Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/193668
Bryan Granger 2012-13 Knight Curatorial Fellow, Bass Museum of Art "Though he's not an artist or designer, I've always been fascinated with the writings of Marshall McLuhan. In the 1960s, McLuhan published a series of books discussing the way in which media shapes modern life. His writings really advocate for a different way of thinking, one that characterizes new advances in technology—starting with the spoken word and ending with automation—as media that act as extensions of human beings. For instance, the spoken word serves as an extension of non-verbal thought and bridges the divide between two people, allowing them to communicate ideas and feelings. Likewise, air travel affords us greater access to distant places, effectively collapsing the great expanses between cultures and continents. His thinking anticipated several aspects of the Internet-dominated age we live in today, and it would be wise to keep his critical views in mind as we navigate our way through these increasingly complex times." José Carlos Diaz Curator of Exhibitions, Bass Museum of Art "I would choose to work with the Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury because of her attachment to material culture. Her body of work ruptures artistic convention by investigating consumerism, history and pop culture in a seductive but re-con- ceptualized way. What appears to be the worship of mundane luxury items is often a clever jab at the male-dominated art world of the 20th and 21st centuries. Her performance piece (later a video), Walking on Carl Andre, cleverly showed high-heeled feet walking all over his minimalist floor sculptures." Elizabeth Shannon 2013-14 Knight Curatorial Fellow, Bass Museum of Art "While she's not strictly an artist or a designer, I'd have welcomed the opportunity to work with art critic and writer Elizabeth McCausland (1899-1965). She has never achieved the level of recognition that she deserves, and it would be fascinating to see how her ideas would stand up when applied to contemporary art. McCausland wrote a long-running arts column for the Springfield Republican, a Massachusetts newspaper, which enabled her to establish relationships with Alfred Stieglitz and his circle during the 1920s. The extent of McCausland's intellectual and emotional involvement in the arts suggests that she would have liked to have been an artist—an ambition that might be achievable in today's art world. Her articles, exhibitions and correspondence attest to her sympathy with artists and her deep investment in socially-engaged artwork, as well as her search for a creative outlet through which to fully express her concepts about art. Occasionally McCausland succeeded in putting her ideas into action (for instance by collaborating with her then-partner, photographer Berenice Abbott, on several photobooks including "Changing New York." A number of McCausland's major projects remained unfinished at her death: she seems not to have completed a single piece of work of sufficient stature to demonstrate her capabilities, resulting in her comparatively low profile." Tobias Ostrander Chief Curator, Rene Morales Curator, Diana Nawi Associate Curator Perez Art Museum Miami "Our team thought that Lygia Clark was an artist that we would love to have to worked with. The evolution of her practice—emerging from a tradition of flat, geometric abstraction and moving into the participatory, and later into psychological and therapeutic investigations—is one that is both deeply personal for the artist but also reflective of critical trends in 20th century art-making. Her exploration of the transformative power of form and commitment to the meaningful potential of art in the world seem especially relevant in this moment." Curator Culture, a lecture series, begins October 18 with a panel discussion at the Bass featuring these 13 curators. CULTURED 59