A curatorial poll
(thanks RG)
Conceived to promote and encourage dialogue, reflection, and social interaction about San Diego ’s artistic and cultural life, the exhibition, Innocence is Questionable, will celebrate the accomplishments of six renowned local artists: Jean Lowe, Ernest Silva, Raul Guererro, Iana Quesnell, May-Ling Martinez, and Yvonne Venegas, all recipients of the 2006/2007 San Diego Art Prize. By bringing awareness to the contemporary landscape and our place within it, each artist struggles with time and its impact on community, place, and the individual. By looking at historical precedents, mapping the physical environment and documenting the interconnectedness of all things, each artist explores one’s own history—how it’s constructed, where it begins and ends. Using the familiar, and sometimes the banal, to draw the viewer in, they make reference to the subtle complexities of an idealized image of the past in the face of the reality of the present. Ultimately, what each of these artists question is whether or not the folly of the world is the responsibility of man? California Center for the Arts, Escondido March 1 - May 31, 2008
Comments
Although I voted for the one that talked about the organizers lack of a clue, I don't agree that putting a theme on a show is a museum-induced delusion.
People understand things better from a semiotic perspective. The problem currently is that themed shows are often just an example of how vacuous our society has become. Shows about 'bunnies' or 'bears' or whatever animal, if saying something about our societal trends, is a pretty sad state of affairs. (If the most our society can say right now is "I like bunnies", we're in deep shit.)
Also, when you work with over 250 artists, a theme allows you to not just pick friends or the people that 'sell the most' as your reasoning for including them.
And well.... I don't do art just to do it, I do it to 'say something'. I don't care if people think I'm keen or intelligent or anything else. At the end of the day I'm happy to have done a good show with good people, and to have had fun.
If anything the delusion is not the fact I use themes to organize a show, but the belief that doing art and curating shows has any significance beyond the dimensions of my own little skull.
Posted by: Poor Al | décembre 13, 2007 08:51 AM
Al, while I don't believe the organizers pulled the title out of a grab bag (or played a game of exquisite corpse) - we have to assume they've done their job of visiting each artist's studio - I wonder about the "institutional" need to connect the dots via a group showing of artists by bringing a "higher" meaning to their output then what may or may not be there in terms of a trend, movement or collective vision. Setting the bar with such a bold and elusive statement seems almost an act of embarassment, the end justifying the means or in this case, the title justifying an exhibit's content. The focus is momentarially taken off the artwork and verbally skewed into "what it could be or what it is meant to say" instead of looked at for what it is.
It could be on the other hand, a simple PR ploy to attract as many inquiring minds as possible by the promise of intellectual discourse and moral and ethical jockeying that such a profane vague statement suggests. Only art world denizens could come up with such fodder.
Posted by: Kevin Freitas | décembre 13, 2007 05:35 PM