Blog
Art in Japan Workshop
This weekend we held our last saturday workshop of the season. Ten students from the LAB Middle school had the opportunity to discover Japanese arts and culture. In the morning, we visited the Edo Pop: The Graphic Impact of Japanese Prints exhibition at the Japan Society in Manhattan. Then, students took part of a workshop at the School of VIsual Art led by Japanese Calligraphy master Masako Inkyo who demonstrated basic techniques in Shodo painting. Everybody got to experiment and produced beautiful ink drawings.
The Parameters on Public Art
Randy Kennedy’s recent article in the New York Times “Outside the Citadel, Social Practice Art Is Intended to Nurture” (March 20/13) raised some interesting questions regarding Public Art and Social Practice Art.
Surely, as Mr. Kennedy states, in the art form “known primarily as social practice, its practitioners freely blur the lines among object making, performance, political activism, community organizing, environmentalism and investigative journalism, creating a deeply participatory art that often flourishes outside the gallery and museum system.” Many titles have been coined along the way, Community Art, Relational Art, Socially Engaged Art Practice, Dialogical Esthetics, just to name a few. More Art is less interested in ephemeral names and more in the goal of making contemporary art more accessible and socially conscious. This has been our mission from the very start.
Pablo Helguera, who worked with More Art in 2011 on a project titled “El Club de Protesta/The Portest Club”, is quoted in the article: “(T)he shift began happening sometime after 9/11 [spurred by] the question ‘What is the meaning of making art in the world like it is today?’” “El Club de Protesta,” organized in collaboration with the Hudson Guild Community Center, consisted in a series of bilingual (English/Spanish) song-writing workshops open to the public with the purpose of promoting and revisiting the tradition of the Latin American and North American protest song as a historical form of expression often connected to significant social movements. The project gave members of the community a chance to speak out about issues they were passionate about and gave each participant the confidence needed to actually do it on a public platform.
Mr. Kennedy’s article highlights the new-found popularity of such practices and therefore highlights how “(A)rt institutions around the country are grappling with how to bring [social practice] within museum walls and make the case that it can be appreciated along with paintings, sculpture and other more tangible works.” This is where we challenge the premise. We challenge the idea of bringing public art, community art, relational art or socially conscious art practices “within museum walls” because that would defy its very essence. Notwithstanding the importance and centrality of museums for contemporary art, we believe that there should be art forms or art practices that remain free and accessible to all and in the public domain.
Mr. Kennedy notes that “many artists say the motivation is…to make a difference in the world that is more than aesthetic.” We do feel that our projects prove this to be true. In our recent work with Krzysztof Wodiczko, the artist literally gave a voice and a platform to veterans from the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars. This stunning nighttime public projection in the heart of Union Square, “Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Project”, is indicative of our mission statement: to seize opportunities to enable people from all walks of life to approach and access art. We want everyone — with no admission, coat checks or walls — to have access to the work of artists. We encourage artists to address issues and concerns that are relevant to them and to us all. We will continue to strive for such projects to be offered to the public so that anyone and everyone may encounter thoughtful and engaging art in public spaces such as Union Square Park in Manhattan.
Kristina Van Dyke, foundation director at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, ultimately asks “Could we effect social change through art, plain and simple?” The answer is simple: Yes. It is and continues to be our mission at More Art.
Nick Cave – Heard NY at Grand Central
Why was Heard NY so successful?
We went to see the performance by Nick Cave at Grand Central. Vanderbilt Hall was so packed it was hard to get to a spot where you could as much as take a peak at the action. The hall, with its high vaulted ceilings, is a beautiful, if unusual, space for a performance. Thousands of people go through every hour, and although most are hurried, this project shows that many are willing to stop, and even wait a while, for a free art encounter. At 11 am a group of dancers from the Alvin Ailey dance company entered and put on horse raffia suits. The horses, Nick Cave explained, are a reference to the history of Grand Central, as they originally brought travelers to their trains, and appear on the decorated ceiling of the hall in the shape of mythical winged horse Pegasus. Accompanied by an harp and a drum, the horses started to wriggle and shake as if they were grazing in a field. At some point the front separated from the back and both went into a crazy frenzied dance, until they calmly rejoined for a final bow to the crowd. It all lasted 15 minutes. The audience cheered and applauded. People looked genuinely happy. Why is HeardNY so successful? Because it engaged both the old and the young, and made perfect use of the space: it was pure, family-friendly fun. Kudos to Creative Time for being able to pull off such a complex feat in one of the most historical places in New York City.
Learn more about the Project on Creative Time’s website
