Photography: Wayne Cozzolino, Courtesy Association for Public Art, Philadelphia
Photography: Wayne Cozzolino, Courtesy Association for Public Art, Philadelphia
Internationally known for her creative integration of art into architecture and landscape, Jody Pinto lives and works in New York City. She has completed over fifty collaborative projects in the United States, Israel and Japan since 1975. They include a wide range of master-planning, functional elements, landscape interventions, free standing and integrated structural elements. She has received numerous awards and grants including the NEA; Federal Design Achievement Award; National Design for Transportation Award; A.I.A. Honor Award “Art in Public Spaces", and two National ASLA Design Honor Awards.
During the 60’s she developed a series of large-scale, canvas-backed, works using sand, Rhoplex, marble dust and powdered pigments. As the thick mixture slowly dried, the surface was drawn into and pushed like skin or wet sand.These early works and drawings were the first in a dialogue between body/land.
In 1971 - 1974 while living in Philadelphia, she founded and directed, Women Organized Against Rape (WOAR), a grass-roots organization that transformed Philadelphia’s institutions. Today WOAR is a major contributor in the fields of education, law and prosecution. This deep involvement in community created a desire to explore collaborative public projects in nearby empty city lots where the early “well works”, (19th century wells and cisterns} were built.
Her drawings are in numerous private and public collections, including the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; the National Gallery of Art and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.; Des Moines Art Center in Iowa; the Denver Art Museum; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others.
A feature article in Landscape Architecture about an award-winning project that Pinto collaborated on, describes her basic philosophy of public art: "Pinto, artist on the project, describes designing South Beach (Santa Monica, CA) as an act of 'peeling back a film, revealing what was already there, and exposing the possibilities. The ‘human theater’ of the beach, the people and their activities, became the central focus of the design. How design can enhance existing uses and inspire new ones became the central question.’ It is rare to find a design that starts from such a humble perspective. The provocative integration of drama and mystery into daily activity provides a connective tissue between life and art.”