghai, China
2005 - "Dimensions Varied; Site Fixed" - Cambridge Arts Council Gallery, Cambridge, Massachusetts
2003 - "Postcards from the Edge" - Gallerie Lelong - New York, New York
2003 - "Peintures, verres et sculptures" - Galerie Allair-Aigret - Paris, France
1998 - "Reading Between the Lines" - Rotunda Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
1993 - "Silent March" - Minneapolis College of Art & Design, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Other points of Interest

In 2011 He was commissioned to print manhole covers in Paderborn, Germany for Paderorner Kultursommer.

In 2001 Brancaccio worked with the late Andrea Bronfman who chose a manhole cover print from the south of France from which he created a logo and theme that was used to adorn the celebrations of Charles Bronfman's seventieth birthday in the Israeli Negev Desert and on a Cunard Line yacht the Seabourn Goddess.

In 1991 he worked on the committee as a volunteer for Susanne Bartsch’s “Balade de l’Amour” an AIDS benefit that took place at the Folies Bergère in Paris, France. $750,000 was raised for AIDS service organizations. It was a televised stage event that brought together the artistic communities, the business and social worlds and, of course the exotic. Sandra Bernhard hosted while celebrities graced the stage showing their support, including: Lady Miss Kier of Dee-Lite, Boy George, Pedro Almodovar, Azzedine Alaia, Amanda Lear, Nina Hagen, Joey Arias, Ines de la Fressange, Roman Polanski, Jean Paul Gaultier, Thierry Mugler, and Pierre & Gilles.

References

"Artist takes his work to the streets", by Miriam Pereira, The Miami Herald, June 6, 1991.
"d'Egouts et des Couleurs", Paris(AFP) Lundi 11 Mai 1998.
"Un beau voyage au pays des rats des villes" by Muriel Steinmetz, l'Humanite, July 4, 1998.
"L'histoire. Les egouts au musee (Ralph Brancaccio), Liberation, May 12, 1998.
"Artist teaches his unique form in V.I.", by Cristian Simescu, Virgin Islands Daily News, February 28, 2009.
"Five-Part Tribute to a Local Hero", by Janet Allon, The New York Times, Sunday, April 12, 1998.
"Art project questions 'Y'", by Danielle Grote, Philadelphia Gay News, March 21, 2003.
"Y asks why", by Mary Ann Bragg, Cape Cod Times, June 10, 2009.
"Art to better the community and to fight AIDS", by Gloria Blakely, The Philadelphia Sunday Sun, March 9, 2003.
"Pounding, and printing, pavements for art", by John Eckberg, The Cincinnati Enquirer, May 18, 1992.
"Going the distance", Artweek Magazine, October 21, 1993, Volume 24, Number 20.
"Shoes Sought for 'Silent March'", by Rawley Grau, The Alternative, Lifestyle/Art.
"Egos & Ids: Gaultier and Mugler Will Wear Each Other's Clothes for a Cause", by Degen Pener, The New York Times, September 6, 1992.
"Artwork raises issues; Y Project has a visual impact", by Susan Spencer, The Free Library, Telegram & Gazette(Worcester, MA), December 17, 2009.

"Expo plaques d'ègouts", France 3 Television, Actualitiès, France Soir: aired June 9, 1998, time 1'22.

External links

Official website
Silent March A Public Service Announcement.
Lima Lives Atlanta, Roving Projections for Flux Projects Atlanta 2010.
News Interview Printing off manhole covers, filmed in Shanghai China 2009.