Fallen Fruit- a fruitful 2014

Here are some of our favorite projects from 2014:

SKIRBALL CULTURAL CENTER: Fallen Fruit of Love
curated by Lindsey Lehtinen
The residency project for the Skirball Cultural Center focused on Jewish Heritage and in the archives of the institution we discovered a 17th Century Katubah (marriage contract). This historic document was different in that it combined the doctrine of marriage with illustrations of biblical scenes, astrology and a pomegranate. Fallen Fruit created a custom designed Pomegranate wallpaper and invited the public to collaborate on a new commitment document and exhibition. Drawing on submissions of portraits of people with someone they love, Fallen Fruit of the Skirball assembled images that span a lifetime to examine the often complex expressions of love. This exhibition examines the symbolic and narrative moments in everyday life, from friendships to marriage, as well as to nuanced social messages. It includes a Skirball commissioned piece from Fallen Fruit called Love Score, as well as custom-designed Pomegranate wallpaper.

PHOTO ALBUM
Skirball Post

FALLEN FRUIT: Public Fruit Tree Adoptions
Fallen Fruit distributes free bare-root fruit trees in a variety of urban settings. This year the trees were donated by Skirball Cultural Center and One Colorado. We ask that the fruit trees are planted in public space or on the periphery of private property next to a sidewalk or a road, in order to create new kinds of communal life based on generosity and sharing. Each recipient signs an adoption form promising to care for the tree – initiating a relationship with it. Eventually the trees will become part of a network of Urban Fruit Trails on the Endless Orchard.
Skirball Cultural Center
One Colorado

PELICAN BOMB: The Fruit Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree
(commissioned artwork for Prospect 3+)
Part of the Foodways Exhibition curated by Pelican Bomb
The Fruit Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree. An installation of of Peach Wallpaper and installation comprised of public fruit portraits in found frames, historic photographs and selected paintings and sculptures from historic archives of Atlanta; including Hammond’s House, The Souls Grown Deep Foundation, The History Center, The Wren’s Nest and others. All of the works collectively explore the relationship of people and place through the cycles of modern life that span images and works of art from the past 4 generations of Atlantans. Originally created for Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and curated by Stuart Horodner.
Photos from the exhibition

FALLEN FRUIT: Urban Fruit Trails
A Public Art project with Heart Of Los Angeles (HOLA)
Through a grant supporting innovative community focused art projects awarded by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in collaboration with the Los Angeles State Historic Park and HOLA Youth, the Urban Fruit Trails is a ground-breaking public art project designed to provide several often overlooked urban communities with public walking trails connected by fruit trees that will be sustained, nurtured and harvested by the public. This is the pilot for our upcoming Creative Capital awarded Endless Orchard project.

FALLEN FRUIT: Public Fruit Jam
Park to Playa Trail with MRCA, The Coleman Center in Alabama and One Colorado in Old Pasedena.
Fallen Fruit invites the public to bring homegrown or street-picked fruit and collaborate with us in making a collective fruit jams. Working without recipes, we ask people to sit with others they do not already know and negotiate what kind of jam to make: if I have lemons and you have figs, we’d make lemon fig jam (with lavender). Each jam is a social experiment. This year we brought them to public spaces and in the past we have held them at galleries or museums, this event forefronts the social and public nature of Fallen Fruit’s work, and we consider it a collaboration with the public as well as each other.
Park to Playa at Kenneth Hahn Park
One Colorado in Old Pasedena
Coleman Center, York Alabama

FALLEN FRUIT: Lemonade Stand
(commissioned artwork for Food For Thought)
“Lemonade Stand” – Fallen Fruit , 2014, David Burns and Austin Young a group portrait of Greensboro as Lemons. part of the exhibition Food For Thought. In exchange for a cold glass of lemonade, participants are asked to create self-portraits using black ink markers on lemons and to share stories of sadness and disappointment, or happiness and positive self-reflection. With curator Xandra Eden for the show Food For Thought at the Wheatherspoon Art Museum, we installed the Lemon Selfie’s in vintage frames on top of our Lemon Wallpaper for the exhibition. Our favorite new project, we did 6 ‘Lemonade Stand’s’ this year!
Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC
Park to Playa – Reuben Ingold Park
Food For thought
Riverside Art Museum
Park to Playa -Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area–
Fallen Fruit of the Skirball
METRO Art Tour – Union Station

THE HAMMER MUSEUM: Fruitique!
As part of the LA2050 project ArtsRestoreLA, Fallen Fruit created a pop-up retail store based upon Fallen Fruit commissioned projects. The project space called “Fruitique!” is a retail art installation where anyone can buy any thing in the installation. The curated space was themed around fruit as a subject and symbol and includes original works by 50 artists from Los Angeles and abroad. The Fruitque! was reviewed by The Los Angeles Times, The LA Weekly, Forbes, and more.
the Fruitique is online!

QUEENSLAND GALLERY OF MODERN ART: Pineapple Express
(commissioned artwork for Harvest Exhibition)
Curated by Ellie Buttrose as a commissioned work for the HARVEST exhibition Fallen Fruit created a body of new works that focused on the history of Brisbane, Australia. Pineapple became the theme of the projects, as we learned that pineapple plantations are what founded that region of Australia about 100 years ago and introduced canned fruit to the world.

photos from GOMA.

GULF COAST: Fruit Metaphors, Objects and Histories
Legier Biederman wrote a terrific text piece about recent Fallen Fruit projects. Focusing on The Hammer project called Fruitique! and also The Fruit Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree for Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and Pelican Bomb for Prospect 3+. The layout is stunning! The writing is on point! In fact, there are even rumors that a book filled with similar pieces of work might be published next year. Although the book is still in the early stages, Biederman will definitely have to research how to market a book like this one at some point during the creative process. A book of this kind will undoubtedly receive heavy promotion in art galleries and at exhibitions so we cannot wait to see what the future holds for this upcoming piece of work. Like their local fruit cartographies, much of Fallen Fruit’s work examines issues of urban space and community and incites public participation, as in their public fruit jams or lemonade stand at the 2013 Athens Biennale. They are also known for their photographic portraits, experimental documentary videos, and curatorial work. In these diverse projects, fruit serves as a filter to examine distinct places, official and unofficial collections, archives and histories, as well as issues of representation and ownership.
view the magazine here.

Fallen Fruit is an art collaboration originally conceived in 2004 by David Burns, Matias Viegener and Austin Young. Since 2013, David and Austin have continued the collaborative work. By re-imagining public space, we aim to make fresh fruit available to everyone, everywhere.