I can't find a whole lot that's interesting from my usual sources this week, so I'm trying something new: Art Roulette! I'll pick an random city, Google its name next to the word "art," and choose something interesting from the results.
This week, Cleveland! The Cleve; the Forest City; the butt of so many 30 Rock jokes. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer (best newspaper name ever, by the way), a local gallery is shaking things up by questioning what art has to do with objects. Spaces gallery (an apt name if there ever was one) wants to bring art beyond the gallery space. Their most recent exhibit, "...in a most dangerous manner"--which unfortunately ended today--confronts economics, class, and power in texts, off-site installations, and events.
In my job at the MFA Boston, I field ever so many complaints from crusty longtime visitors about how so many things have Changed, capital C, and what a shame it is that things can't stay exactly the same as they were when they visited in [insert your favorite year here; I've heard everything from 1948 to 2006]. As for Spaces Gallery, I hope this experiment in boundary-pushing works out for them, because it's going to be difficult--even for fans of contemporary art--to walk into a favorite gallery and find that it doesn't include objects anymore (or at least not the sorts of objects they're used to).
That being said, though "art without objects" is a high concept to grasp, Spaces is making room (haha) for participation and hopefully increased accessibility. Not confident in your ability to talk about contemporary art? The gallery sponsors outings ("Space Invasions") to area museums for group discussion and critique. Always aspired to be an artist yourself, but not sure where to start? Join Corrie Slawson's Work Party as she transforms vacant midtown industrial spaces and assembles found objects from the lots back in the gallery. It sounds like so much fun, it almost makes me want to move to Cleveland! Cool roundup of the project here.
But the only downside to art without images is that I couldn't find a relevant image to put on this here blog post. So I'm all bland and black-and-white today. Blame Spaces--or fist-bump them? Hmm.
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