Visual AIDS Web Gallery
Max-Carlos Martinez (our gallery's Associate Director) and I have co-curated this month's Visual AIDS Web Gallery. Titled "Red, White & Blue," it mixes politics with passion (how surprising for us, no?). The depth of the slide archive at Visual AIDS made our choices much more difficult than I had originally thought it would, but Nelson and Amy were such a pleasure to work with, we enjoyed the entire process. Here's the opening of our curatorial statement:
Please visit the Web Gallery, and while you're at it, save the date for the 3rd Annual Visual AIDS Vanguard Awards Spring Benefit, Strike!, which this year honors Yoko Ono and Tony Feher. Bambino and I had a blast at this event last year and highly recommend it.
Given the commotion of the current Presidential campaign season, the cacophony of the highly contentious times in which we live, and the strong range of emotional associations of the three colors that characterize our nation's patriotic symbols, choosing "Red, White & Blue" as the theme for our Visual AIDS Web Gallery seemed an instantly obvious choice as we approached the slide archive. Running with the trilogy concept, we decided to choose work that included 1) "Red, White & Blue" as subject matter; 2) one or a combination of the colors as a formal device; or 3) one of the colors as a predominant emotional cue or metaphor.The artists whose work we chose include Ronald Casanova, Joe DeHoyos, Donna Haggerty, Reynold Hauser, Bryan Hoffman, Nancer LeMoins, Fran Lewis, Marc Lida, Eduardo Mirales, Joe Monroe, Frank Moore, Luna Luis Ortiz, Tara Popick, David Reyes, Daniel Roberts, James Romberger, Rene Santos, Hugh Steers, Ferenc Suto, and TRET.
Please visit the Web Gallery, and while you're at it, save the date for the 3rd Annual Visual AIDS Vanguard Awards Spring Benefit, Strike!, which this year honors Yoko Ono and Tony Feher. Bambino and I had a blast at this event last year and highly recommend it.
Labels: Visual AIDS
posted by Edward_ at
7:51 AM
11 Comments:
Ed:
I was looking into the independent curator application process over at NURTUREart Gallery and they do not have a digitized artist registry. You have to go there in person and it makes sense to me to do that first before filling out any applications. Can you talk about that whole process? Do budding curators tend to approach the artists registry after they have a conceptual packaging for an exibition in mind, or is it more common to study the artists first?
Ed,
I just wrote about the R,W, and B power trio for the April issue of The Brooklyn Rail. As a painter, I'm frustrated by the iconographic baggage imposed by cadmium red, titanium white and ultramarine blue. It's difficult to squeeze these three simple colors onto the palette without conjuring either the patriotic fervor of the confident American or the doubting irony of the protester, but I'm trying anyway.
Best,
Sharon
Do budding curators tend to approach the artists registry after they have a conceptual packaging for an exibition in mind, or is it more common to study the artists first?
I've worked both ways when asked to curate/jury from slides. It depends on the context. For regional exhibitions where artists are invited to submit slides of recent work, for example, having a predetermined conceptual theme seems unfairly exclusive to me (a theme should present itself if one seems necessary at all). I'm jurying the Everson Museum biennial later this month, for example, and because it's an invitational, I'm waiting until I see the work to even consider any unifying decision-making guideline other than the broad theme for the exhibition (The Object and Beyond).
When you're dealing with an already curated/pre-selected archive, though, I think approaching it with a theme in mind makes sense (otherwise, it will take you much longer because many themes will be possible).
Sweet painting, Sharon! Love the figurative nature of the central shape. Can't look at chairs like that without thinking Diebenkorn as well. (line-wise, not palette, obviously)
"When you're dealing with an already curated/pre-selected archive, though, I think approaching it with a theme in mind makes sense (otherwise, it will take you much longer because many themes will be possible)."
Thank you for the advice. I already have an exhibition theme or conceptual framework in mind. I was just wondering how you do it, because this is a first for me.
I was just wondering how you do it, because this is a first for me.
It helps if the archive is databased. Search is your friend.
Yeah, it is a big inconvenience that NURTUREart Gallery has not digitized their artist's registry. It is supposedly "coming soon". That would save me a trip to Brooklyn. I guess I should be prepared to study a big pile of slides. Believe me I am far from a shoe in. They most likely won't be impressed with my resume and my application will probably get rejected. I will write a mean press rlease for the exhibition if I get the opportunity to go through with it though. It would just be nice to be able to determine if I even like the work of a minimum of six artists in their registry before I even bother to get the ball rolling.
where is the link to max's website?
- fan of max
okay, whatever, but you should at least give some credit to the artist whose work you have posted.
you should click through and find the information yourself (hint, hint)
i did, it's bryan hoffman, but why do you think it's okay to post the image uncredited?
Anonymous, first of all you asked for a link to Max's site. Something I posted just last week, and something that in the context of Max curating other artists, I chose not to do this time.
Your response to that decision (or perhaps my lack of response to your comment) was rather pissy ("whatever") immediately dis-endearing you to me. You follow that up with an opportunistic criticism of my nettiquette (why not point that out in your first comment?). That choice, though, was actually a conscious decision to hopefully encourage folks to click through. Perhaps that's not considered a universally good enough reason for not citing the work here, but it was certainly not worthy of your implied indictment of my not doing so.
Now, if I'm missing something else here, please do just spell it out. Otherwise please go away. Nitpicking like you're doing seems passive aggressive for reasons I can't fathom but am not sure I care about either.
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