BOY BY FLETCHER + RUBIN With Gregory Smart August 21 - October 9, 1999
					OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, AUGUST 21, 8:00 P.M. For CoCA, Fletcher + Rubin will create new work with and about Gregory Smart, an eleven-year-old boy who lives with his family in Seattle. Working closely with Gregory, Fletcher + Rubin will use a variety of strategies and media to present Gregory’s everyday life. Some of the elements incuded in BOY a large-scale altered photograph of Gregory with Fletcher + Rubin a display of various used balls from Gregory’s backyard a small-scale working soccer field where visitors to CoCA can play according to Gregory’s rules a series of six video projections depicting scenes from Gregory’s life To acquire these video pieces, Fletcher + Rubin made a “video helmet” for Gregory to wear while he went about his everyday activities-playing soccer, riding his bike, walking his dog, eating, playing the flute, reading books, etc.
					Special Thanks!

					SELECTED COLLABORATIONS Harrell Fletcher and Jon Rubin have been producing art as a collaborative team since 1993.
					Garage Sale Gallery HERE, July-August 1993 Each week a different local household was invited to bring their garage sale items to the gallery where they would be exhibited during the week. Objects were tagged with stories of their use and the reason(s) why they were being sold. During the weekend objects were sold by the household members.
					Some people we met, some stuff we borrowed Richmond Arts Center, Richmond, CA, September 1996 This show consisted of material borrowed from city employee's offices: plants, family photos, coffee mugs, desktop objects, office cartoons, nameplates, trophies, the smell of coffee, and landscape calendars. Working with a group of local residents (kids, adults and seniors) we created portraits of every Richmond city employee for "Everybody's Portrait," which were given to the employees to display in their individual work spaces.
					People in Real Life Stoneridge Mall, Pleasanton, CA, 1997 This installation took place in a vacant store in a mall in collaboration with Larry Sultan and a grant from The Creative Work Fund. Fletcher + Rubin spent several months researching the mall environment and meeting local residents. Then they created pieces that emulated the look of store displays and products, but used real people’s images and stories instead of models and slogans.
					These Fine People Fairfield, CA, 1998 The artists selected and photographed ten local community members who represented the diversity of the downtown area, and then reproduced them, larger than life, in busts of ceramic steel and mounted them onto pre-existing light poles over a three block area of the main street.
					From Home University of Washington, 1998 This was a series of five posters produced for light boxes in bus shelters at the University of Washington Campus. Each poster focused on a different student living in nearby dorms through an object they brought with them from home.
					Anthony The San Francisco Art Institute, 1998 Working with Art Institute student Anthony Powers, Fletcher + Rubin created an installation that revolved around Anthony's life. Using a variety of media and approaches, the show explored some of Anthony's interests including heavy metal music and World Federation Wrestling. The installation included: Anthony’s most treasured objects recreated by Art Institute sculpture students drawings of all the dogs Anthony ever owned a time line of Anthony's life, a video of Anthony demonstrating wrestling moves on the artists photographs from his childhood taken by his mom and dad 20 portraits of Anthony produced by a beginning painting class at the school 30 T-shirts with photographs of Anthony's high school buddies on them a video of Anthony drumming his favorite heavy metal songs on a table
					FarmCity Southern Exposure, San Francisco, 1998 The artists created a decentralized urban farm with five Mission District residents who grew at least one crop in their own backyards or rooftop containers. In the gallery at Southern Exposure, Fletcher + Rubin constructed a working greenhouse that grew a crop of mixed greens to be eaten by visitors and shared with the other participants. The project culminated with a potluck that brought together the residents with food made from the vegetables they had grown.
					Wanderings and Observations Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA, 1998 Working with local residents, Fletcher + Rubin created a community portrait of the citizens of Walnut Creek. The installation included: a large-scale mural painting of 26 birthmarks collected from local residents’ bodies, an enlarged photograph of a found wedding photo with an LED screen that sequentially scrolls the names of every couple listed in the Walnut Creek phone directory, oil paintings based on maps that were drawn by local residents directing Fletcher + Rubin from one garage sale to the next and animal figurines collected from these garage sales. The installation also included an on-going collection of photographs taken by a parking enforcer of all the cars she ticketed during the exhibition, sculptures of a minor accident the artists witnessed outside the galley based on the memories of two people involved in the accident and a video of a walk down the center of the creek after which the city is named.
					Boy Mechanic Yerba Buena Arts Center, 1999