Public Art Comes to the Movies - Reston Community Center

Margaret Parsons, founder and head of the film program at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the recipient of the DC Independent Film Festival’s 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award, will present the next two films in the Initiative for Public Art - Reston’s series about exceptional public art projects.

Parsons, who heads an advisory committee of internationally recognized film scholars that meets annually to review and recommend film exhibition topics for the National Gallery, selected the two award-winning films.  She will introduce “Sol LeWitt: Wall Drawings” (2010) and “Studio Gang Architects: Aqua Tower” (2009).   

Parsons said she chose the film about Sol LeWitt, a pioneer of conceptual art, because of his interest in the artistic process. LeWitt, who produced more than 1,200 wall drawings of intense complexity using lines and other geometric shapes, created 105 large-scale drawings for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, a 27,000 square-foot, three-story historic factory in North Adams.  Reviewed in the Los Angeles Times, the critic commented: “This may be the most perfect union of contemporary art and architecture in the United Sates. It’s our Sistine.” 

The second film features the Aqua Tower; an 82-story skyscraper referred to as “the wave.”  New Yorker magazine architecture critic, Paul Goldberger, said Aqua Tower “is most compelling as an example of architecture that is practical and affordable enough to please real-estate developers and stirring enough to please critics.” 

Jeanne Gang, founding architect of Studio Gang Design in Chicago and the Aqua Tower designer, was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship last month. She will receive $500,000 to use at her own discretion over the next five years. Informally dubbed the “genius grant,” the fellowship awards individuals with exceptional creativity and promise. Gang was cited for “integrating conventional materials, bold yet functional designs and ecological technology in a wide range of striking structures.” 

This movie is presented in collaboration with the Initiative for Public Art – Reston (IPAR).