In tandem with the installation, Guild Hall will host a blood drive in partnership with the New York Blood Center. The Covid19 Pandemic shuttered reoccurring donation drives, causing an anticipated 75% decrease in donations. In hosting a blood drive during the installation, Guild Hall transferred the artist’s reflection on connection and restoration towards the civic act of blood donation; acknowledging Guild Hall’s founding mission to be “a gathering place for the community where an appreciation for the arts would serve to encourage greater civic participation.”

On view October 16 - 26, 2020. Curated by Anthony Madonna and Casey Dalene.

Rosario Varela: Red, Gold, and You

Red, Gold, and You  was an outdoor installation and durational piece by  artist, Rosario Varela. Installed in Guild Hall’s Minikes Garden for two weekends, cellular patterns of red paper and gold tape weave through the trees and shrubbery while a team of mindful artists alter and gradually redesign the piece, embracing the beauty of impermanence and chance.   

Varela found herself paused in the studio when the pandemic first broke-out. Not wanting to return to her ceramics or paintings, she discovered a roll of abandoned red paper. In experimenting with the material, Varela began creating links of various diameters, connecting and interconnecting them, forming cellular patterns. At times when the paper would tear, she would rejoin the ends with gold tape; a nod to the Japanese practice, Kintsugi. The process soon became a meditative act, allowing the artist to reflect on her, and society’s, need for connection and restoration.   

Red, Gold, and You  expanded this experience by opening the process to both a trained team of artists, comprised of  Guild Hall’s Teen Arts Council, and the viewing public. Artists and patrons interacted to detach, reshape, and adjoin the paper links, replicating Varela’s experimentation and transferring the ownership and over-all design of the work from artist to community.