Rolling Up Our Sleeves
Since this column gets posted on Wednesdays (and believe me, I didn’t arrange it this way), it’s been my pleasure to contribute posts directly after the November 4th election (see Hope and Change) and today, after the thrilling inauguration of Barack Obama as our 44th President.
Throughout President Obama’s speech, I kept thinking about ways we can teach students about being truly productive citizens- citizens that contribute, think critically, offer service, and teach others. It got me thinking about artists in the Art21 series who can help teach about these things in a variety of ways….
First, Krzysztof Wodiczko can certainly teach students that speaking out can not only be something done in a newspaper editorial or part of a speech, but it can also be a part of the art we create. Wodiczko helps voices literally project themselves and allows viewpoints to be shared in ways few artists approach.
Nancy Spero can teach about protest and history, and how protest can take many forms- somehow avoiding violence yet simultaneously picturing it.
Jenny Holzer offers students the opportunity to think critically about the text she uses in her work and then relate that to what it means to be a “good” or “productive” citizen. Her recent work with declassified documents can open up meaningful discussion about what citizens should know and be informed of.
Mark Dion can teach students about teaching others through art. Whether it’s work inspired by literature or installation inspired by natural elements, Dion shares with students that the work of contemporary artists can educate and inspire discussion about things such as sustainability, recycling, and preserving natural resources.
Lastly, I want to mention Robert Adams‘ photography. Through his quiet and intense pictures, students can reflect on the things we must do to save and reclaim the parts of our landscape that are devastated by greed and carelessness.
Have you used, or are planning to use Art21 segments and resources as part of your post-inauguration lessons? Please share them with us!
Pictured above: Jenny Holzer, “Benches”, 1989
Installation: Dorris C. Freedman Plaza New York, New York.
Krzysztof Wodiczko to Represent Poland at 2009 Venice Biennale
Krzysztof Wodiczko has been chosen to represent Poland in next year’s Venice Biennale, the 53rd International Art Exhibition. No stranger to the canals, Wodiczko also participated in the 42nd Venice Biennale in 1986, and in the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2000.
The Season 3 artist is known for his socio-political works employing large-scale public projections and interactive sculptures that expose societal injustices while seeking to empower marginalized communities. He has executed over 70 site-specific projections on public buildings and monuments in 40 cities worldwide. Recently at Dialog:City in Denver, during the 2008 Democratic Convention, Wodiczko presented the Veteran Vehicle Project, a series of interviews that looked at the complexities of re-integration for soldiers returning from the Iraq War who have subsequently experienced homelessness. For the Venice Biennale, the artist will premiere an indoor projection detailing the lives of Polish workers within Italian communities.
Wodiczko is currently featured in Cold War Modern: Design 1945-1970 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, featuring work made on both sides of the iron curtain during the cold war. He is also collaborating with architect Julian Bonder on a memorial in Nantes commemorating the abolition of slavery, in addition to being shortlisted for the Foyle Public Art Project in Northern Ireland.
Looking at “Art in Odd Places”
Since the days of 19th-century French poet and critic Charles Baudelaire, the flâneur has played a prominent role in our evolving notion of modern art. The flâneur, according to Baudelaire, is a person who casts a cool and curious eye on the city and its phenomena, particularly the arts.During our own age, many artists have excelled at examining the city and through it our culture’s sense of meaning. Artists like Gabriel Orozco (Season 2) actively distort conventional-seeming scenes or objects to provide us with jarring new perspectives. On the other hand, Krzysztof Wodiczko (Season 3) is an artist who works in unconventional spaces and often uses the city as a canvas on which to project his political and social commentary.This month, the fourth annual Art in Odd Places festival invited 15 visual and 21 performance artists to create artworks on New York City’s 14th Street exploring “connections between public spaces, pedestrian traffic, and ephemeral transient disruptions. Like a scavenger hunt, New Yorkers will use a map to discover art in unexpected places along this amazing street.”
Remembering an early episode of Art:21 which focused on artists and their sense of place, I ventured out to 14th Street to see how some contemporary artists were interpreting the great American metropolis in new and interesting ways.
Below are the captioned photos of what I spotted.
Aakash Nihalani’s Landscrapers installation
Edith Raw’s White Trash
Cai Guo-Qiang Awarded 7th Hiroshima Art Prize
Cai Guo-Qiang (Season 3) has been awarded the 7th Hiroshima Art Prize, which comes with a solo exhibition at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art. Opening October 25th, the commemorative exhibition focuses on Cai’s activities themed on the destruction of the atomic bomb and subsequent regeneration. The works will be comprised of a massive (4x 45 meters) gunpowder drawing, new large-scale, site-specific installations, and a black fireworks performance that will also open the event.
Established by the city of Hiroshima, Japan in 1989, the Hiroshima Art Prize acknowledges the achievements of artists who have contributed to the peace of humanity within the field of contemporary art, and who through their creative activities “spread the Spirit of Hiroshima,” a message of global peace. Past recipients include Issey Miyake, Robert Rauschenberg, Nancy Spero (Season 4) and Leon Golub, Krzysztof Wodiczko (Season 3), Daniel Libeskind, and Shirin Neshat.
Cai recently served as Director of Visual and Special Effects for the Beijing Olympics opening and closing ceremonies. The Guggenheim Museum in New York held a retrospective of the artist’s works this past spring. In 1994 Cai produced another project in Hiroshima, an outdoor event about requiem and rebirth titled The Earth Has Its Black Hole Too: Project for Extraterrestrials No.16.
For a full program that includes a panel discussion moderated by the exhibition’s curator Yukie Kamiya, please go to the museum website.
Mining Ideas
Getting students into good habits early in the year, such as regularly working with sketchbooks and journals- in the classroom and at home, is a way to help students “mine” ideas, save developing ideas, and stay organized to create art that merges techniques learned with starting points that help define the larger story or inspiration behind their work. Sketchbooks can serve, as Marlene Dumas puts it, as “image banks”- places for students to store and organize images for later use.
Students in my introductory studio art class have used sketchbooks in the first two weeks of this year to organize experiments with different drawing media, take some initial notes about our upcoming work together, and begin a new unit that asks them to work with imagining possibilities and combining objects to form something entirely new. They are getting used to referring to their sketchbooks and jotting down possibilities. They’re also getting used to using the sketchbook for things other than what’s assigned in class. For the first time, a majority of my students are regularly using their sketchbook daily instead of storing it in the classroom when we’re not working together. This, as far as I can imagine, is largely due to reinforcing (A LOT) that the sketchbooks are theirs to design and develop. It’s not just a place for assigned work.
Season 4 artist Ursula von Rydingsvard and Season 3 artist Krzysztof Wodiczko both incorporate the use of sketchbooks to “mine” ideas and work through the planning stages of their large-scale works. Students can draw inspiration from these and other Art:21 segments as they actively look for evidence of planning and ways of planning.
How do you incorporate sketchbooks or journals in your classroom? If you’re not already doing so, what kinds of challenges do you face? How might sketchbooks be used in different ways?
Dialog:City Launches in Denver
Dialog:City, the exciting community-oriented, art-political showcase in Denver taking place concurrently with the Democratic National Convention, opened this past Friday at an outdoor party with Mayor John Hickenlooper in a church parking lot that featured Krzysztof Wodiczko’s (Season 3) Veteran Vehicle Project, a new media sculpture that transforms a Humvee into a traveling media projection vehicle telling the stories of more than 40 Denver homeless veterans.
Amist the “greenest convention ever,” Dialog:City is designed as a cultural program that converges education, art, democracy, and digital media. In addition to the ten artists who were officially invited to create interactive site-specific works throughout Denver neighborhoods, a slew of other connected events and happenings will invade and inhabit the city. Curated by Seth Goldenberg, Dialog:City presents new projects by Charlie Cannon, Minsuk Cho, Ann Hamilton, Sharon Hayes, Lynn Hershman, Daniel Peltz, Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, and spurse.
The mind-tingling, serious though not devoid of levity art assault includes Minsuk Cho’s Air Forest, a levitating architectural pavilion, and Daniel Peltz’s Karaoke Convention ‘08. Peltz has transcribed the addresses by presidential candidates in the 2008 election into a karaoke format that will have people belting rhetoric out in song at the Supreme Court and local bars.
Season 1 artist Ann Hamilton created Circle of O’s, a collaboration with local choirs, choreographers, and composers to perform a newly written song drawn from the phrases and pace and spirit of Ralph Waldo Emerson writings imagining the “new American voice.” The song will “waft across the city” in a street procession.
For a full schedule and additional information on all the projects, visit the Dialog:City website.
Dialog:City in Denver
Later this summer, from August 22-29, the Denver metro area will host Dialog:City, a convergence of education, art and democracy. Slated as an exhibition and cultural event that “catalyzes civic discourse by inviting internationally renowned artists and designers to create participatory, interactive, and dialogical site-specific works in neighborhoods across the city.”
Taking place concurrently in Denver with the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Dialog:City has invited ten artists including R. Luke Dubois, Sharon Hayes, Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, and Art:21 artists Ann Hamilton (Season 1) and Krzysztof Wodiczko (Season 3). Most of the artists will present site-specific installations that are simultaneous collaborations and initiatives with local schools and community groups to address topics such as “greening” and “what democracy means to you.”
Video: Krzysztof Wodiczko at SculptureCenter 10-29-07
On October 29, Season 3 artist Krzysztof Wodiczko spoke with cultural theorist and Harvard professor Giuliana Bruno as part of ‚ÄúIn the Open: Art in Public Spaces,‚Äù a BOMBLive! event at SculptureCenter in Long Island City. Art21 co-presented this talk with BOMB magazine. Watch video excerpts from the conversation on BOMB’s site here and read more about the event in our blog archives here .
Reminder: Krzysztof Wodiczko at SculptureCenter tonight
BOMB Magazine and Art21 Present BOMBLive!
In the Open: Art in Public Spaces
Krzysztof Wodiczko interviewed by Giuliana Bruno
TONIGHT at 7pm
Join us for the first installment of BOMBLive! this month, co-presented by BOMB and Art21 and hosted by SculptureCenter
Monday, October 29, 7:00pm
SculptureCenter
44-19 Purves St.
Long Island City, NYC
FREE to the Public!
Krzysztof Wodiczko, Director of the Center for Art, Culture, and Technology at MIT, and featured artist in Season 3 of Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century, animates architecture and public monuments by projecting stories and histories onto them. In this way, technology becomes an apparatus for projecting the self outward, for the collection of memory. Set in the midst of the body politic, his art acts as an instrument of knowledge. Giuliana Bruno, author, cultural theorist, and professor of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard, will interview the artist.
As part of this program, Wodiczko’s Art:21 segment will be screened.
Filmed with the participation of its audience, BOMBLive! events happen in a variety of settings throughout New York City. Visit www.BOMBsite.com for more information.
For directions by car: http://sculpture-center.org/gi_directions_car.html
For directions by subway: http://sculpture-center.org/gi_directions.html
Please contact Paul Morris with questions at 718.636.9100 x104 or paul@bombsite.com.
Art21 and BOMB Magazine Present Krzysztof Wodiczko at SculptureCenter 10-29-07
BOMB Magazine and Art21 Present BOMBLive!
In the Open: Art in Public Spaces
Krzysztof Wodiczko interviewed by Giuliana Bruno
Monday, October 29, 2007, 7pm
Join us for the first installment of BOMBLive! this month, co-presented by BOMB and Art21 and hosted by SculptureCenter
Monday, October 29, 7:00pm
SculptureCenter
44-19 Purves St.
Long Island City, NYC
FREE to the Public!
Krzysztof Wodiczko, Director of the Center for Art, Culture, and Technology at MIT, and featured artist in Season 3 of Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century, animates architecture and public monuments by projecting stories and histories onto them. In this way, technology becomes an apparatus for projecting the self outward, for the collection of memory. Set in the midst of the body politic, his art acts as an instrument of knowledge. Giuliana Bruno, author, cultural theorist, and professor of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard, will interview the artist.
As part of this program, Wodiczko’s Art:21 segment will be screened.
Filmed with the participation of its audience, BOMBLive! events happen in a variety of settings throughout New York City. Visit www.BOMBsite.com for more information.
For directions by car: http://sculpture-center.org/gi_directions_car.html
For directions by subway: http://sculpture-center.org/gi_directions.html
Please contact Paul Morris with questions at 718.636.9100 x104 or paul@bombsite.com.
