Going public

Georges Rousse's artwork transforms a community and opens eyes to possibilities

DURHAM -- Lisa Moses really, really did not like art. The brassy, 5-foot-4-inch security supervisor at the Liggett and Myers complex in downtown Durham had it figured out by school age: "Art" meant "boring."

"If I passed by the art museum, I wouldn't even slow down," Moses said.

Then Georges Rousse came to work in her building. Day after day on patrol, she saw the French artist's massive curved tunnel of plywood take shape in the old cafeteria of the Chesterfield cigarette factory. Rousse and his volunteers worked so hard that Moses figured something good had to be coming. And finally, when the structure was painted a rich country blue, she peered through Rousse's camera. From just the right spot, it appeared to be a perfect square.

"That tunnel ... that is wild," Moses said. "It is a mind-blowing experience."

Now she thinks she might stop by the art museum after all.

"You have to really see and focus on the art itself instead of walking by it," Moses said. "Most of us might just see a painting on the wall and say, 'It's cute.' But the artist really put a lot of work into it. It's exciting to me, because I have something new in my life."

Georges Rousse's project created a lot of Lisa Moseses. Museums have trouble getting crowds except for blockbuster shows, but people stood in lines up to 100 deep to see Rousse's optical-illusion art installations at four Durham buildings.

By the time he packed his cameras last week, ending 3 1/2 weeks of installation, the project had sprawled to more than 200 volunteers, a "just add water" army that sprung up like Sea Monkeys.

All this started with two people, the husband-and-wife team of Ellen Cassilly and Frank Konhaus, who liked Rousse's work and thought it would be nice to recruit him for Durham. To understand how magnetic the project became, consider Allen Kehde.

Kehde once worked as a decorative painter, restoring art in the Attorney General's Office, building sets for the film "Runaway Bride" and even painting trompe l'oeil murals in Kansas City. But he had been completely disconnected from the art community since moving to Durham four years ago. After seeing Rousse speak at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, he raced to volunteer and became a central part of the Chesterfield crew, suggesting materials and building ideas.

"Everyone's easygoing. There's no ego involved," Kehde said. "Every job is important. Sweeping the floor is important. No one is saying, 'I want to do the fun stuff.' "

The volunteers' relentless cheer, organization and expertise inspired Rousse to try new approaches to his own art. The tunnel-square at Chesterfield, which from most angles looks like a contained explosion of blue paint, marks the first time he has tried that kind of curved wall illusion.

The project also created something deeper, something harder to define and ultimately more astonishing than the art itself. It drew people such as Kehde, who had never volunteered for a thing since moving to the Triangle. Local businesses donated everything from cash to paint to lunches. Strangers became friends, and art became social activism, a way to show their love for art and for Durham. Some volunteers openly tear up when they talk about it.

Rousse works only in buildings that are about to be renovated or torn down, which describes a pretty wide swath of Durham. As he explained through a translator, he grew up amid the rubble left after World War II, and he's still drawn to places that are about to be reborn. His photographs capture both an illusion -- the space he has transformed -- and the building as it was, on the brink of its own transformation.