Q.
An audience member during the morning session “Past, Present, Place” asked a question addressing the community-based participation (or lack thereof) of the artists (artist community)…The question was deferred until the afternoon session.
Artist Mario Ybarra, Jr. was the sole respondent. He related experiences of the collaborative process of working with other artists in his studio...
As fellow artist/educator, there are salient differences between collaboration and community. My understanding of the question, as it was posed, referred to artmaking and artist (community) as a form of civic engagement--not individual artist or crew toiling in the studio. In the interest of forms of authentic civic engagement, l strongly believe that this notion/strategy deserves to be teased out much further. From my experiences as both art educator in museums for the last 15 years and artist, I know people (the public) can be included or excluded through their participation in the discourse. Viewers gain power by having their discourse adopted and viewed as legitimate by those who have power.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
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2 comments:
hi xavier, i wasn't at any of the discussions in the afternoon but i do know mario ybarra's "studio" was actually a community center he named "slanguage". he held art classes for youth in the neighborhood (wich i taught at a few times), had art exhibitions with people from the neighborhood (wilmington, ca) and brought together artists from outside of wilmington to come and give talks to the audience at slanguage. in essesnce his studio was a community center and his art piece was "slanguage" the center and there was no seperation between his art practice and working with the community. i believe that is what he probably was talking about. i know most of the artists in the exhibition are educators, not just in an academic school setting but at various art/community centers as well, myself included teaching after school art classes at self help graphics.
shizu,
thank you--it does clarify this query for myself and others. Unfortunately, Mario probably did not discuss this aspect given the time constraints on the day of the symposium. Nevertheless, when answering the question, he spoke metaphorically of being in a band and each member of the band (studio) being able to "cut solo records" as recognition followed--Mario being the first. It is easy to see how this analogy would give the impression of collaboration and not necessarily community engagement...
I know several people who are not thoroughly familiar with his work feeling the question was not answered or sidestepped...however, your addition should clear some of this up.
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