Project: Affirmative Re-Action

Affirmative Re-Action, curated by Lanfranco Aceti and Candice Bancheri for the Museum of Contemporary Cuts, is the latest art project by American conceptual artist, Jay Critchley. Rooted in the long tradition of twentieth-century art, the artwork is a recycling and re-hanging of Provincetown’s historical street banners. These large plasticized banners announcing cultural events and/or displaying advertisements are a staple of contemporary society and towns the world over. Critchley gives them new life by covering them with paint and naturally colored sand. The new writings and the old announcements blend, creating an unusual object in which the understanding of the original event is subsequently distorted and has to be retraced.

By recycling and recreating these discarded signs and re-hanging them over Commercial Street in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Critchley’s venture, the Affirmative Re-Action Project, disrupts the quotidian—providing a glimpse of ‘reality’ within a world of fakes and fakers. The first banner, redesigned and re-fashioned with paint and naturally colored sand, will be installed from May 10th to May 31st near the Provincetown Town Hall.   

If you wish to contribute to the artwork, the artist will be accepting donations of old street banners from businesses for his Affirmative Re-Action Project. You can contact him through his website: http://www.jaycritchley.com/contact.html

You can also check out this video interview with Jay Critchley for the Black Sheep Talks of the Museum of Contemporary Cuts.

Learn more about the Affirmative Re-Action Project