Photo Cather­ine Rebois

(Born 1960 in Brook­lyn, New York) an Amer­i­can and Euro­pean con­cep­tual artist whose work is mostly social com­men­tary or polit­i­cally moti­vated, whether work­ing in paint, instal­la­tion, mul­ti­me­dia, video or print­mak­ing.

As a child, I was edu­cated to believe that I was liv­ing in a devel­oped soci­ety. This I did not see. As my con­scious­ness devel­oped, I began to rec­og­nize the dys­func­tion of a world peo­ple call or think civ­i­lized.

I do not think I can change the world but I can cer­tainly give it some­thing to think about.

The world is filled with peo­ple doing amaz­ing things, seek out and sup­port sci­en­tific and philo­soph­i­cal think­ing that ques­tions and builds upon our under­stand­ing.

The Y Project

Sculp­tures are placed in pub­lic space ask­ing us to reflect on the ques­tion “Why do we live so com­fort­ably with an imbal­ance of human equal­ity and irre­spon­si­bil­ity.”

The Y Project began in 1998 on the Ruth E. Wit­ten­berg Tri­an­gle, a civil rights activist who walked with Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. in Selma. The tri­an­gle also starts Christo­pher Street the home of the Stonewall Inn. Where LGBT com­mu­nity stood up against the police raid that took place on June 28, 1969 and is con­sid­ered to be the most impor­tant event lead­ing the mod­ern gay lib­er­a­tion move­ment.

Y Discriminate’s pink and blue col­ors sup­ports gen­der equal­ity, and the rights for all peo­ple, espe­cially the LGBT com­mu­nity.

A fis­cally spon­sored project of New York Foun­da­tion for the Arts.

Manhole Cover Printing

“By putting myself at people’s feet, I bring beauty up to their level caus­ing them to look down.” In 1990 the man­hole cover became my print­ing plate in streets around the world. I have printed in over thirty coun­tries. This body of work is known as “A Visual Travel Diary”.  The prints have orig­i­nal sto­ries behind them, a result from work­ing in pub­lic space.  Only three prints are made on a cover.

T-Shirt Tirade
Humanizing Gay Rights

In 1999 I wanted to help human­ize gay rights through “T-shirt Tirade” while chal­leng­ing the form in which peo­ple demon­strate. I wanted to illus­trate the human side of the issue by show­ing nor­mal peo­ple doing nor­mal daily activ­i­ties while wear­ing the slo­gan, I’m a Human Being Not a Sex­u­al­ity, Equal Rights!

Pub­lic Instal­la­tions - USA 2005.

Lima Lives

Cel­e­brates the life and spirit of Lima, a zebra, that escaped from the Rin­gling Broth­ers and Bar­num & Bai­ley Circus on Feb­ru­ary 18, 2010 and stopped traf­fic for forty min­utes in down­town Atlanta.

This project was com­mis­sioned by Flux Atlanta 2010.

Silent March for HIV Prevention

Designed as a multi seg­mented project to assist in pre­vent­ing the spread of HIV. It includes site spe­cific instal­la­tions using shoes of peo­ple that are HIV pos­i­tive or had died from AIDS.

A fis­cally spon­sored project of New York Foun­da­tion for the Arts.

Where Does Peace Begin

A com­men­tary on the Iraq war while pay­ing trib­ute to our fel­low human beings that lost their life in a con­flict that held a hid­den agenda. I sup­port gov­ern­ments and soci­eties that use peace­ful mea­sures, instead of manip­u­lat­ing its cit­i­zens to engage in war on its behalf.

Pro­posed Project 2004.

The Name Game

I am using my name not only as an iconic ref­er­ence, but also as a generic shape to cre­ate art­work. This project draws our atten­tion to brand­ing and the grow­ing role it plays in today’s soci­ety while ignor­ing who or what stands behind it.

Parson’s School of Design - Paris, France 2003.

Painted Work

My paint­ings are more tra­dional stu­dio works done in a time of med­i­ta­tion or self reflec­tion.

One could say that the work stems from the Art Con­crets, a move­ment founded by Theo Van Does­burg in Paris in 1930. His man­i­festo, Base de la pein­ture con­crete (The Basis of Con­crete Paint­ing) signed by Otto G. Carl­sund, Jean Helion, Leon Tutend­jian and Mar­cel Wantz, pro­moted “absolute clar­ity”; based on a “mechan­i­cal” tech­nique and paint­ing “formed by the mind before its exe­cu­tion”, “entirely con­struced with purely visual ele­ments, (which) has no other mean­ing than itself.”

Untitled

This project is called Unti­tled. No words in any lan­guage can express my sen­ti­ment of dis­be­lief in the United State’s deci­sion to declare war on Iraq.

Dimen­sions Var­ied; Site Fixed.
Cam­bridge Art Coun­cil Gallery 2005.

Conceptual Portraits

The sole of a person’s shoe becomes a print­ing plate to cre­ate their con­cep­tual por­trait.

The idea pre­sented itself when I began print­ing man­hole cov­ers. It was per­fect, since I could cre­ate printed work dur­ing the win­ter months. I remem­ber see­ing the bot­tom of a shoe on a sub­way rider and thought that would make a great print.

Underneath it ALL

We are but human. Soci­ety seems to be in a mode of sep­a­ratism as it searches for a new iden­tity in this age of glob­al­iza­tion. I feel that it is dan­ger­ous to divide our­selves into sub­groups. Instead, we need to come together on com­mon ground, as humans, and not push our­selves apart by man-cre­ated-dif­fer­ences.

Par­tic­i­pants choose six words to cre­ate an auto por­trait and donate a pair of their under­wear.

Cre­ated 1996.

One Earth

This piece was cre­ated to tran­scend board­ers and strengthen the earthly pulse desir­ing world peace, equal­ity and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion. This tile is part of a larger global art project.

The Tile Project : Tran­sCul­tural Exchange 2004.

Being Phuct

Play­ing with the Eng­lish lan­guage while chal­leng­ing the notion of « BAD » words. I am try­ing to wake peo­ple up from their com­pla­cent slum­ber and to acknowl­edge an uncom­fort­able extrem­ist men­tal­ity gain­ing strength in the United States.

Pub­lic Inter­ven­tion 2005.