Mapping the Conversation The Questioning Aesthetics Symposium takes up the term aesthetics as both the subject and object of critique, and as a way to explore and expand new forms of aesthetics research in many disciplines. In relation to the evolving conversations around participation, computing and the contemporary, scholars and artists from around the US will come […]
Wednesday, March 26, 2014 Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo (Closed roundtable, by invitation only) In March 2014, the Arts Research Center is partnering with Professor Knut Ove Arntzen (University of Bergen) to explore “Nordic Time Zones: Time-based art across disciplines in the Northern Landscape” as part of a generous research grant funded by the Peder Sather Center. For the […]
The past haunts us. It drives our need to recover archives; to activate fragments of a time lived before (by one or by others) into a new experience. Memory is one of the most recurrent themes in contemporary art. It is considered to be characteristic of Latin American art, but it is not. European cities (particularly Berlin) as well as those of Latin America (especially Buenos Aires) have become huge memorials. Centotaph cities.
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When I first moved to San Francisco, over six years ago, for a job at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the recurring refrain I often heard from people living here and working in the field of contemporary art was that the region’s art scene tended to be rather “provincial.” I found this pejorative qualifier highly problematic, and in many ways it remains a perception artists living in the Bay Area struggle to overcome.
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In April 2012, the Arts Research Center presented Making Time: Art Across Gallery, Screen, and Stage, a three-day symposium that featured keynotes by curators Sabine Breitwieser (MOMA) and Jens Hoffmann (CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art) and choreographer Ralph Lemon, and conversations with the artists Daniel Joseph Martinez and Allan de Souza. Many other distinguished […]
The Arts Research Center recently participated in a convening at YBCA organized by Emerging Arts Professionals / SF Bay Area which, among other goals, allowed participants to connect, share knowledge, and examine opportunities and pitfalls when working with hybrid arts and neighborhood revitalization projects. ARC Director Shannon Jackson and Associate Director Michele Rabkin presented these seven “Recurring Puzzles” of Equity in Place-making that have begun to take form through ARC’s work with the Art + NEIGHBORHOOD research team, and in particular through conversations at the ART/CITY symposium.
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Several issues emerged from my work on Allan Kaprow and happenings and have been taking up headroom for some time now.
1) “Strips of behavior” and the repertoire and how these two concepts do or don’t map onto advanced art practice.
2) Deskilling and its self-conscious institutionalizing as “resistant” practice.
3) Institutional critique as necessary decoy.
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Like so many others who attended SITUATED on Monday, I returned to the mayhem of other responsibilities, but I found myself returning again and again to the ideas shared and questions explored. Here are some of my reflections, and I would love to hear what is preoccupying you.
Expanded Art Inside Artistic Silos or “How many people can you make love you” (Theaster Gates): So this is an ARC theme, and we found it again in the world of socially-engaged art. While so many of us make or support engaged work that “crosses” art forms, we are situated in different art worlds that define that crossing. Who reviews? Who commissions? Who grants? Who collects? (And do you aspire to be collectible?)
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It is hard to believe that it has been a week since the Curating People conference. Like most participants, I left our day of reflection to return to the mayhem of this week’s obligations, and it has been hard to come up for air.
Since I am writing during a moment that can only be described as “stolen,” I will not try to summarize the pages and pages of notes that I took during all of the thoughtful and energetic sessions. Instead, I will very quickly put out some clustered thinking around ideas and hopes that I heard expressed in the room. I would welcome any feedback, responses, revisions, or expansions on any of the below. So in no particular order, not in complete sentences, no footnotes (hard for an academic), let me offer the following:
1) How to un-silo communities of arts and culture: Milk Bar-like occasions for artists to casually and convivially curate work for each other. Artpractical and ARC “Picks” that run the gamut of arts programming.
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I do not come to this symposium with a pedigree. Somehow through hard work and the investigation of ideas, I have gotten to where I am today. I am an artist who also calls herself a curator. I sit within an institution working on behalf of artists. I also attempt to teach, to write, to arrange objects and humans – in rooms and in theaters and in storefronts and on the street. In my role at PICA I have often said yes. I have rarely had to say no. This feels like a privilege. I want to pass that along to the artists I work with. I want them to feel free to make what they want how they want where they want.
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