The Buffalo AKG Art Museum announced the 2024 season of its renowned Public Art Initiative. Over the summer, the Public Art team will install five new public art projects throughout the City of Buffalo by locally and nationally prominent artists, including Chloë Bass, Pat Perry, Amy Fisher Price, Ola Volo, Ben Volta, and Edreys Wajed.

The Public Art Initiative was born in 2013 out of a partnership between the Buffalo AKG Art Museum and Erie County, soon after joined by the City of Buffalo. Since then, it has empowered artists, inspired viewers, and strengthened a sense of our shared landscape through the creation and installation of more than 60 public artworks throughout Western New York—all stewarded by the Buffalo AKG’s independent Public Art Department, the only one of its kind at an American museum. The Buffalo AKG is currently organizing an exhibition, slated to open in 2025, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Initiative.

“We are thrilled to be kicking off yet another season of public art projects,” said Buffalo AKG Curator of Public Art, Aaron Ott. “From its inception, the Public Art Initiative has brought people together—artists, business owners, civic leaders, and the general public—to create and share beautiful, unexpected, or challenging works with our community. We are proud to be doing this work more than ten years after the Initiative was started, and we are excited to continue this important work for our region and community.”

Chloë Bass

(Buffalo AKG Campus and Frederick Law Olmsted’s Delaware Park)

The Public Art Initiative will present a long-term installation of Chloë Bass’s (American, born 1984) Wayfinding, a meditative installation of sculptural signage, throughout Delaware Park (designed by Frederick Law Olmsted) and the Buffalo AKG campus. This dynamic and engaging installation consists of gently evocative and quietly reflective signage. Through a combination of lyrical and narrative text and archival images, Bass’s sculptures activate an eloquent exploration of language, both visual and written, encouraging moments of private reflection in public space. The work revolves around central questions, poetically penned by the artist, such as:

• How much of care is patience?

• How much of life is coping?

• How much of love is attention?

From these simple yet profound prompts, the artist seeks to build a bridge between internal thought and external social and civic dialogue.

An evolving and ongoing project, Wayfinding first began at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2019–2020), before traveling to the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis (2021) and the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles (2022–2023). For the upcoming presentation in Buffalo, the installation will feature 48 individual works, eight of which are newly created and directly inspired by the artist’s experiences visiting Buffalo earlier this year.

Discovery is a fundamental element of this installation. The work is meant to appear and disappear from view. There is no way to “see” the work all at once. There are only discrete experiences that add up to a larger whole, relying on the landscape and a viewer’s unique journey, the signs they notice, and the natural surroundings they observe.

"We are honored to have the opportunity to merge Frederick Law Olmsted's genius of place with the talents of Chloë Bass in this collaboration with the Buffalo AKG Art Museum," said Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy Executive Director Catie Stephenson. "We hope all park-goers enjoy this installation and make it a part of their visit to Delaware Park while it's on view."

Installation of Wayfinding will take place between June 17 and June 21, with a celebration of the work on July 11 at the Buffalo AKG.

This installation is made possible by the Buffalo AKG Art Museum in conjunction with Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy.

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Pat Perry

(1221 Main Street, Buffalo, NY)

Pat Perry (American, born 1991) is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice includes painting, drawing, photography, and large-scale outdoor murals he has painted around the world.  

Beginning in the 2010s, the artist's ongoing series of sketchbooks and photos documenting his travels within the United States from freight trains became some of his best-known works. Perry's murals and posters have called attention to various social causes through collaborations with groups such as the Beehive Design Collective, AptArts, No More Deaths, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Referring to his artistic practice, Perry has said, “I only want to make work that reflects what I care about.” He is often described as an “adventurer” and has been likened in the past to Jack Kerouac due to his itinerant lifestyle. He has crisscrossed the country, documenting his travels through art, whether sketching a waitress in a diner or photographing a field through a window. He has jumped freight trains, hitchhiked, traveled by pickup and motorcycle, and has landed in countless small towns, countless times. Perry currently lives and works in Detroit, where he is attempting to regrow a forest on the twelve vacant lots that surround his house.

For his Public Art Initiative project, Perry has chosen to investigate notions of passing time by creating a composition that centers on tree growth in the Buffalo area, which has witnessed centuries of life, growth, and death. For Perry, these trees are a way to produce imagery of changes, lives lived, and the ever-evolving landscape. Notably, in his research, he identified two trees, each with a claim as the "oldest tree in Buffalo": one a sycamore that lives at 402 Franklin Street and the other a giant oak in Delaware Park.

Pat Perry’s work will be installed in June.

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Amy Fisher Price

(Location TBD)

Amy Fisher Price (American, born 1980), a New York City-born and Detroit-based artist, is a visionary creator whose main modality is sewing. Price weaves fabric into intricate works of art, crafting mesmerizing signs that pay homage to the urban landscapes that inspire her. With each stitch, her pieces embody resilience, urban identity, and the ever-changing faces of cities, inviting viewers to encounter the rich tapestry of cultures and experiences that shape our surroundings. Price’s meticulous attention to detail and artistic vision have garnered recognition across the national arts community.

“It’s my own rule—I only make from what I have,” says Price, surrounded by stacks and rolls of fabric reaching to the ceiling of her city studio. Price grew up in New York before heading to the Midwest to study “electronics, neon and stop-motion animation” at the Art Institute of Chicago before eventually landing in Detroit.

This project will be facilitated in conjunction with Oxford Pennant, which will host the artist for a residency at their Main Street facility, with an installation of work to be produced in the fall.

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Ola Volo

(1229 Hertel Avenue, Buffalo, NY)

Ola Volo (Kazakhstani) is a Canada-based mural artist and illustrator with a distinctive style drawn from folklore, multiculturalism, and identity. Her intricate works bring animals, people, architecture, and nature together to articulate diverse stories rich with symbolism and elaborate forms. Volo creates complex narratives that acknowledge the subtleties of human nature while celebrating the little surprises of everyday life.

Volo’s recent work evinces the artist’s interest in activism. Wall for Women, Volo’s 2021 mural project in Vancouver, is a message of hope that helps paint a picture about how domestic violence hides in plain sight. Hidden within the mural are five smartphone camera-activated statistics that give anyone who takes a picture the chance to donate to new housing for women who have experienced violence. Inspired by folk art from her Eastern European background, the mural depicts a queen who reclaims her power after leaving an abusive situation.

Volo’s work will be installed in August.

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Ben Volta and Edreys Wajed

(608 William Street, Buffalo, NY)

The Public Art Initiative’s polytab mural installation with Philadelphia-based artist Ben Volta (American, born 1979), with the support of local artist liaison Edreys Wajed (American, born 1974), continues this season. The museum has refined designs after public feedback and is now producing the work through collaborative public paint days.

The mural work is directly informed by the location, the site of a county-run health clinic at 608 William Street on Buffalo’s East Side, and by classroom workshops with students from Harriet Ross Tubman School (BPS 31) just north of the mural site. Volta and Wajed, along with AKG staff, worked with students to inform designs and print the work on polytab for public paint days.

Many community-oriented paint days have taken place at the William-Emslie Family YMCA, adjacent to the installation site at 608 William Street. Additional paint sessions have been held at Eat Off Art at the Tri-Main Center and have included leadership opportunities for a number of young artists of color including Emeka Wajed, Bree Gilliam, and Niaja Boles.

After the work is painted by the public, the mural will be installed and finished at the location by Wajed and other local professionals.

This mural has been made possible with funding secured by Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, Chairwoman April Baskin, and the Erie County Legislature. 

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The Public Art Initiative was established and is supported by leadership funding from the County of Erie and the City of Buffalo.

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About the Buffalo AKG Art Museum

Founded in 1862, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (formerly the Albright- Knox Art Gallery) is the sixth oldest public art institution in the United States. For more than 160 years, the Buffalo AKG has collected, conserved, and exhibited the art of its time, often working directly with living artists. This tradition has given rise to one of the world’s most extraordinary collections of modern and contemporary art.

In June 2023, following the completion of the most significant campus development and expansion project in its history, the Buffalo AKG opened anew to the public. The project is funded by a $230 million capital campaign, the largest such campaign for a cultural institution in the history of Western New York, including $195 million raised for construction and $35 million in additional operating endowment funds.

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