Quotes

Citizenship

#2 SAVE
 THE 
SHRINKING 
PUBLIC 
DOMAIN. 
Public 
parks, 
schools, community 
centers–
everything 
public 
that 
is 
needed 
for 
affordable neighborhoods
–
are 
shrinking 
and getting 
privatized. 
At 
the neighborhood 
level, 
we 
need 
to 
protect 
and 
expand 
the commons. 
Keep 
the 
libraries 
open. 
Stop 
concessions 
from 
taking 
over 
the parks. Save 
neighborhood 
schools 
and 
keep 
them 
integrated 
and public. 
Don’t 
let 
services for 
the 
less 
fortunate
–
like 
soup kitchens 
and 
homeless 
shelters
–
be 
driven 
out 
by high 
rents.

By Tom Agnotti
(Via SB)

(One of) Five Things You Can Do to About Gentrification (in New York City)

Quote
Meta-Practice

“The fact that in only three of the 58 large-scale biennials examined here do women artists reach a 50 percent representation with men must invite further reflection on the current conditions under which women artists can express themselves in international forums and are able to realize their full potential as professionals.”

—Chin-tao Wu (from the 2012 conference, New Geographies of Feminist Art: China, Asia, and the World)

Chin-tao Wu: Missing in Action: Women Artists and Biennials

Quote
Values

Author and museum director Tom Finklepearl in conversation with artist Rick Lowe:

“Rick, quite frankly, you may look at things ten or fifteen times a day and see potential, but that is a tremendously optimistic outlook. Others might look ten times a day at the problems… and get depressed. But even for the most optimistic and active person, as you say, there is a difference between seeing potential and activating it.”

—Tom Finklepearl, What We Made: Conversations on Art and Social Collaboration (2013)

Optimistic thoughts and actions

Quote
Meta-Practice

“the market artists whose potential social worth is quite directly to serve the interests of the international clientele inhabiting the most rarefied of income heights, a highly paid service role to which several generations of artists have been trained to aspire.

But this is not the picture of ourselves that most of us artists, curators, critics wish to recognize…. The artistic imagination continues to dream of historical agency.”

—Martha Rosler, Culture Class, 2013, p 211

What artists want, per Martha Rosler, Culture Class

Quote
Research

“…the real force of wisdom lies in its timely deployment: not just what you say but when you say it, at the precise time the person you’re talking to needs to hear it.”

–Barry Schwabsky,  “Permission to Fail,” The Nation, January 21, 2014

[Isn’t that true of aesthetic experiences too? Mine included; especially as they relate to positive psychology or optimism.]

Timing is everything

Quote
Research

“All my work is based on the potentiality of trust. Though we rarely speak of trust in relation to art, a work of art may well be the ultimate expression of trust. It is as if we trust, for instance, that some inked piece of paper or painted canvas will receive us and speak truly about our world and its own. It is this space of trust that enables dialogue to unfold. Dialogue is a group of people freely reaching a place and verbally exchanging thoughts in a present and immediate way whilst listening, not only to others but also to themselves with others, then coming together and exchanging again, and after having left, coming together yet again. Such gathering is never spontaneous; still, it must be proposed.”

—Esther Shalev-Gerz, The Contemporary Art of Trusting Uncertainties and Unfolding Dialogues, Art & Theory Publishing.

–Esther Shalev-Gerz, The Trust Gap (2013)

Quote