CANCO debuts during Northside's Factory Square Festival

NOTE: Soapbox Media is the media sponsor for the Factory Square Fine Arts Festival

The Factory Square Fine Arts Festival’s list of participants now includes the first gallery to reside inside the newly opened American Can Lofts in Northside -- Prairie Gallery’s CANCO.

CANCO, an art gallery in the main lobby and corridor of the ACL, will showcase at least one yearlong exhibit that will rotate artists every two months. First up, Michael Scheurer. Scheurer has been creating collages out of found materials for more than 10 years. One of his series begins with photographs culled from his collection of documentary images. Scheurer overlays his paintings with collage elements ranging from posters to magazines.

“The exhibits in CANCO will be solo shows,” says David Rosenthal, director of CANCO and Prairie Gallery. “All the artists will have been working five to 10 years and produced a substantial body of work.”

CANCO will be open in conjunction with the FSFAF, where it will be surrounded by a wide range of independent artists. All types of work will be on site, including Ledelle Moe, Robert Fronk and Jonathan Monaghan. Ledelle Moe, from South Africa, is shipping in five of her massive sculpture works, which will also be housed inside the bays of ACL. Appropriately enough, the pieces, ranging from 15 to 20 feet in size, will arrive before the Oct. 22 festival via shipping container.

Fronk and Monaghan, from Cincinnati and New York respectively, will show their work alongside Moe’s in the bay.

The outdoor elements of the festival include 12 shipping containers filled with work by solo artists, artist collectives and even students exhibits. A sculpture garden, symbolizing parProjects commitment to and permanence in the Northside community, will have its first seeds planted by Greg Schmidt and Benjamin Lock. A sustainability-focused container will feature a collaboration of local groups dedicated to environmentally sound living.

The festival kicks off a fundraiser for parProjects, the non-profit with plans to break ground next year on a shipping-container-based community arts center in the same spot as the festival’s main entry point, the formerly vacant lot in front of the ACL.

By Evan Wallis