The Rapid City Journal reported a replica of Independence Hall in Philadelphia—the birthplace of democracy—is under construction between the Reptile Gardens and Bear Country exhibits on the way to Mount Rushmore.

The replica will house a three-dimensional sculpture that represents John Turnbull’s famous painting depicting the moment when the first draft of the Declaration of Independence was presented to the Second Continental Congress.

The project’s developer, Rapid City businessman Don Perdue, has commissioned artist James Van Nuys to recreate the painting into sculpture. Van Nuys developed a multimedia approach, using fiberglass, plastic, fabric, wood and other products.

Van Nuys enlisted other artists to assist with completing the sculptures that are dressed in historically accurate clothing. The clothing is treated with acrylic and paint to transform the cloth into a sculptured canvas.

“I’ve been very fortunate in assembling a team of phenomenally talented people to help make these figures,” Van Nuys said.

Purdue said he hopes the same patriotic loyalty that brings people to Mount Rushmore will prompt visitors to stop at his display.

“Democracy is important,” Perdue said. “Patriotism is important.”

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Information from: Rapid City Journal, http://www.rapidcityjournal.com

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-08-24-13 1903GMT

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LONDON (AFP) – The auction of works by Banksy, the world’s most infamous graffiti artist, has angered residents of looted London neighborhoods and “embarrassed” the artist as the sale of street art becomes a lucrative enterprise.

Hollywood A-listers Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are fans of the British artist’s stenciled designs, known for their irreverent humor and political activism.

One of his most famous works is painted on the Israeli separation wall and depicts a young girl flying away while clasping a bunch of balloons.

Other notable designs by the Bristol-born artist include a demonstrator throwing a bouquet of flowers, instead of a rock, and a stencil of two British policemen wrapped in a passionate embrace.

The Sincura group, a VIP concierge company which promises to “acquire access to the inaccessible” sold a Banksy stencil in June.

Slave Labour, which depicts a kneeling child working away at a sewing machine making small British flags, appeared in 2012 on the side of a shop in the London district of Wood Green, the scene of serious disorder during the 2011 riots.

The mural was quietly removed and later sold at auction for more than £750,000 (800,000 euros).

The sale enraged local residents, who said they felt “robbed.”

“We feel very strongly that this piece was given freely by Banksy to our area, it belongs to the community and it should be returned to Wood Green,” local councillor Alan Strickland told AFP.

At the end of July, a similar operation saw another painting disappear from Tottenham, another north London district which had been at the center of the 2011 riots.

The work No Ball Games, which shows two children preparing to throw a sign prohibiting ball games, will be “renovated” before being sold in 2014, according to the Sincura group.

A third sale, Flower Girl, is planned for Dec. 5 in Beverly Hills.

This stencil depicts a small girl with a basket in front of a huge plant in which the flower has been replaced by a surveillance camera with a rat’s tail, a recurring motif in Banksy’s work.

As with the other sales, proceeds from the painting, which originally appeared on the wall of a service station in Hollywood, will go to the building owner, not the artist.

For Richard Howard-Griffin, director of Street Art London, which organizes guided graffiti tours of the British capital, these auctions bring to light the “naked profiteering and untrammelled capitalism, which illustrates the greed inherent within human nature.”

The reclusive Banksy, whose real name is reported to be Robin Gunningham, did not respond to AFP requests for an interview, but his views on the subject are expressed in Oscar-nominated documentary Exit through the Gift Shop.

“So those famous auction houses have all of a sudden started selling street art, everything was a bit crazy, suddenly it all became about the money, but it never was about the money,” he said.

On his website (www.banksy.co.uk), Banksy invites people to freely download photos of his graffiti works and quotes Henri Matisse to convey his thoughts on the sales.

“I was very embarrassed when my canvases began to fetch high prices, I saw myself condemned to a future of painting nothing but masterpieces,” he writes.

Another illustration of the perverse effects of his popularity arose recently in Los Angeles.

A disused water tank, on which Banksy in February 2011 wrote “this looks like an elephant,” and in which lived a homeless man, was immediately sold off.

Without shelter, the unfortunate occupant received a sum of money from Banksy, allowing him to stay for one year.

“There’s no better guy than Banksy,” the man told Britain’s Independent newspaper. “He helped me more than anyone in my life.”

In a sign of Banksy’s marketability in a world he claims to despise, the story of this man is now being told in a theater show called “Banksy: The Room in the Elephant,” which is currently playing in Edinburgh.

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More than a decade after her last show in her native Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s highest-paid artist is gearing up for a homecoming of sorts, a major retrospective spanning most of her 30-year career. The exhibition, opening Thursday at the Paco Imperial Cultural Center in downtown Rio, brings together more than five dozen paintings, silk screens and collages covered in Milhazes’ signature riot of saturated color, concentric circles, upbeat flowers and meandering arabesques.

“I’ve shown in places that are obviously very exciting for any artist, but in a way showing in your city—I was born here and still live and work here—kind of grabs you more, excites you more, stirs you up more,” Milhazes told The Associated Press in a Friday interview as she supervised the installation of the exhibit, entitled “Meu Bem,” Portuguese for “My Dear.” “It’s being able to say, ‘Mom, look what I’ve done.’”

Milhazes has plenty to show off. The 53-year-old has exhibited in the Venice Biennial, had a solo show at Paris’ Fondation Cartier and has works in the Reina Sofia National Museum in Spain and New York’s Guggenheim and Museum of Modern Art.

In 2008, her painting O Magico, or The Magician, sold for more than $1 million, or around four times what was expected, at a New York auction, making her Brazil’s highest-paid living artist. She broke the record again last year when her Meu Limao, or My Lemon, went for $2.1 million at another auction in New York.

Though she once quipped it took her 25 years to become an overnight success, Milhazes said her slow path to international fame helped her cope with the spotlight.

“The first decade of my career, in the 1980s, was very local. It was only in the 1990s that I started showing work outside of Brazil, first in Latin America, Mexico, Venezuela and then in New York. Then came Europe and Japan, but all very gradually, little by little,” said Milhazes, running her fingers through curly locks that recall the wavy patterns of her work. “During that process, sometimes I would leave for a bit and spend time in these other countries. But I never cut my ties with Rio. And that was an important decision. I need to feel that link with home, that understanding of what home is.”

Rio, a chaotic, coastal metropolis of 6 million, has informed Milhazes’ work from the beginning. Early collages featured snippets of fabrics culled from the costumes worn in the city’s world-famous Carnival celebrations, and her work still bursts with the swirly paisleys and arabesques that recall the its exuberant vegetation. There’s also something very Rio in her eye-popping palette, with its fiery oranges and yellows that evoke the city’s fierce summer sun, the blue of its limpid skies, the pinks and purples of áipeátrees in lavish bloom.

So alive with colors and shapes, Milhazes’ work seems to vibrate off the wall. Havana, a large 2003-2004 acrylic that’s part of the Rio exhibit, keeps viewers’ eyes busy as they jump from the kaleidoscopic flower burst at the center to the peace sign camouflaged amid a patchwork of bright hues to the flitting butterflies, sagging bunches of grapes, droopy roses or piles of tropical fruit.

Ilha de Capri, or Capri Island, from 2002, explodes with superimposed flower burst and hypnotic bull’s eyes of concentric circles against a background of vertical stripes. Tentacles unfurl from the red-hot core of the 2006 collage Ginger Candy, made in part from the flattened wrappers of Chinese sweets.

Though she rejects the word “style,” Milhazes defines her approach to art as geometric abstraction.

“I was always trying to bring together ‘high art’ painting with elements from my own culture here in Brazil. They are two very different worlds,” she said. “To be a proper painter you obviously have to look at the tradition that comes from Europe but at the same time, I didn’t want to stray from my life here in Brazil.”

Instead of painting directly onto the canvas, Milhazes developed a technique in which she uses acrylics to paint shapes onto plastic and then transfer them onto canvas, building palimpsests of intricate layers.

In reproductions, her work can look so perfect it appears computer-generated. But up close, it’s alive with little imperfections that make it even more irresistible to the eye. The paintings’ resined surfaces are strewn with scraps of paint, and traces of lines and smudges of color are still visible beneath layer after superimposed layer.

Frederic Paul, curator of the Rio show, said that despite its festive appearance, Milhazes’ work is fundamentally inscrutable.

“When you look at the paintings from up close, you don’t understand them at all,” he said. “You will never really know Beatriz’ work. You will always discover it.”

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“Meu Bem” runs at Rio de Janeiro’s Centro Cultural Paco Imperial from Aug. 29-Oct. 27.

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Follow Jenny Barchfield on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/jennybarchfield

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-08-25-13 0804GMT

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts is merging with Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University. As a result of the merger, UICA will become a wholly owned subsidiary of the fast-growing art and design school.

The change required fresh thinking by the UICA board, and an unprecedented show of support from the community and donors. Despite its new $8 million home in the heart of Grand Rapids, UICA membership and attendance levels have not reached their potential, hindering the institute’s efforts to become the regional art leader it is poised to be. With debts and monthly expenses outpacing its income, Michigan’s largest contemporary arts center was on a path to closing its doors this fall.

Enter Kendall College of Art and Design, and a group of people who believe the UICA has important work left to do in West Michigan.

“The UICA sits at the heart of the city,” noted Kendall President David Rosen. “That is appropriate because the heart of our community is its creativity. UICA provides a hub for all who thrive in the creative environment. Any city that wants to be great needs a UICA.”

David Eisler, president of Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Mich., recognized the value of UICA to Grand Rapids and the natural affinity between it and Ferris’ prized art and design school. “We are delighted with the continued growth of our partnership efforts with UICA. This merger reflects the commitment of Ferris State University and Kendall College of Art and Design to the arts in West Michigan. The synergy of this new relationship will strengthen the contemporary arts in our region,” said Eisler.

With the encouragement of Eisler, Kendall College of Art and Design took steps to lend UICA support by sponsoring projects and offering advice and expertise. “Our plan was simple: protect UICA from as many of their expenses as possible and help them gain momentum,” said Rosen. “If UICA generates new funds, we will make sure they help UICA grow into the vibrant center it aspires to be.”

Donors’ extraordinary commitment to pay off debt on the new building and the response of the community to UICA’s mission has made the merger possible.

“A broad range of donors brought UICA to its new building on Fulton. Now a steadfast group of key donors is bringing UICA to its next iteration with Kendall/Ferris,” said Kate Pew Wolters, one of those key donors and a longtime supporter of UICA. “Significant donor partnerships and community collaborations in West Michigan have once again come together to keep and enhance leading edge arts and culture in the heart of the city. We would not be in this position today without the help of these donors and community-minded citizens.”

Donors Dick and Betsy DeVos agreed, adding, “When we work together toward a common vision, remarkable things can happen. The merger of UICA with Ferris State University and Kendall College of Art and Design unites a shared vision and extraordinary potential for creative spirit and artistic inspiration in downtown Grand Rapids. As supporters of these institutions, we applaud this partnership. We envision the endless possibilities resulting from this alliance, and we look forward to a flourishing partnership that provides exceptional contemporary artistic experiences to the West Michigan community.”

The last piece for the renewal was naming the new executive director, Miranda Krajniak, formerly of the Saugatuck (Mich.) Center for the Arts. Kathryn Chaplow, chair of the UICA board, points to Krajniak’s energy, skills and start-up mentality as the qualities needed to help UICA reclaim its role as a creative engine.

“UICA is part of a bigger picture, and Miranda understands and communicates that idea beautifully,” said Chaplow. “Her strong vision, leadership and commitment impact the future of both the organization and the collective art and design community. She is unafraid of taking the risks that prompt difficult questions. This is the sort of leadership that a contemporary arts center like UICA must have. It’s not about making everyone happy all the time. It is about exploration, pushing boundaries and stretching imaginations. The UICA will continue to engage its audience with a sense of curiosity and wonder, and that audience is growing. This is an incredibly exciting time.”

Krajniak has hired a full-time curator, Kendall alumnus Alexander Paschka, to present art in a way that appeals to a wider audience. “We need to increase the variety and scope of work and how we talk about it,” Krajniak said, “We don’t want the public to feel art is beyond understanding.” With five floors and multiple gallery spaces, the building has ample room for a range of subjects, styles and materials, and Krajniak plans to keep the mix rich and constantly evolving.

The UICA movie theater—the only one downtown—will also take on a bigger, more active role. “Films are our most competitive product, and we’re going to be expanding the variety of what we screen to include classics and other community-friendly offerings,” said Krajniak, who is also looking for ways to make UICA events more accessible.

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