Photo provided John Mull of 812 Signz installs a vinyl recreation of New York based artist Erin Jang’s Color Walk piece in 411 Gallery as part of the upcoming “Alexander Girard, Reverberations - Forever” gallery. This gallery will feature works from contemporary artists that directly or indirectly inspired by Girard.
The optimistic energy of the late artist Alexander Girard can be found everywhere, from his work in textiles to urban design. His use of color and geometric shapes live on far beyond Columbus.
Rick Valicenti, a graphic designer whose works can be seen all over Columbus, equated Girard’s work to throwing a stone into a quiet pond, sending ripples that others pick up on. He, alongside graphic designer Suzie Shin, have worked to curate an exhibit that captures those ripples, in a gallery titled “Alexander Girard, Reverberations – Forever.”
This showcase of Girard’s influence, to be located at 411 Gallery, will open to the public on Friday, and a reception will follow the next day.
The reception begins Saturday at 3:45 p.m. following the Exhibit Columbus Curatorial Conversation. “Alexander Girard, Reverberations – Forever” will run until Nov. 7. The 411 Gallery is open Thursdays and Fridays from noon to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Valicenti and Shin invited a handful of people each to contribute a work from their portfolio to the gallery, as well as people who have collected works that Girard designed. Items on display include wooden dolls, chairs from Irwin Miller’s conference area in the 301 Building, silverware he designed for Braniff Airlines and much more.
“… some of them are in obviously time worn condition,” Valicenti said. “But they’re on display just to say, ‘you know what? It lives on.’ It doesn’t have to be the reproduction of, it is the original iteration or addition of.”
Girard’s influence will take up almost every inch of the gallery space, with posters Girard designed and a painting that his grandson Kori created among items on display. To visitors’ feet will be a long rainbow striped walkway designed by New York based artist Erin Jang, reminiscent of her Manhattan Color Walk piece.
This walkway leads up to a photograph on the wall of a similarly designed carpet mural Girard created for Irwin Union Bank in 1973. A video of the Color Walk in Manhattan will also accompany this photograph, Valicenti said.
“So that’ll be very exciting to have this reenactment of that Color Walk connecting itself to Girard’s mural, as well as the actual installation,” Valicenti said.
Some designers Valicenti and Shin invited opted to make a new variation on a work in a way that relates to their portfolio for the gallery. For example, he said typographer Fabian Fohrer took a textile pattern Girard designed, which will also be on display at the gallery, and recreated it in typography.
Valicenti and Shin also contributed their own works to the gallery, with Shin saying she created a new print that is being used as a poster for it. Valicenti will have an identity guideline system he created in 2019 for Noodles and Company on display, something he said was as close to being a Girard experience as anything he has directed and helped design.
“… there’s a logo, there’s typography, there’s color, there’s pattern, there’s interior space, there’s clothing and uniforms and hats, there’s signage on the outside, there’s signage on the inside, there’s posters,” Valicenti said. “It’s everything that Girard might have done for Braniff Airlines, and here it was done for Noodles.”
In curating this exhibit, Valicenti said they looked at who else even beyond Columbus is plugged in to Girard’s frequency, either consciously or unconsciously. He said the optimism that Girard’s work carries can be seen through the items in this collection.
“The thread that runs through the entire collection of work, and though it’s a small collection, is optimism,” Valicenti said. “And the optimism just shines through, whether it’s through color or amusing form, there’s a kind of simple palette of motifs that Girard inspires in all of us, and these artists have just plugged right into it.”
