1. On pages 62-63 Voorhies lists Group Material's various exhibition techniques and platforms for creating art relevant to the community where they worked/exhibited. In three paragraphs describe and critically examine the strengths and weaknesses in their approaches while mentioning other artists/projects (not listed in the text) that you feel successfully produced projects/exhibitions connected to communities where they work/live and explain why you deem them successful.
2. In two paragraphs describe measures you could take (or have taken) in your studio production to include a certain community as collaborators or at least to encourage a community to become a more involved part of your audience.
For the People Choice exhibition, Group Material asked for objects owned by people in the surrounding community to exhibit. This connects the people with the gallery, because their objects are being exhibited there, and it also connects viewers with this particular community when they see these objects, but like my art, the stories of why this objects are chosen are missing. There is no context and it is hard, if not impossible to separate generic from sacred.
ReplyDeleteResidencies tend to be more interested in bringing in an artist that will utilize the community and the specific region for art that will be created whether it be environmental or incorporating people from the surrounding community. Dred Scott, for example, took a residency in Louisiana and after learning about many of the historical landmarks in the area, decided to stage a re-enactment of a famous slave rebellion.
Aliza Nisembaum, another visiting artist lecturer this year at UF did a does residencies in prominently Hispanic neighborhoods. She holds interviews individuals while she paints them. She gets to know people and includes their personalities within the painting.
I think the work that I do with the images in the collages speaks to a specific group of people who identify with this images. They are images that are so relatable to some that it would be like looking in a mirror.
I’m interested, and have been becoming more interested in the quality of water in different areas. My experience while living in Carter County Kentucky left an impression on me. The water there is near deadly, with a daily “Boil Water Advisory” going out on the radio, an intense smell of chlorine in every glass, yet the annual report from the water company says levels are average. I think it would be a productive research and could be powerful artwork to seek out poor communities, use their water to make art that speaks to them, do the research, show them what is happening, and inform them on what to do to fix it.
Great examples! You talk about your collages speaking to a community who relate to them. What about your interest in Ray Johnson? How did Ray Johnson and Wallace Berman use there work to build associations between people and imply a sort of community?
DeleteBy bringing personal everyday objects into the gallery, Group Material broke the boundaries that separated the artists and the audiences, the art and non art, and the spectator and institution. The community got connected and became part of the exhibition by distributing objects that have personal meanings to them.
ReplyDeleteI think the strength of using this kind of strategy to connect with the community is the empowerment and involvement that were now given to the community. By being part of the exhibition, the community will then spread the words and bring in more people from the public to connect with the institution.
On the other hand, the weaknesses of this kind of approach to raise people’s interest is the affect might be restricted to the local community.
For my own studio practice, I can see my work involve the community in different ways.
1. Emotional and common experiences
2. Community participation
3. The style of works
I can encourage the community to look at my work by working with some common topics that relates to the community. I can also directly involve the audiences by inviting them to help create my work. I also believe that art pieces that are difficult to understand create barriers and push away audiences. Therefore, I am also interested in creating low-brow art that my family and people in the community can understand and enjoy.
Good points!
DeleteGroup Materials considers the values and cultures of spectators in their exhibitions, with subject of the exhibition emanating from the experiential qualities and natural life of the people of the community. They have never been satisfied with the notion of conception and the production of art especially in American Society. The force driving their project is to withhold autonomy over their work as artists and also counter the art market demand in its ideal context. Their work contributes to institutional critiques and questions the conducts of the institutions.
ReplyDeleteThey are activists as artists and I think that they are successful in their practice because today, people try to easily read meanings into things that relate to them specifically objects that symbolize cultural value and aesthetics. In that sense, they conceptually collaborate with the spectators. I am interested in the fact that they portray everyday life with the use of objects, like Meshac Gaba who also tries to create his own museum by bringing into an exhibition the objects that talk about the everyday life activities of Africans. Artists such as Georges Adeagbo, Ibrahim Mahama, David Hammons and El Anatsui transform familiar objects collected from the society or environment to make art.
Group Materials even argued that spectators should enter the gallery to meet their expectations and their work involves the use of local audience as contributors in the production of the work. For them, the needs and the satisfaction of the community as spectators is their priority; involving their personal objects which they aim to have the concept come from the experiences of the community as it is conceived to be a form of collaboration. Their practice also contributes to the notion of relational aesthetics and politics of aesthetics.
For me as an artist, I sometimes incorporate in my work, an object that has a social context and its ability to reflect on the spectator experience. I see the jean pants that I am currently sewing together as everyday object. The owner values it as its ability to perhaps fight against the striking winter, labor purpose, durability etc. It may also be valued in the context of fashion as commodity. I see that everybody wears jeans but when I transform that into a new form, it would definitely be looked at in a different perspective because I have re-contextualized it and displayed it politically at a different space.
I like using materials that people could easily recognize; things have been used by human beings, manipulated through time with evidential history of possession. With that, it suggests human presence in my work and the spectators begin to relate themselves to the work and it then it becomes a critical object. Value is conceptualized with objects. Since the materials are coming from the people within the community where my work is produced, during an exhibition within this community, the audience would read their own meanings into the work in terms of how the material relates to them, especially the tattered jeans which is also common among the youth. In that sense, I think through this process as a form of collaboration.
Good. Yes. David Hammons literally coined the term for his work "culture sculpture" to highlight his found objects were pulled from the streets in the community where he resides. He picks the objects and materials because they are shared and common to all. There is a shared aesthetic he develops that reflects the people and activities in the community around him.
DeleteI find it to be a very unique approach to involve the community in an exhibition by having them create an exhibition. It can create of connections and forge relationships that would not have happened if it wasn't for the exhibition.
ReplyDeleteThere are also a lot of problems that can occur with this approach. There are going to be such a wide variety of objects that it may not be very interesting. I know that the engagement with the community and social aspects are seen as the art in this scenario but my brain wants to see an interesting group of objects.
I like thinking of this type of exhibition as a community assemblage. It takes all of the individuals value systems and combines them into one group.
My recent work has a lot of potential for community engagement. I would like to do installations of musical sculptures in public spaces. This would bring the community together in very interesting ways. So far I have noticed that installations of my work prompt people to move around more than usual in a space so they can figure out how to control the sculptures.
I think work that compels the audience to play and discover could help communities have a unique experience together. This community based work can create relationships that otherwise would not have existed.
Yes. See my response to Emmanuel about Hammons. The concerns about the choice of community objects seems to resonate with our seminar and I agree they are well-founded. Group Material's status and achievements are indicators that they obviously were excellent organizers and curators as they built these unconventional community-oriented projects.
ReplyDelete