MAeX Art Blog

Miami Art Machine?

You must read this entire article. While locally it's not news but, I think it has been explained more robustly here. As long as I'm living in Miami (area) I have a vested interest in what's going on here. This is certainly on the upper end of any existing list(s) floating about town.

Craig Robins with some of his art: Thomas Scheibitz's Eingang and Deborah Thomas chandelier.  

(Photo: Iran Issa Kahn)

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Psst! Art Students!

Psst! Art Students!:

"Kids, c’mon. Check out a little history before you go epataying le bourgeoisie.

I want to save everybody some time and effort here. You don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel, do you? For all you Aliza Shvarts wannabes, scan the following list before you start your next art piece. Most of the good ideas have already been taken."

(Via The Chronicle: Brainstorm.)

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Three cheers for “normative” Yale

There has certainly been a mountain of chatter about one Yale University student's thesis project. I've read lots of it, good, bad, and ugly. While not teaching any such graduating students myself, I wonder what I would have said if such a project had been proposed to me? Knowing my own reactions when students do come up with wild ideas, I probably would have been against it but, I'm also willing to let students slept in the bed of their own making even if they've soiled the sheets.

Three cheers for “normative” Yale:

"In the post below I wrote that Aliza Shvarts ‘probably knew she wasn’t having abortions’ and that her project was likely the result of laziness and lack of imagination abetted by faculty irresponsibility. Looks like I spoke too soon. Ms. Shvarts has written an op-ed insisting, despite Yale’s reassurances to the contrary, that she did [...]"

(Via The New Criterion.)

Yale U. Says Student Must Acknowledge Her Artwork Is Fiction

I was talking to several students over the past couple of days because it's time for finals. Two of them are planning "performance art" works with a high dose of conceptualism. One of them is a former student that I have told he needs to confront himself and make his work have more authority and authenticy, something he seemed to lack for much of his work. He's a good student and I support him totally even if his work fails to reach its mark because, he's sincerely working at it. I also remind him to do more research because without it, one might look uninformed and be vulnerable to harsh critique.

Yale U. Says Student Must Acknowledge Her Artwork Is Fiction:

"A Yale University art student who has claimed that she videotaped her own self-induced abortions will not be allowed to display an art project about the abortions unless she acknowledges that the project is 'fiction,' university administrators announced today.

The project, by Aliza Shvarts, a senior art major at Yale, started an uproar on the campus and in the blogosphere, and a debate over whether her project should be protected by artistic freedom. It is supposed to go on display [22 April, 2008] in Yale’s Holcombe T. Green Jr. Hall. Ms. Shvarts has created confusion and angered Yale officials by telling Yale’s student newspaper that the abortions really happened, but then acknowledging to administrators that the project was merely 'performance art.'

Experts differ sharply on whether a planned art exhibit on abortion goes beyond what anyone intended in terms of guarding the right to free expression at universities."

(Via Chronicle.com - Today's News.)

Interview: How Cellphones Change the Way People (students) Learn

Interview: How Cellphones Change the Way People Learn:

"Rich Ling argues that cellphones strengthen ties with users’ close friends and family, but might also narrow people’s understanding of the world by limiting interactions with strangers. Mr. Ling is an adjunct research scientist at the University of Michigan and a research scientist for Telenor, a Norwegian telecommunications company. He’s author of a new book, New Tech, New Ties: How Mobile Communication Is Reshaping Social Cohesion (MIT Press, 2008).

Q. How are cellphones reshaping social connections?

A. If you think about social networks, there can be strong ties and there can be weak ties. The mobile phone is really an instrument for the intimate sphere — your closest family and your closest friends. But weak ties are also extremely important because that’s where you get information about important things. If you only spoke with your strong ties, you just hear the same things being echoed back and forth.

Q. What does that mean for a college setting?

A. It raises questions about emancipation. I grew up in Colorado and went to college in Boulder. It wasn’t that far away from home, but I hardly ever called home. I would come home every other weekend just to do my laundry or something like that. It was only like an hour’s drive. But I understand that college students now call their parents quite often, several times a day. So how is the child’s emancipation from their parents going? Are they establishing themselves as independent individuals that are ready to go out into the world on their own?

Q. Does text messaging have a different impact?

A. It’s sort of under the radar. Quite often when I’m lecturing, halfway through the class I’ll say, ‘How many of you guys have gotten a text message since you’ve been here?’ And a third of the class or something raises their hand. It’s kind of interesting that their social world is going on in the background while they’re more or less paying attention to the lecture.

Q. More or less?

A. Yeah, hopefully more. They kind of sort of zone in and out. And that’s sort of an interesting aspect of it. It’s not very interruptive; it goes on in the background.

Q. Can that be disruptive though?

A: There are all kinds of awkward social dynamics associated with having to deal with the mobile phone."—Jeffrey R. Young

(Via The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog.)

In my classes students mostly have their phones off and very little disruption takes place. That's because it's a studio/ lab and students can go outside to talk on the phone. We have, at various times, talked about the phone's influence but, I think it's only one of many things that allow the student to be unengaged with the learning process unless, of course, that student is really interested in learning. Just that fact reduces the number of serious students dramatically compared with those who are just floating by.

Broward AEI, Artist Entrepreneur Institute

Broward Cultural Division's AEI - Artist Entrepreneur Institute had its second of four weekends on saturdy. I presented a training module on Communication Strategies for Artists. I prepped some documents for the participants with worksheet for them to answer some questions. Only two of fifty people answered it. Was that because they didn't have time or some other reason?

I made up my own presentation document for a printed guide to follow to stay on track. I purposefully talked more about the internet as a place that artists can market, and promote with, rather than TV or radio, older forms of mass communication.

I knew that there would be many in attendance that would have little knowledge of the internet and, didn't use it much other than for surfing and email. I spent a lot of time trying to define what the internet is and how to use it with various web applications: web sites, blogs, email. news readers, Craigslist, eBay, and various social networking applications. For some, it opened their horizons; for others, it meant more questions.

The result for me were several requests to have a presentation solely on the internet and web applications. I'll have to try and plan something but it will have to now wait until late May or early June.

Broward Cultural Division's AEI - Artist Entrepreneur Institute has two more sessions. If you want an in depth view of what it takes to be a professional artist, take this course next time it is offered. It's so worth the cost and more.

'Pivot Points' at MOCA

Oh gawd, I remember some of the first items I saw in MoCA's collection. Some were very nice, others... well, let's say that was in the past. Since Bonnie Clearwater has taken on the curatorial role the collection has become one of the better ones in Florida as a whole. Some pieces are, obviously without equal.

Art Pick | 'Pivot Points' at MOCA:

"Launched in 1995, the permanent collection of works by international contemporary artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami focuses on art thats connected by concepts and methodology. The pieces mark important moments in the development of an artists career, and were turning points as well in the recent history of contemporary art. Starting this week, the museum is exhibiting its collection in two shows Pivot Points I: Defining MOCAs Collection and Part II / New Mythologies."

(Via MiamiHerald.com: Visual Arts.)

I was not able to attend the opening because I had to meet with a client late in the afternoon and then, needed to work on some documentation but, I will make it to this exhibition for sure.

If you have not done so please, start viewing our new blog over at www.miamiartexchange.com. Also check out the South Florida Artist Entrepreneurs blog while you're there.

A Director With an Eye for the Fresh and the Local

I cannot deny that Bonnie and Jim Clearwater were part of the reason I moved back to Miami after having moved away for a few years. Ms. Clearwater has been very supportive of a number of my projects including, my art. And, although Miami Art Museum has fought longer for a new buidling, MoCA's efforts seemed, in the public view, a smoother journey.

My only disappointment has been that the attempts to create an art zone around the museum hasn't had the same success as Wynwood. Some of Wynwood's galleries moved from the MoCA area. In spite of those moves, MoCA has always been and, will remain a prime destination for some of the best of South Florida's art.

Cindy Karp for The New York Times

"Bonnie Clearwater, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, which is about to double in size."

BONNIE CLEARWATER recognized Miami’s potential to become an important arts center as far back as 1990, on a visit from Los Angeles. At the time, South Beach was a somewhat desolate spot on the cusp of revitalization, and a local collector and developer enticed Ms. Clearwater to work her magic discovering new talent in Miami as she had done on the West Coast.

“Craig Robins, who was just starting to develop the area, encouraged me to move to Miami Beach with the idea that my husband and I would help be catalysts to develop an art scene here,” said Ms. Clearwater, who with her husband, Jim Clearwater, had started the art-book publishing company Grassfield Press, which he still operates.

They made the move, and nearly two decades later, as the director and chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, Ms. Clearwater continues to animate the scene in this eclectic area, capitalizing on a lively community of artists and collectors as well as the crowds that the Art Basel fair brings every December.

Via: NYTimes.
(Also Via: Critical Miami.)

Museums Refine the Art of Listening

What are local museums doing to bring in more visitors? I know there are some efforts but, are those efforts bring in any measurable results?

Arts: Museums Refine the Art of Listening:

"While museum market research has been around for two decades, gathering data about visitors has never been as important, or as sophisticated, as it is now. As museums expand, they need more paying customers to cover ever-increasing costs. And they’re competing for those customers with local shopping malls, movie theaters, even grocery stores.

Now, besides the reliable techniques — focus groups, exit surveys and mail-in questionnaires — museums are exploring new ways to learn what visitors want. In Detroit, which spent $158 million on a renovation and gallery reinstallation project completed last fall, researchers visited local mothers in their homes to determine how to attract more families to the museum."

(Via NYT > Arts.)

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