'Round Town Art - Tower Place, Atlanta ~ "Foxes"

Description of Piece Detailed Below

Foxes

Michael Stipe

Decatur, Georgia 1960

Michael Stipe was born in Georgia in 1960 and has worked in various mediums throughout his life, music being the most prominent. His band, R.E.M., continues to win international awards and has sold over 100 million records in their 28 years.


An avid photographer, Stipe's photographs have been printed in dozens of international magazines and art journals, and his first photo book, Two Times Intro: On the Road with Patti Smith, sold over 40,000 copies. Recent output includes Futurepicenter.com, a digital year-long experiment, and from 2005 to present, Stipe has focused on sculpture, citing Brancusi and Brutalism as inspiration. His first solo show, "Rogan vs. Stipe" Relics, was in New York City in Summer 2008. He currently lives in Athens, Georgia and New York City.


"Foxes marks one of the first large scale sculpture pieces I have done, from the 2006-2008 workshop. Inspiration for the piece includes questions of permanence and ephemerality, and memorabilia; in this case, small plastic toys, their mass-produced uniformity, and challenging that, each of their individual markings."

The law firm that I work for moved to the heart of Buckhead into Tower Place on my birthday in June. Walk outside the lobby, through the revolving door, you'll find yourself amidst Michael Stipe's Foxes. I sometimes think to myself, "How appropriate, a pack of gold, flashy, rabid foxes that have converged upon this address . . . and here we now are . . . adding to the melee."