Oriole Park Branch hosts an Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month art exhibit during May 2018 featuring artist Richard Alvin Gessert.
Richard currently lives and works in Chicago. Having studied as an undergraduate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he maintains an interdisciplinary art practice that is informed by contextual differences between visual culture and fine art. In this particular body of work, Richard questions how objects of popular culture can be viewed as works of art. They are what remain of traditional, Chinese-style tear-off daily calendars. With each passing day, a calendar slip was torn, leaving behind frayed edges where the slip had been. The results, in the end, are handmade souvenirs to represent the calendar years that have elapsed. In the past, Richard has sold these works at art fairs, where they were presented as artifacts and, ostensibly, art.
