LEFT - mock up for possible invite

HERE IS THE TIMETABLE FOR THE SHOW WE COMMITTED TO AT DCAC -

Provide information for press releas/binder: April 13

Installation: April 30 and May 1, 2008

Opening Reception: May 2, 2008

Dismantle exhibition: Sunday, May 11 (evening -while the gallery is closed) or Monday May 12, 2008

Hello - for discusions sake I am posting my first short semester paper, seeing it's about

~the relationship between art & school (relevent to Learnapalooza),
~I kind of take a stab at DC, which is kind of unlike me - but after a decade of not leaving the city very often I am becoming more and more convinced that we need a non-federal, relatively independant CONTEMPORARY MUSEUM in this city (which is relevent to maintaining and growing the arts and artists in the city)
~uses the New Museum's program "Night School" to introduce this facinating guy Anton Vidokle, I am most impressed that I have found THREE collections of essays that he has participated in published online as PDFs - and think in the future that even if we cannot pay to create 'catalogs' for whatever we do - we should definately consider using this online psoting of pdf books method - especially as we have some design people with some crazy skills that could make an online pdf look really hot and print really nice.

recess is over...Karen

Sleepless in DC because of “Night School”



Sleepless not because of the eleventh hour push to get assignments done or worrying about grades, but sleepless thinking about a program going on for the entire year of 2008 at the New Museum in New York City; called “Night School”, the program is commissioned from artist Anton Vidokle by the New Museum and the core offering to the public is four days of seminars at the end of every month which are run and moderated by more than a dozen artists, writers and contemporary thinkers. Much more than just a program of public seminars, the New Museum’s literature relates and expands on the format of a “temporary school” where museums, organizing contributors, twenty-five hand selected core students and the interested public facilitate extended critical engagement in contemporary art, institutions and the role of the artist ("Night School").

The yearlong “Night School” falls under and alongside the auspices of other new programs that coincide with the opening of the New Museum’s brand new building. The “Night School” organizers are counted as ‘fellows’ of a new program called Museum as Hub which will partner four international art organizations with the New Museum’s. All will implement programming in their locale on the agreed topic of ‘neighborhood’, cross planning and hosting the other institutions literally and virtually on their websites, and in exhibition spaces and education centers. Museum as Hub is described as a “new model for curatorial practice and institutional collaboration…to enhance our understanding of contemporary art around the world” ("Night School"). This interconnected tangle of programs and exhibitions seems cleverly formulated to perhaps for the first time cut into the maze of bias, nepotism, leading experts and arbiters of taste to rediscover what discovering art is: a very real desire to ‘get it’.

In Vidokle’s transcribed opening remarks for “Night School” he frighteningly states “while it is still possible to produce critical art object, there seems to be no public out there to complete its transformative function, possibly rendering the very premise behind contemporary art practice effectively futile” (2). He describes the subtle and complex historic difference between the socially engaged public of the past and the one of the present that seems to be degenerating into an audience that does not seek a role beyond “being consumers of leisure and spectacle” ("Vidokle" 2). This is a clear observation that should give pause to thought for all, not just artists.

What seems to be fundamental to the understanding of “Night School” as a commissioned work of art is that it is a work that finally gets around to exploring what has always been crucial to appreciating art, the process of engagement. Far from blockbuster exhibitions that have brought a whole world of paintings to billboards and covered city buses in advertising ‘skins’, “Night School” is designed to “aggressively solicit audiences…through advertisement” of its “content” not it’s “objects” ("Vidokle" 3). Like the adage “a workman is only as good as his tools” this far-reaching program does not shy away from the part of the system that works, but seeks to uproot the insidious and pervasive apathy of thought that approaches the practice of art and trappings of culture as just another commodity to be pigeonholed or peddled to niche markets.

Vidokle describes the product of “Night School” as “framed by itself” and while assisted by the museum the program does not totally rely on the institution to “display it” ("Vidokle" 4). It is exactly because of inspired statements like this that I am simultaneously loathing and loving the internet at the moment for sending me the enchanted list-serve email that made me aware of this program happening in a city 350 miles away from me in the first place. Lauded for the accessibility of its national museums, that are admission free and open every day but Christmas, the institutions in Washington, DC have historically served as window for a national audience to look upon this countries objects of significance. The Smithsonian Institution and other national galleries have likewise existed as a “frame for itself” as the nation’s cabinet of wonders for spectacle and for acceptable interpretation. But from my perspective as a full-time colonial citizen of the United States capital city circa 2008 it seems that in DC, as in Vidokle’s description of his project for Manifesta 6 “the situation demands not commentary, but involvement and production”("Exhibition" 2). The desire to be a part of a dialogue and the anticipation of carrying away ideas, rather than note cards and coffee mugs, has already taken a strong hold on me. Unlike the ambivalence I feel for the entreaty of my peers that I ‘really must go to Miami one of these years’- I feel drawn to “Night School” in an almost supernatural way; not unlike Vidokle describes his reading of George Maciunas unrealized vision for the New Marlborough Centre for the Arts that that Vidokle says “is a proposal that hinges on the notion of ‘possibility’, saying far less about what needs to be done than about what can be done” ("Exhibition" 3). And on that note – there is something in this man Vidokle’s single-minded repetition that there must be a way found for art, lasting great art, that can be made available to the public independent of the institutions that the leading society is holding onto with a death grip. As individuals, we have become too comfortable with our insular tendencies. Unlike the spirit of revolution and manifesto driven by desires to break from totalitarianism and capitalism that are now reflected upon as the impetus for the ‘true’ art of the 20th century, the 21st century has yet to name its motivation. I vote for thoughtful collaboration, access to information and equitable education and what better place to start than art.

Works Cited

Night School. 2008. New Museum. New York. 5 Mar 2008. .

Vidokle, Anton. “Exhibition as School in a Divided City.” Reading Room,
unitednationsplaza. 12 Mar. 2008. readingroom/VIdolke_ExhibitionAsSchool.pdf>.

---. “Opening Remarks. Anton Vidokle. Night School, January 31,
2008.” 31 Jan 2008. 12 Mar. 2008 .

Karen Joan Topping
Independent Writing Project I
P. Falzone
Washington, DC
3/14/08

SPARKPLUG 3/10/08 minutes

SPARKPLUG 3/10/08 minutes (taken by Karen) There were 9 people in attendance : Jenny, Kathryn, Mike, Mark, Lisa, Deborah, Peter, Lea Ann & Karen
Agenda items were covered as follows:

1-presentations
Everyone that came to the meeting managed to get a number of images loaded into the flickr group – We let it run as a slide show on projection as we discussed the similarities; focusing largely on Lea Ann’s observation of a commonality of “subtle entropy” in the theme, execution or process of all of the work, regardless of the style. This is the crux of how the curatorial aspect for this particular curated slide set all inclusions will come from this recently posted group of work. Lea is going to work on a “slide list” indicating which photos she is selecting and will try to have that to each of us by the beginning of next week.

Hopefully by the time she makes the decisions known to us, we will have communicated with Linda Griggs at E32 to check what technical requirements there are for the jpgs. In short though we should all plan to bring CD’s of the photos Lea selects-we will download all of them at next meeting to one computer then work on getting the presentation in whatever format it needs to be sent to E32 in. Downloading the photos at the meeting will also serve as the MASTER file for any other opportunity we may have to present this work.

2-Slides “The Show”
An unexpected opportunity to use the gallery for a Sparkplug Exhibition has arisen in May. It would only be for a two week slot, but there seemed to be a general consensus that in developing and preparing for the E32 submission we could also test out the developing theme in the gallery.

We will be hashing out the logistical and curatorial details over the coming weeks, but the critical details will not change.

Drop off work and hang the show Tues./Wed., April 29 & 30
Opening Event - Fri., May 2
Learn-a-Palooza Sat., May 10
Take down show remove work from gallery Sun., May 11 (After 7 PM)
Mon., May 12 (until 5 PM)

3-Learn-a-Palooza
Here is the link to last years Learn-A-Palooza.
http://www.learnapaloozadc.com/
I (Karen) talked more about my experience last year and the different approaches we could take to participating. Given that this event would occur during the period that we would have our work in the gallery we could schedule gallery talks or talk about Sparkplug; we could get on the schedule and look for other instructors to do art related classes and just serve as hosts, individually we can work on developing classes.

Peter’s suggestion of showing “how to stretch a canvas” was a great idea. I’ve already elaborated in an earlier email about “painting show & tell”. In my experience last year – do not underestimate your potential to teach something small or simple.

Here is last year’s organizer that will give more info on how to think about being a teacher
http://wiki.learnapaloozadc.com/index.php?title=FAQ

Last years rules of participation were as below and I am guessing they will be very similar this year:
• classes are on April 28, between 10AM and 6PM
• classes must start on the hour or half-hour
• they must be 25 or 55 min long
• they must be free and open to the public

As about 1/3 to ½ of us were engaged in other activities between now & April 1 - we will try to have a mini-brainstorming meeting just on Learn-a-Palooza for those who are interested or available to help sometime in the last week of March or first week of April – more details later.

3-goals for goals
none come to mind that are not related to the above two items

3-ideas about ideas-in no particular order
none come to mind that are not related to the above two items
Except for fact there was a lot of interesting things said relative, tangentially and in support of Lea’s bringing up tension, place and entropy as a theme. I don’t have time to put them down but think this would be a completely appropriate topic to try and capture what many of you said by going on the blog and posting about the other things we brought up when discussing the slide project.

4~ACTION!
Lea presents us with a preliminary slide list so we can all get out highest resolution images ready to bring to the meeting on CD’s or thumb drives.

Plan a mini-meet-up to see if it is of interest to develop anything for Learn-A-Palooza

5-Agenda Items for next meeting
The next meeting is planned for Sunday, April 13 at 7:00 PM
at the DCAC gallery
~bring photo files for download
~go over curatorial statement and set schedule for any extra PR that we want other than the DCAC weekly list serve news letter
~get specific commitments from people for the exhibition and Learn-a-Palooza
~Ideas about ideas
~Goals for goals
~ALWAYS ALWAYS feel free to email me anything else you want to talk about or think needs to be added to the next meetings agenda-AND ANYTHING I MAY HAVE FORGOT-I am too sleepy today!