Ten Pound Ape: Your Mother was Beautiful Once, part vier

Founded in 2004, Ten Pound Ape is an international art collective engaged in public projects questioning the nature of civic sculpture and co-opting the verbiage of non-commercial street advertisements. The somewhat provocative title of exhibit refers to bittersweet memories and the fleeting nature of our lives.

This exhibition presents the fourth part of a series where Ten Pound Ape constructs a site-specific performance sculpture from locally collected cast-offs, urban debris and other ephemeral items, transforming the materials into hybrid shelters and play spaces which are meant to be explored. A key goal of Ten Pound Ape projects is to encourage the community to be active participants and the structures – slightly subversive in nature – are intended to be playful, sentimental and thought provoking. It is an interactive and dynamic work-in-progress, where visitors are encouraged to explore, play records, give out fortunes, change the interior and exterior or just lounge.

Additionally, this exhibition incorporates two public events, Stimulus Plan, part I: Sculpture Fair and Symposia d’Bizarro and Stimulus Plan, part II: Giving and Taking, which encourage direct public engagement and participation. Clandestine public intervention components will be implemented within the Claremont area for a finite period. Ten Pound Ape will also make an appearance at the L.A. County Fair. Many of the planned events are inspired by biographical experiences from Claremont-reared Ten Pound Ape members. As one of the artists described it, this is his ‘love letter to Claremont.’

Ten Pound Ape’s Your Mother was Beautiful Once, part vier has been made possible by a generous grant from The James Irvine Foundation.