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American Morning

NASA's Art Program Tries to Attract Younger Generation

Aired August 09, 2001 - 09:47   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: We're talking about out-of-this-world fashion, something that Michael Jackson would love, I'm sure. Designer Steven Sprouse (ph) was inspired by 3D images from the Mars Pathfinder for this fashion-forward event you're looking at here.

It never works. There you go.

Planning the worlds of art and space is one of the things that NASA's doing right now to try and attract the younger generation.

For more on their effort, we are joined live this morning from Washington by Bert Ulrick. He is curator of the NASA art program and in charge of NASA's visual identity of the office of national affairs.

Thanks for coming in this morning and explaining this to us, because, you know, a lot of us were quite surprised to find out that NASA even had an art program.

BERT ULRICK, CURATOR, NASA ART PROGRAM: Thanks for inviting me, yes.

It's a program that's been around since the early 1960s, and the whole idea was that the space era was considered a really important era in American history, so the people who found NASA, James Webb, and some other individuals, decided that to have art to actually document what NASA's history's all about, and tell the NASA story.

HARRIS: Yes? Give us some ideas like, how that's happened in the past?

ULRICK: Well, you know, we had people like Norman Rockwell. He actually did some artwork based on the Apollo 11 mission. Robert Rautenberg (ph) did as well, and then just a lot of other artists that are lesser known. And we also have Andy Warhols in the collection, and it's just a really, really exciting thing. Now recently, we've expanded the program, and NASA administrator Daniel Goldin allowed us to sort of increase the budget and take on newer projects, that really sort of span the whole sort of dynamic of American culture.

HARRIS: All right, what we are looking right now on camera, if you can see the monitors of what I am told is a Bronx mural project. Tell us about this.

ULRICK: Yes, we had this really exciting opportunity to work with an organization called City Arts to work on a 7,000 square foot mural in the South Bronx, created solely by schoolkids in the area and neighboring community members, and it was a really, really, really exciting experience to be able to work with schoolkids in an areas and take a NASA scientists, a Mars expert, to talk to the kids about what it's like to live on Mars and have them use their imaginations and reprocess the scientific information. And I think that this is really, really important for NASA to reach out on all levels, which we're trying to do.

HARRIS: Since kids do learn at a tactile level very easily, that's probably a very good idea. Let's look at the next one we've got. We've got pictures of something called the "Air Train Exhibit."

What's this about?

ULRICK: HARRIS: It's the "Art Train Exhibit."

HARRIS: I am sorry, the "Art Train."

ULRICK: Yes, it's a train that's going around the country to over 40 states and exhibiting art works from NASA's collection, and it's a really wonderful way to bring art to communities that normally do not have access to museums, so we are really thrilled that this is going around, and it's in Epsillanty, Michigan at the moment, and it's traveling solely across the country and won't be traveling until the end of 2002.

HARRIS: OK, good deal.

Now, how about "Beyond the Sky." What is that project about?

ULRICK: When Eileen Collins was the first female commander of the space shuttle, when she he went up to space, we commissioned the piece of music by artists Judy Collins, and it was just really thrilling that she came down and she sang a song called "Beyond the Sky" for the launch of Eileen Collins into space.

HARRIS: So it's a Judy Collins performance then.

ULRICK: Yes.

HARRIS: Great.

And now, let me ask you this. I think we have other music, not Judy Collins in this case, but music that people may be familiar with.

ULRICK: Right. Well we've actually embarked in all areas. We've commissioned the Chronos Quartet, which is more of an avant garde quarter, and composer Terry Riley is going to be doing a piece based on sounds of the Voyager Probe, and we've also commissioned a piece of music by the group Natural, which is one of the Lou Perlman boy's bands, which is actually sort of hitting the scene today, and we're also considering some rap music in the future, and all sorts of different types of music and different types of art forms.

I have to stress that not a lot of money is spent on this. I mean, artist normally get commission of $2,500, and the budget is not that large at all, but what you are getting from it so thrilling and exciting, and it's just an exciting thing to work with.

HARRIS: We wish you luck, and some of us who think that rap that we have heard is from outer space. That may be a good idea putting them together.

Bert Ulrick, thank you for the time, and for the art exhibit we saw this morning. We wish you lots of luck in this project. It sounds like a great idea.

ULRICK: Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.

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