Inside Out & Martin Papcun

Martin Papcun came to Cleveland from his home in Prague, Czech Republic for a residency at Spaces Gallery in October 2008, during that time Papcun deconstructed a foreclosed home on West 45th. that entailed removing exterior walls of the home revealing the upstairs living area and commode.

Papcun has a similar project that will be revealed this Tuesday October 27th. from 4pm till 9pm. This abandoned home is located on 3601 Siam Avenue and is also in Ohio City just blocks from Papcun's previous west side project.
When I spoke to Papcun last Saturday night I asked him if he and his small crew were involved in the clearing of the litter left behind from the previous family that lived there before they were kicked out as the foreclosure procedures were enforced and Martin explained that they were part of that process and they had to hire exterminators to remove the mass of fleas that were feasting on them when they attempted to remove the carpet.

Martin has greatly improved his confidence of the English language since I first met him almost a year ago when he would only reply to my queries with a couple word answers. Saturday, Martin explained to me that  he and his small crew have only about 12 daylight hours remaining till the opening and he is worried about finishing the project by then but has confidence in the fine locals that are working with him.

The photo above is from Lara Kastner's excellent documentation of 45th street installation by Martin Papcun in December of 2008, that slideshow can be viewed here.

Spaces Executive Director Christopher Lynn has a fine description of this 45th. street installation of Papcun and his collaborators on papcun.net, below is an excerpt.
-LM

Inside Outside by Martin Papcun
3601 Siam Avenue [map]
October 27, 2009 from 4pm till pm.

Papcun's ambitious eight-week goal was not only to create an exhibition of
work in the gallery at SPACES' that addressed the foreclosure crisis,
but to physically dissect a foreclosed home. Cleveland has thousands
of homes whose windows and doors are shuttered with plywood to keep out
intruders who would pillage their copper or squat in their rooms.
The gallery component of Papcun's work organized toy homes, barns and
stores from thrift-stores (even children are abandoning their toy dwell-ings).
These miniature structures formed a ghostly street where windows
and doors were boarded up with balsa wood.