The Vero Beach Museum of Art recently introduced a new artform to the Treasure Coast with its inaugural Art After Dark exhibition, a free, two-evening, outdoor, digital art exhibition.
People wandered along luminaria-lit pathways to view the artworks, which were projected onto five walls of the museum, as well as under the roof of the portico. Each projection was independent, but in a loop, so that everyone had a chance to view them fully.
Sophie Bentham-Wood, VBMA director of marketing and communications, explained that the concept had been proposed to the VBMA a couple of years ago by Brett Phares, founder of lightStruct, but the timing wasn’t right at the time. Phares is also co-founder and curator of the annual Alys Beach light art exhibition, Digital Graffiti.
“Roll forward two years on, COVID’s hit, and there was an opportunity again, because people want to be outdoors. We thought it was a great way to give back to the community, especially during the holiday period, when people are looking for things to do,” said Bentham-Wood.
“The thing is, we’re not inside of the museum, where everything is squared up and looking as it should be, very museum quality. With this, you’re outside,” said Phares. “This is something so new for them. I mean, it’s cool that they were brave enough to do it. It’s great to be able to have the museum involved in something that’s outside the lines.”
“Absolutely, it’s art inside out,” added Bentham-Wood.
Based on the number of people who showed up, the idea clearly resonated, as crowds wandered about or sat for a while in front of their favorites.
“We have a full moon, it’s a beautiful clear evening, it’s picture-perfect. We couldn’t have picked a better night,” said Bentham-Wood. “This is completely new for us, so it’s a new setup, new concept, new format, and we didn’t know how many people would turn up.”
Phares said that for this inaugural event, he used eight artists (himself included) from all around the world, whom he has worked with in the past.
“I’ve been working with them for a while, and they’re used to this kind of presentation. You have to have some confidence in the person who just takes your work to do something with it.
This is all digital art; you’ll see different forms that take shape,” Phares explained.
“In one projector, it shows a work that’s a combination of stop-action photography. So, you take pieces of, let’s say construction paper, and position it over time. And then you combine it with other digital software to create this larger sort of production.”
The exhibition was curated by Phares with VBMA senior curator Anke Van Wagenberg.
“Brett’s obviously got the knowledge based on the artists, but we know the market; what will work for our audience base and also, our building,” said Bentham-Wood.
Phares has produced these immersive, outdoor art exhibits for 15 years; 14 years in Alys Beach, on the Florida Panhandle, where they use greater numbers of projectors.
“This is a scaled-down version of what we would like to do, maybe for the future. But this is a test for us. This has never been done on the Treasure Coast, and we are trying to gauge how interested people are,” said Bentham-Wood.
For more information, visit vbmuseum.org.
Photos by Kaila Jones
