The Guggenheim currently has an exhibit called The Third Mind which features American Artists who contemplated Asia, from 1860 to 1989, with a special commission of a work by Ann Hamilton that circles the rotunda, spiraling down from the top of the spiral to the floor. The Guggenheim website has a short interview with Ann […]
Imagining America, 2008
A friend recently asked me what two things I learned from attending the annual conference of Imagining America in early October 2008. In general, I will say that 1) it matters to see people in their home milieu, and 2) it demystified public engagement work for me. The conference was quite small, and mostly West […]
YES!
Jane Rendell wrote in 2000: …[A]rchitecture takes inspiration from other spatial arts. Architects can learn possible tactics and strategies from the work of feminists in dance, film, art and writing, as well as those artists operating in the public spaces of the city, for example, Niki de Saint Phalle, Maya Lin and Suzanne Lacy. I […]
Active History
There’s a conference coming up in the Fall of 2008 in Toronto called “Active History.” I have been having email “conversations” with several colleagues about the roles that history plays in contemporary art practice, in design studios, and in community settings. Nick Brown reminded me of a couple of efforts in Pittsburgh and in Toronto […]
Community as Intellectual Space
The 4th annual Community as Intellectual Space symposium was held June 13-15. I will be chewing on all that transpired for some time. For now, let me express my pleasure at meeting Josue Pellot, an artist who did a neon project in a storefront on Paseo Boricua. I look forward to talking with him more […]
Control: A State of Agreement
There is a new film available, either on the web or as a DVD, called “A State of Agreement,” about the work of artist Stephen Willats. Charlotte Ginsburg directed it, with Andrew Wilson as the interviewer. There are some great views of Stephen’s flat full of clocks and lamps in London. Also, Wilson and Willats […]
Mali Intersection, Urbana Crossroads
Isn’t this cool? What a way to mark an intersection! Here’s what artist Janet Goldner writes about it: The Association Segou-Laben, a group of artists in Segou [Mali] including bogolan artist Boubacar Doumbia and sculptor Amahiguere Dolo, invited me to collaborate with them to create a steel sculpture for a traffic circle on the major […]
NYC scenes, 2008
On a brick wall by the New Museum on the Bowery. It says “Bring Me Back,” in case you can’t read it. The Silence=Death Project was able to display their activist graphics in the window of the (old) New Museum courtesy of curator Bill Olander. Associated with ACT Up, the graphic has appeared on T-shirts, […]
The Political Equator 2
Champaign, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, Tijuana, and then back again. I was really tired when I got home. The idea of this event was truly fascinating: “an exploration of the intersection between sociopolitical and natural domains, foregrounding the notion of collective territory, but also a territory of collaboration that transgresses hemispheric boundaries. At the […]
Teddy, Tacos and Talk
One man after another, talking and talking. The tacos were fantastic and Teddy Cruz must be thirty times more tired than I am. What energy and passion that man puts out, bilingually and all over the map. At the start of our journey from LA, Teddy noted our tendency to “hide beneath weird complexity.” It […]
