Pierre Huyghe’s Variants (2021—) does not occupy space; it perpetuates it. The work takes as its foundation a complete 3D scan and model of a small island at the bend of the Randselva River in Norway. Biologists and surveyors then furnished this model with quantitative and qualitative measurements of the island’s organic and inorganic elements, such as the types of species, the water levels, the trash, and the sounds and smells. Biochemical and physical sensors are installed around the island to track the shifts in the island’s environment and funnel them into an artificial neural network, which generates from all collected data a continuously evolving and mutating simulation of the island, unfolding in real time on the large LED screen at the far end of the island.
“Once you leave the traditional constraints of anatomy behind, the way you deform can become a portrait of character or the inner psyche on a deeper level. This play with the human form marked the beginning of something new.” Renowned Romanian artist Adrian Ghenie is currently presenting two exhibitions at the Albertina and the Dresden Kupferstich-Kabinett. Working with a variety of materials and subjects, Ghenie explores the personal, the political, and the art historical, fusing these discourses into expressive abstract and figurative works of art across multiple mediums.
Artist
What are you trying to do with a portrait? On a basic level, you're trying to communicate something about the essence of who someone is. You're trying to figure out who they are, not necessarily who they present themselves as. The two things can quite often be different. You're trying to find ways of showing that through their face, their posture, or any other context. My instinct is always to try to reduce down to the essential elements. We read faces. It's obviously very, very deep in our DNA, really our survival instinct. We are programmed to read faces in a very fine-tuned way.
The Soul Trembles
The exhibition at the Grand Palais offers visitors a poetic immersion into her unique universe, where threads weave stories of human connection and the ephemeral nature of life. The visitor is taken on a journey into an ephemeral world where they are posed fundamental questions about life and death. The threads you follow are up to you, and each visitor must answer that question for themselves. Where are we going? Are you ready for the journey? What is a soul? What do you believe? Why did you go on this journey? What gives your life meaning?
Can silence be painted? How can artists capture interior states, solitude, and the passing of time? How are the homes we live in a reflection of the people who inhabit them? How can we read a painting to piece together the life of the artist?
How do experiences of migration, displacement, and alienation shape our identity and how we see the world? How is art a vehicle for preserving cultural memory, individuality, and collective identity? How can we challenge the erasure of marginalized voices in history?
Singer-songwriter · Documentary Filmmaker · Founder of The White Feather Foundation
Photographer/Author of Life’s Fragile Moments
I think a lot of joy comes from helping others. One of the things that I've been really focusing on is finding that balance in life, what’s real and what’s true and what makes you happy. How can you help other people feel the same and have a happier life? I think whatever that takes. So if that's charity, if that's photography, if that's documentary, if that's music, and I can do it, then I'm going to do it.
Conversation with MANUELA LUCÁ-DAZIO Exec. Director · Pritzker Architecture Prize
Fmr. Exec. Director · Venice Biennale · Dept. of Visual Arts & Architecture
When I started and I had to decide what to do in life - because I was working with museums, in exhibition design, and on the restoration of buildings - and then at some point, I had the chance to arrive at the Venice Biennale and my whole perspective changed. And it changed because I was working with living artists and architects. Until that moment, I was working around Old Masters, works in museums, and things that were there with the aura of history. And all of a sudden I was dealing with living architects and artists, and this was, for me, the most incredible experience. So I decided to leave all the rest, because I was doing quite a lot at the same time, and to concentrate on the Biennale.
Award-winning Photographer
Leica Hall of Fame Inductee · Recipient of the French Legion of Honor
I wouldn't be able to effectively delineate where my life ends and photography begins. They're one and the same. If my eyes are open, I'm seeing. If I'm seeing, I'm essentially in that valence within which, or from within which come the images. In that book, Self Exposure, one of the things I did realize as I was writing it: all autobiographies are chronological and anecdotal. That's the way they unfold. And I realized that there were certain decisions I had made along the way that were crucial. And there was really only a handful of them. But I was very fortunate because I had that initial desire to be a photographer. I don't even know if it was a desire. I think it was something much further beyond that. I would have to say it was more of a...I didn't really choose photography, it sort of chose me, you know. I mean, nolo contendere. I just did what I knew I had to do. There was a sense of devoir, you know, you just do it. Claude Lévi-Strauss the great social anthropologist has made this sort of thing clear: Society changes and with it the context through which we observe something has changed as well. And so I like the role of art in society and my relationship to my society and to art in my society. Now I'm interested in this phase of my life and how does the mind influence the mind?
Artist
The whole thing is to get them to feel like no matter where their background is from, the difficulty they have in their personal lives, the isolation that they feel in relationship to that, that within the art community they are embraced, they are welcomed. All they have to do is just keep getting better at it, but the community is there. I think that something we're all looking for is where we belong.
Artist · Environmentalist
Co-founder of The Church · Arts & Creativity Center
Co-director of Sag Harbor Cinema Board
I've chosen my work because I've loved the outside world. I love the things outside of myself. I love what isn't immediate to me. And I love projecting onto that as a way of kind of trying to reach the distance between my inner self and the vastness. To try to do that in a way that makes other people feel inspired by it, not be chided for not taking care of it. It's not something that I intend to be a message per se. I'd rather people look at the natural world and see the heartbreaking beauty of it and sense its fragility and its impermanence and their own impermanence and fragility and then have a response to that rather than say, you know, you have to act, you have to do something. I would hope that would inspire action rather than to cudgel them with a directive.
Conversation with JACQUES FRANCK · Art Historian for Louvre Museum & Armand Hammer Center for Leonardo Studies at UCLA
Da Vinci certainly must have been very well organized because you can't make so much work without a base in the organization of your life which is very strict. You can't go and penetrate such high intellectual spheres unless you're a man of good. Do you understand what I mean? To have some ideal of perfection, beauty, and humanity inside yourself…Art is art, and that's all. To me, art is the expression of beauty, and beauty is something like the sun, shall we say. An absolute.
Novelist and Essayist
The reason I think you should read in these other disciplines is because it will help you in your own work. Now I really mean that. I think what has happened with the fragmentation of disciplines is that when problems arise. ...the people working in the discipline are unable to see avenues out of the problem that they would easily see if they had worked through problems in other disciplines.
Conversation with DWANDALYN R. REECE, Ph.D.
Acting Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs
Curator of Music and Performing Arts
This museum, this institution has a long history and actually, the idea of a museum goes back to maybe 100 years ago when Civil War veterans wanted a monument recognizing the service and the sacrifice of African Americans during the war effort. It wasn't until the mid-late 80s when congressman John Lewis with some other colleagues started to bring forth the idea that the Smithsonian needed to have a presence to recognize the significance and contributions of African Americans to the history of this country.
Conversation with Director SUSAN FISHER STERLING
I came to work at the National Museum of Women in the Arts thirty-two years ago. I really took to the idea that the museum was controversial, that a lot of men said, "Why do you need a women's museum? There are so many other museums. Why do women have to be separated?"
Photographer
I always tell people the worst picture can ever take is one you don't take. And that is a simple philosophy. If you don't go out there and do the work, then you will never know. You may think there's going to be another great snowstorm. You might think there's going to be another great moment where a block is going to have a certain kind of rhythm or a culture is going to have a certain amount of innocence or a musician is going to be as reluctant or vulnerable or sympathetic. You just have to embrace the moment and do the work.
Conversation with MECHTILD RÖSSLER · Director 2015-2021
It's a very unique instrument. It has now 193 countries, which have ratified it. The idea of this convention is really unique because it is about heritage of outstanding universal value.
Conversation with Fmr. Chief Curator Richard Flood
International Leadership Council and Ideas City Initiative
When you're looking, really look very, very hard at the new. Look very, very hard at what challenges you. If you're bothered by it, go deeper. So it was "Don't take the easy way out and say 'I love that'. 'Why do you love it?' 'I just feel it.' No, unacceptable. Just feeling it is not enough, if you're a responsible party. If you're a member of the public, fine, have whatever kind of experience you want, but if you're a professional, know why you're doing it.
Conversation with Director Ian Wardropper
I firmly believe that the arts should be a part of everybody's education. It's not just learning the history of art, but it's about opening up creativity as a means that can be useful to somebody throughout one's life.
Conversation with Director & Chief Curator Valerie Steele
Like many of us, I was always personally interested in fashion as a means of communication and masquerade, but it was in graduate school when a classmate of mine did a report on two scholarly articles about the Victorian corset that I suddenly had an epiphany, and I realized that fashion was a part of culture, and I could study fashion history.
Curator · Writer · Artistic Director of Serpentine Galleries
I’ve always thought that curating has to do with junction making. I’m always thinking of ways to bring people together and make connections between different worlds. I think, if we want to address the big question or challenges of the 21st century, it's very important that we go beyond the fear of pooling knowledge and move beyond these silos of knowledge to bring the different disciplines together.
Founder of The Creative Process
What is very important to me is to create work that is meaningful, to reach beyond my particular concerns to speak to others and their concerns and interests, to do something that inspires the next generation and which is larger than myself.
Award-Winning Photographer & Filmmaker
Executive Director of Vital Impacts
When are we all going to start to care about one another? Because all of our individual choices do have impacts. And I just think the demands that we place on this planet, on the ecosystems, are what are driving conflict and human suffering. In some cases, it's really the scarcity of resources, just like water. In others, it's the changing climate and the loss of fertile lands to be able to grow food. But in the end, it's always the people living in these places that really suffer the most. All of my work today, it’s not really about wildlife, and it's not just about people either. It's about how deeply interconnected all of those things are. People and the human condition are the backdrop of every one of the stories on this planet.
Artist
I think to pursue mystery and beauty, these things are a bit subjective, so you can't really tell people exactly what it shouldn't be about. And also I have to preserve these things for myself. I primarily make the work for myself, so if I don't have some questions that are unanswered, even for me, then there's not really an interest to like keep going otherwise. So it's also sort of protection and a preservation mindset that I have about leaving things really open for other people and for myself.
Artist, Musician, Poet
Author of Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossroads
Jean-Michel Basquiat's combination of words and images, this visual poetry, just from a cultural standpoint has been so important. When I met him in 1983, black people were not allowed in the art market, pretty much. And you see that he broke down this barrier, which opened the door for all this multiculturalism within the art market. And you can't diminish the importance of that at all. It's helped to give a voice and an audience to all these incredible artists that might not have had that.
Electronic Musician · Fmr. Computational Biologist
As technology becomes more dominant, the arts become ever more important for us to stay in touch the things that the sciences can't tackle. What it's actually like to be a person? What's actually important? We can have this endless progress inside this capitalist machine for greater wealth and longer life and more happiness, according to some metric. Or we can try and quantify society and push it forward. Ultimately, we all have to decide what's important to us as humans, and we need the arts to help with that. So, I think what's important really is just exposing ourselves to as many different ideas as we can, being open-minded, and trying to learn about all facets of life so that we can understand each other as well. And the arts is an essential part of that.
Pinaree Sanpitak is one of the most compelling and respected Thai artists of her generation, and her work can be counted among the most powerful explorations of women’s experience in all of Southeast Asia. Her primary inspiration has been the female body, distilled to its most basic forms and imbued with an ethereal spirituality. The quiet, Zen-like abstraction of her work owes something to her training in Japan and sets it somewhat apart from the colorful intensity of much Thai art. Her rigorous focus on the female form, explored through a variety of media – painting, drawing, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, performance, and culinary arts, to name but a few – has resulted in an astoundingly varied and innovative body of work. For the past twenty years, a central motif in her work has been the female breast, which she relates to imagery of the natural world and to the iconic forms of the Buddhist stupa (shrine) and offering bowl. Often called a feminist or Buddhist artist, she resists such easy categorizations, preferring to let her work speak to each viewer directly, to the heart and soul, with the most basic language of form, color, and texture. Her work is not lacking in a conceptual framework, but it is one informed primarily by a deeply felt spiritual sense rather than by rigid dogmas or ideological constructs.
FX Harsono, one of Indonesia’s most revered contemporary artists, has been a central figure of the Indonesian art scene for over 40 years. In 1975, he was among a group of young artists who founded Indonesia’s Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru (New Art Movement), which emphasized an experimental, conceptual approach, the use of everyday materials, and engagement with social and political issues.
Conversation with Lewis B. & Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator Alicia Longwell
There's such a metaphysical moment when these images are created on a surface. In three dimension on a flat surface, it's kind of a head-scratcher to start. So great art has a transcendent moment.
Sculptor · Environmentalist · Creator of Underwater Museums
The sculptures get claimed and almost owned by the sea. And the textures that form the patterns, all things that could never be reproduced by human hands. And it's entirely unpredictable in many cases. I go to some of the "museums" expect to see this type of colonization or this type of growth, and it's nothing like how I've seen it envisaged it. It's completely different. Other times something has been made at its home, and there's an octopus that's built a house around it, or there's a school of fish that have nestled within the formations. There have been many, many different surprises along the way. I first started in the West Indies on an island called Grenada, which has a tropical reef system. And I expected the works to be sort of colonized. And I knew hard corals took a very long time to get established, to build their calcium skeletons, but actually, they were colonized within days. We saw white little calcareous worms, pink coraline algae, and green algae literally appeared sort of overnight.
I was going to upload images of my sculpture but I’m not certain if you deal with 3D works of art. I was curious to see your invite on Instagram because I have spoken on a handful or podcasts on the topic of creativity, so I was interested. Cheers.
What stands out most about this project is the appreciation that is being expressed towards artists of all backgrounds and generations. The non discriminatory nature of this project truly allows us to resonate with each other in a non judgmental manner, thus further examining what it truly means to make art and put it out into the world.
The arts are an important format of expression, leading us to thoughtful discussions about social and internal matters. Reflective of the evergoing diversity and culture our experiences reflect a nuanced human experience, coherent of messages and artistic freedom. Subjective in matter the space promotes an abundance of ideas praised uniquely and universally, an amalgamation of existing ideals, prescient to the manner of expression and exploration. An eternal monologue, externally conformed, drawing on the experiences of displacement, heritage, and culture, a voice beyond the uncertainty and chaotic matter.
Once, long ago, I asked a taxi driver to tell me the worst thing about his job. I expected him to complain about the long hours or mechanical problems. Waiting to stop at a red light before answering, he said, ’The worst thing about my job is that I never hear the end of the story. People enter my taxi halfway through their conversation and leave without finishing it.’ I often think about that taxi driver and how the fragments of a story inspired me the most. I want my work to feel open-ended, like a snapshot of a much bigger tale, a springboard for one’s imagination to go on an unexpected ride.
My inspiration behind Tulip Tapestry is how complex and beautiful fallen petals can be, the juxtaposition of the delicate, still vibrant tulip petals in their curled and withered state, with the mould dust adding a layer of complexity, is representative of nature’s cyclical rhythm, offering a deep appreciation for the beauty in decay. How hidden beauty can be found in unexpected places.
I am a writer and a fine art photographer. My heart has been broken by the state of the world, and I started to post my photography on Instagram under the title- “The World is Still Beautiful.” I was doing this mostly for me, to buck myself up, but I noticed that others actually responded strongly to my photos and the phrase. There have been terrible days, when it has been hard to say it- but those days seem to be the ones that people need the reminder most. Mother Nature is a balm. I am not trying to ignore or run away from the reality of what is going on- politically, ecologically, etc- merely realize the need to reboot- to feed ones soul- to gather strength and energy, to go back out and fight against the evil. Without this respite, we would surely burn out. Many of my shows have touched on the theme of the environment. My last show at the Von Lintel gallery was called Water Water Everywhere- from the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner- and spoke to the fact that Water was on most peoples minds as there was either too much or too little. To illustrate this point, at the end of February, I am having a show in Valencia Spain- Inside will be my Story Series- but outside the whole museum will be wrapped with my work. That outside show was originally going to be Water Water Everywhere- but after the devastating flood there, it felt insensitive- So I changed the wrap (20ft x238 ft and 20 ft x 80 ft) to “Look Up! Look Up!! . The wrap consists of my bird series and Skies, two of which I am sharing here.- Look up is also meant as a form of encouragement, as the people in Valencia Spain try to rebuild after the flook-death and destruction. My work is both representational and Abstract- all at the same time- I did a show called On the Edge- meaning On the edge of abstraction.
The creative process is vital to humanity, as it is the vehicle by which we communicate and connect with one another: something that is more important than ever in our increasingly isolating society. My work mingles textiles and sewing arts techniques with watercolor and ink, embroidery, crochet and knitting, loom-woven grounds, mediums overlapping as if done simultaneously, and exploring the historical tradition of “women’s work.” The process is at once tedious, time-consuming and physically demanding, as well as a symbol of feminine self-worth.
The arts and humanities are essential to the human experience, serving as a bridge between cultures, generations, and ideas. They provide a space for reflection, innovation, and emotional connection, shaping our understanding of history, society, and ourselves. The Creative Process resonates deeply with me because it not only celebrates artistic expression but also fosters interdisciplinary collaboration, which is crucial in deepening our appreciation of art’s transformative power. The interplay of fragility and strength is at the core of my artistic practice. I chose to work with eggshells—an unconventional and delicate medium—because it mirrors the fragility of life itself. Through my art, I seek to reveal the exquisite beauty within vulnerability, transforming ephemeral materials into lasting expressions of resilience and transformation. This philosophy deeply aligns with The Creative Process, as both celebrate the ways in which art challenges perceptions, evokes deep emotional responses, and inspires new ways of seeing the world. By exploring themes of impermanence, renewal, and interconnectedness, I aim to create work that not only captivates but also invites reflection on the delicate balance between strength and fragility in both nature and human experience.
The underworld is not separate,
there lies the map of the quicksands of denial,
and the bedrock of reality.
Crawl, walk,
then run, to the new
life that awaits you.
My dual training and my dual experience as an artist and a psychiatric caregiver very early on allowed me to measure the importance and effects of access to artistic practices in the life course of people suffering from mental disorders. I'm talking about the meeting of people with an artist around an artistic project and not art therapy. This was a large part of my commitments during my career in psychiatry.
Art and culture can answer, of course, many questions of human existence. From preserving memory to uniting people of different views in the space of aesthetics. It serves as a method of cognizing oneself and the other. It unites and creates reasons for discussion. Art is present in every sphere of human life. Perhaps we can also say that art shows and indicates that a human being was present here. In this sense, supporting culture, developing culture, and inspiring people to explore and experience life creatively is a way to preserve humanity and increase its humanness.
Art in any of its manifestations is the form of the human being in which he shows his soul. It shows its legacy, the interior and it is the art and the observation of art that makes you prepetuen ideas, concepts, illusions. The creativity of being is the ultimate expression of what we are capable of doing.
The War Diary Series was conceived as an artistic project during the War Crisis in Ukraine.
The brief writing, which is detailed here, belongs to the events that occurred at that time, in real time.
The Creative Process' mission to celebrate the transformative power of the arts deeply resonates with my practice. As an artist, I strive to explore the boundaries between the real and the imagined, the visible and the hidden, fostering introspection and a connection to shared human experiences.
The creative process is deeply important to me because it is the very essence of humanity—an international language that transcends barriers of culture, age, and circumstance. I witness daily how creativity fosters joy, understanding, and connection in my workshops. Art has an incredible ability to heal, offering solace and expression where words often fail. It’s a process that reminds us of our shared humanity and innate ability to create beauty, even in the face of challenges.
Eden, as an idea, is woven into the fabric of human existence. The idea of home and sanctuary cross cultures. Navigating across seas, through forest, over mountains, along sandy shores to collectively reside as a longing in our hearts. In my Eden, I walk the labyrinth of a unique place, a water world sparkling in nostalgia of her decadent past. Sunlight greets moonlight dancing along the tide, keeping me buoyed.
The arts are important because we express the beauty of being human within it. That capability of creating out of ideas and materials is precious. And I believe that this is what constitutes us, or better, what defines us. Maybe some people do this job in somehow more expressive and outstanding manner. Still, the creative process begins its motion every time that we look at the sky, we pay attention to a human expression, or we care about Nature. It is precisely there when the magic begins.
Artist identify things that are being experienced consciously or unconsciously by their audience, like putting a melody or face to it.
For the painting (Desert Spring 72 x 58 x 1.5" o/c) I've submitted, my inspiration comes from my experience in West Texas, at a place I visit frequently. A place where I used to consider the edge of the desert I now consider a desert.
The arts and the creative process allow us to connect to our human essence, the sacred, the mysteries of life. Art speaks a universal language that bridges and elevates our well-being as individuals and as communities. The Creative Process is a beautiful and important register of creativity from all around the world, featuring people of diverse backgrounds and lived experiences. I am so proud to have been selected to be part of this inspiring and important project. What stands out to me the most about it is not just how well curated it is, but the fact that this has been accomplished within an equitable, welcoming and all-encompassing framework. I would love to see this project expand even further by also becoming a full-length video documentary detailing its history and achievements.
The creative process is important because it allows us time to look, take in, distill; and ingest the visual world. As an artist and art educator, above all, I want to inspire my students to understand what it means to notice and wonder. Whether I am sharing images of the magic of the sunset, or asking my students to notice the subtle bend of a flower’s stem, or the gentle spirals in a seashell, I am constantly taking the time to encourage my students to pause and take notice. Exploration is essential to art making and allows us to express ourselves and our individuality. I also believe that these skills are easily transferable to other aspects of life. By encouraging risk taking and exploration, we gain confidence and learn how to solve problems. Through the creative process we learn how to work through obstacles and find alternative solutions, and we can begin to understand that there is not one way to make art, just as there is not one way to approach a challenge
A lot of the work that I work with is based on my memory as a survivor of the Lebanese civil war.
Beirut is a very layered city, having been destroyed now eight times, it was previously destroyed seven times. And so it was first settled 5000 years ago. So throughout the city, you see these layers of history. You see these Roman excavations. And so it makes a lot of sense for me to layer the canvas in a certain way, so that as I am layering, I'm also excavating and I'm erasing and I'm digging into the surface. And so there are a lot of things to consider when making an image. I always tell my students, when you're painting, you're not coloring in. It's a lifelong learning experience to understand the material of paint.
Artist
I just feel there is already a connection, something I have to come to, but that I'm trying to search it out or see what's already there. I feel that we are truly connected as a world. And I'm just trying to make people aware of an existing connection we already have, to send that message out there. And I like to do it in the form of...I guess you'd call it a mundane image, where it's not really about bells and whistles, but it's about something in it makes you want to look, and you want to know why. And it's because you've been there before, regardless of whether you are a dancer or that particular guy in the subway, you know you've been in his head in that mood that he's experiencing.
Artist
I think it is a job for artists, not all artists, but I think it's a job for artists to acknowledge that culture can make a difference towards these things and can hold people more accountable. Australians, myself included, grow up in this state of amnesia because what happened is that the British stole the land from the Aboriginal people. We made up a fiction, the fiction of Terra nullius. And then we basically disclaimed any relationship that the Aboriginal people had to the land. The National Day in Australia is the day marked by colonization, which is shameful. So that's another long conversation. And I think that, whether things are better or worse in the United States, but I do know that is the conversation that has only just begun in Australia. And there's a new openness that never has been before.
Conversation with Director & Curator of Greg Kucera Gallery
My curatorial vision lies somewhere between beauty and politics. The art I most admire gravitates between those poles and sometimes touches both. Beauty is harder to pin down because many works I admire may not seem lovely to others. I am drawn now to art that is increasingly formal and spare. Art that makes a powerful statement of contemporary commentary often has the power to move me.
Actress · Artist · Director · Producer · Writer
House M.D. · Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce · Little Bird · The West Wing · The Kominsky Method
I have always thrown myself into everything, and that includes terrible things, because I want to have the whole experience. Even if I know it's going to hurt for better or for worse, that has been how I've lived my life. And so it's given me a lot of information and allowed me to play a lot of different roles and understand a lot of different points of view. I think part of the beauty of being in a long-running television show is that, in season one, you're playing the role they wrote. By season two, they're writing the person you're playing. You start to build your voice, and they start to merge, and so by the time you get to season three, you're much more like full human beings having this dialogue.
Artist & Environmentalist
I have this idea art should be in the world in as many forms and ways as possible, and I love communicating with skate decks… It partially started out in Brazil because what I was doing in Brazil is x-raying animals in the Amazon and I thought there was this idea in the old days that you’d go to the Amazon, you’d kill an animal, stuff it, bag it, and then you’d have this trophy of your kill. The alligators that we x-rayed were alive. I got them from a zoo in a town called Belem, which means Bethlehem in Portuguese.
Conversation with Elissa Auther
Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs & Chief Curator
So the Museum of Arts and Design historically, for me, is part of a New York avantgarde scene. It's just that it was dedicated to artists working in these historically-marginalized materials. And it continues to do that. That mission has never changed.
Artist in Light, Sculpture & Sound
Nature is my home because. It doesn't matter where I am. It’s available and it's there and it's always giving me the same sort of nourishment. All of us have had to develop a sense of home elsewhere. With me in particular, I've been traveling and living in different countries for the last 20 years since I was 22, so it's not even that I've had a geographical place that is my new home because I've moved around every four years. I'm in a new place a new community and new friends, so nature is my home.
Conversation with Executive Director Tanner Woodford
Tanner Woodford is founder and executive director of the Design Museum of Chicago. He teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and paints large scale typographic murals across public spaces. As a designer, educator, and entrepreneur, he has taught, lectured, and led workshops on design issues, social change, and design history in classrooms and at conferences. He is happy to be scrappy, irrepressibly optimistic, and believes design has the capacity to fundamentally improve the human condition. He lives and works in Chicago, Ill.
Conversation with General Manager ELENI NOMIKOU & Communications Director & PANTELIS MITSIOU
The Museum Herakleidon was founded in 2004 by Mr. and Mrs. Firos and extends to two buildings in the historic district of Thissio, next to the Acropolis, the Ancient Agora and the Temple of Hephaestus. The first building is located at 16 Herakleidon str. and the second one 150 meters further, at 37 Ap. Pavlou str., one of the busiest pedestrian streets of Athens.
Conversation with CHRISTINA MOSSAIDES STRASSFIELD
Museum Director & Chief Curator 2002-2023
I think that what you're doing is definitely offering a service to so many people and letting them explore various forms of creativity and how you can use that creativity to enhance the world. I don't mean it in a highfalutin way, but I think that art does influence the world on many different levels. On a daily level, but on a more global level.
Choreographer & Media Artist
Choreography is always, also, a Visual Art…
The etymology of crisis is very productive and constructive because krísis in the Greco-Roman etymology is what happens when there is a germ in the body, so this heat from the krísis creates fever, and fever and the breaking of fever tends to flush out the germ. Healing the germ through crisis is the etymology. And crisis gave birth and rebirth to criticism. Criticism and crisis have the same root word.
Conversation with Author Gabrielle Selz
The story of San Francis, his ascent towards art, health, fame, light, and life, begins like all stories of rebirth: with death.
Photographer · Shinnecock Indian Tribe
You don't need to know every single battle or every single treaty or every single Native American historical moment. Everything else will come to you as you want to learn more and just appreciate more of your own personal history.
Artist and Researcher
It has always seemed to me that as a South African and Namibian artist that there was not a choice to not explore colonial migrations, apartheid histories and white privilege. The past shapes the present and I have always wanted to better understand how South African society has been formed.
Conversation with Bénédicte Alliot · Director General
The Cité Internationale des Arts was founded in 1965. It welcomes artists from all over the world, including France, and it's been doing that ever since, on a regular and growing basis since 1965. It hosts 326 artists, writers, curators, filmmakers, musicians, etc. 326 people at the same time on two sites.
Charles W. Engelhard Curator and Head of the Department of Drawings and Prints
The Morgan Library & Museum
So that idea of what the drawings tell us about the artist is another thing that's constantly interesting to me. You, maybe more so than a finished painting, get a sense of what problems an artist is trying to work out along the way.
Sculptor
I think direct contact with the material should be important to every sculptor because I think once you lose that it becomes a second hand process. It’s one of the reasons the casting process isn’t so interesting to me just because the final product, the final piece has not been touched by the artist. There’s no relationship with the mind that conceived the piece or designed it. I think something is lost when that happens. And it becomes something else.
19th International Surrealist Exhibition, Saint-Cirq-Lapopie
Surrealism was born in France in the wake of the First World War. An artistic, poetic, and philosophical investigation of the unconscious and the irrational, it aims to free the mind from convention and moral constraint in the pursuit of revolutionizing human experience. Contrary to popular opinion, the movement has never been part of the avant-garde. Far from an aesthetic of the bizarre, with which it is often conflated, Surrealism remains today what it was at its inception: a way of life.