A century-old building near downtown Tucson will soon become home to a one-night art show featuring ethereal piñatas and modernized folk art.
OK Market, built in 1926, might be an unconventional space for an art show — but the way you’ll look at the art will also be unusual.
No, you won’t be able to walk into the old Chinese grocery store to view canvases hanging on the walls. Instead, Ondrea Bell Levey’s piñatas — described as both strange and heavenly — will be outside. Casney Tadeo’s paintings will be projected inside the building and you’ll be able to see them as you peek through little holes that were previously drilled into an exterior door.
The project comes from local artists Eli Burke and Lex Gjurasic, with the help of a Night Bloom grant from MOCA Tucson and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
“The project was conceived by my collaborator Eli Burke and Eli brought it up to me some months ago and just said, ‘Hey, I’ve got this idea of bringing underrepresented and queer artists to the community in unconventional spaces,’” Gjurasic says.
Lex Gjurasic and Eli Burke are the collaborators behind the Urgent Care Art project, bringing artwork by underrepresented artists to unconventional spaces.
“When we were poking around to find unconventional spaces, I immediately thought of the OK Market because they already have community interest with their guerrilla art on the side of the building. We reached out to the caretakers of the space with our vision,” she says.
The project is called Urgent Care Art and will host a series of three events, including the first at OK Market, 600 S. Fourth Ave., from 5-8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 11. The first show is called “Still OK” and is free to attend.
Two more shows will follow this spring. Though we don’t yet know where, the duo is playing around with the concept of a swimming pool and a box truck.
“Tucson is definitely a community that embraces these kinds of projects and enjoys them. We knew the community would be interested,” Gjurasic says. “There aren’t a lot of galleries in Tucson. It’s an art-loving city, but there aren’t a tremendous amount of galleries so this was kind of our work-around for that.”
While the title “Urgent Care Art” is a playful take on the importance of mental health and physical wellness, it's more than that.
“We really wanted a name that represented the urgency we felt in bringing art into the community,” Gjurasic says.
