Agustina Woodgate On Locust Projects Billboards And Bus Shelters (WATCH)

For the second year for Art Basel Miami Beach, Locust Projects commissioned a Miami artist to create site-specific installations on billboards and bus shelters around town.

Titled 1111, Agustina Woodgate adorned 30 bus shelters and two highway billboards with surreal, iridescent landscapes that pulse with color and energy. Woodgate has been represented by Spinello Projects since 2005.

In the above video, Woodgate explains, "What excited me about doing the billboard project was the idea of exhibiting artwork in the public space. Having not necessarily an art scene look at an artwork but also just everyone -- every single person. The idea of this project was to give a gift to the community."

The billboards and bus shelters fit into other themes in Woodgate's work: gift economies, displacement, and re-contextualizing.

In a recent collaboration with the O'Miami poetry festival, Woodgate furtively sewed poetry into the labels of secondhand clothes at Miami thrift stores -- sending the public home with something unexpected. See the video below.

In another project, Woodgate disassembled discarded teddy bears and sewed their flattened pelts into beautiful rugs. This re-contextulizing of a such a sentimental object inspired delight and horror among art fair crowds.

With 1111, she was able to again displace the expected with something new. "It was so exciting to actually be showing something else other than advertising, to be just gifting the audience with something beautiful or something that had some meaning other than selling a product."

Woodgate discussed her 1111 series for Locust Projects in an artist talk last night. In case you missed, watch the above video for more from Woodgate on her Miami billboards and bus shelters.