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How Do You Say Thank You?

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This past Monday we were lucky to have Paul Ramirez Jonas with us here at PSU for our Monday night lecture series.

He gave a warm, eloquent, funny and intelligent talk about his work that he prepared just for us, who he referred to as “his people”—Art and Social Practice artists.

To express his gratitude Paul sent us the amazing list of questions below that he wrote on the plane back to New York following his visit.

How can we say thank you for such a generous and inspiring visit? Not hardly enough.

Thank you Paul.

******

Questions

1.      How many viewers are enough?
2.      Is one viewer enough?
3.      Are ten viewers enough?
4.      Are a hundred viewers enough?
5.      Are a thousand viewers enough?
6.      Are a hundred thousand viewers enough?
7.      Are a million viewers too many?
8.      Can art change the world?
9.      Can art change one viewer?
10.     What is success?
11.     Am I an author?
12.     Am I a reader?
13.     If I am a reader, don’t i have more in common with the public than with the artists?
14.     If I am only a reader of pre-existing texts, who are the authors?
15.     Can there be an author-public?
16.     Conversely, can there be a public-author?
17.     Can a work make itself?
18.     Can a text write itself?
19.     Who gets to inscribe public space permanently?
20.     Whose voice is it in a monument?
21.     Whose words?
22.     How long does an artwork have to last to be permanent?
23.     How long can an artwork last and still be ephemeral?
24.     Is there a temporal dimension to the world wide web?
25.     Is there a temporal dimension to ideas?
26.     Where do ideas go when they die?
Where do actions go when they are over?
27.     Who am I?
28.     Am I you?
29.     How much of me is in you?
30.     How different am I from you?
31.     If we are 99% alike, is my artwork your artwork?
32.     Whose words?
33.     Whose voice?
34.     Can we make things with words?
35.     Can apathy be emancipatory?
36.     Can participation be meaningless?
37.     Can there be passive engagement?
38.     Why didn’t Gandhi change the whole world?
39.     Can I believe in democracy if I don’t believe in equality?
40.     How can we reconcile equality with individuality? Aren’t they in opposition?
41.     Can I make publics?
42.     Is making publics enough?
43.     Are these desperate times?
44.     If reading is more creative than writing, what is voice?
45.     Is reading out loud enough engagement?
46.     Where is the line between interaction and emancipation?
47.     How can making art be part of democracy?
48.     Can democracy exist only in discussion but not in action?
49.     Where the post-modernists wrong?
50.     Is it better to have faith even while we know we are doomed?
51.     How can one advocate for faith when one has none?
52.     In other words, what is the difference between hope and faith?
53.     What is the difference between publishing and broadcasting?
54.     Are pedestals methods of publishing or of broadcasting?
55.     How about frames?
56.     How about screens?
57.     This or that?
58.     This and that?
59.     If the state speaks through stone and bronze, what is our material?
60.     How can I become we?
61.     What is a public?
62.     What is its shape?
63.     Can our stories ever enter history?
64.     If our stories enter history, en masse, is that the end of history?
65.     Why can’t I accept death?
66.     Why will my work outlive me?
67.     What do I do with that resentment?
68.     Are we a life form? Or is our culture the life form, while we are mere organs that sustain it?
69.     Can organs be authors?
70.     Are we autonomous?
71.     Are we individuals?
72.     Are we a community?
73.     Is a community alive or dead?
74.     How about sourdough?
75.     what is a public?
76.     Why are humans such horrible creatures?
77.     Can you be a democrat and a misanthrope as well?
78.     Why be funny?
79.     How can I stop being funny?
80.     Is it true that God makes one out of every 10 jews funny?
81.     Is that to make it more bearable for the other 9?
82.     Am I sincere?
83.     Can I grow?
84.     Can I erase myself?
85.     Can the artwork make itself?
86.     How long is forever?
87.     What materials are eveready for new impressions?
88.     Can words be mirrors?
89.     Can we really make things with words?
90.     Can we make mirrors?
91.     Is making coercive?
92.     Always?
93.     Without modernism, what is rigor in the arts?
94.     What is public?
95.     What is to make public?
96.     Why is it that we never speak of democracy in relation to making art?
97.     Do we believe that all viewers equal in front of the work?
98.     Do all viewers have the same rights in relation to the work?
99.     Are we equal in front of an artwork?
100.    Are we brothers in front of an artwork?
101.    Are we free in front of an artwork?
102.    Do we have rights in front of an artwork?
103.    What are these rights? Are they inalienable?
104.    Can we breathe together in front of an artwork?
105.    Can we only be bound through culture, texts, objects, i.e. by what we make?

One thing is for sure… a text may have no author, but it cannot read itself.

Call for applications PSU MFA Art and Social Practice

 SP ad 2010

New Application Requirements

1 substitution, 3 additions and one elaboration

Social Practice CV (This will replace the current CV requirement)

Create a 1 page CV for social practice art. This is not a standard resume and should include the following information: What things have you done that would help you in socially engaged work?  What life experiences do you have that you think would be an asset in this approach to art making?

Include – objectives, skills, assets, experiences, or anything else that has prepared you for being a social practice artist.

1.Video Tour of the Highlights in Your Neighborhood.

Create a short video (3 min maximum) of what you consider to be the highlights of your neighborhood. Video quality is not an issue, Cell phone/web cam videos are acceptable. Please upload your finished video to YouTube.com and send us the link in your application.

2. Ask a stranger the significance of the clothes they are wearing. Create a short video (3 min maximum) you having a stranger describe for you the significance of the clothes they are wearing. Video quality is not an issue, Cell phone/web cam videos are acceptable. Please upload your finished video to YouTube.com and send us the link in your application.

3. Demonstrate a talent. Create a short video (3 min maximum) where you demonstrate a talent. Video quality is not an issue, Cell phone/web cam videos are acceptable. Please upload your finished video to YouTube.com and send us the link in your application.

The Incidental Person at apexart

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The PSU MFA Art and Social Practice concentration has been invited to be a part of an upcoming exhibition at apexart titled The Incidental Person.

Curated by Antony Hudek, the show runs from January 6 to February 20, 2010.

The show will feature new work by Art and Social Practice students and faculty as well as a series of events that will happen in the apexart space as well as outside of the gallery.

For more information on the The Incidental Person please read Hudek’s curatorial statement.

Opening reception: January 6, 6-8 pm

Image: Barbara Steveni and John Latham, Artist Placement Group (APG)

Parties Prenantes at Bétonsalon

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The MFA Art and Social Practice Concentration have an exciting upcoming project/residency in Paris.

For more information about Parties Prenantes at Bétonsalon please visit their website.

Arte de Conducta, La Havana, Cuba – Tania Bruguera 
Art and Social Practice, Portland, USA – Jennifer Delos Reyes & Harrell Fletcher 
Ecole des Arts Politiques, Sciences Po Paris – Bruno Latour & Valérie Pihet

with students and teachers from: 
Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7 
ENSA Paris-Val de Seine 
Ecole Publique de Paris, Bétonsalon 
ENSA Paris Cergy 
ENSBA Paris 
La Forme des Idées (ENBA Lyon & ENSA Nice)…

A proposal of Mélanie Bouteloup (Bétonsalon), Julien Lanchet & Sara Martinetti (students at Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7)

Portland Art Museum Hosts Shine a Light

 The PAM

On Saturday, September 19 from 6 p.m.–midnight, the Portland Art Museum hosted Shine a Light: A Night at the Museum. The event consisted of six hours of performances, installations, tours, workshops, and games by artists from Portland State University’s Art and Social Practice concentration MFA. The projects were centered on artist and audience participation. Visitors experienced the Museum’s spaces and collections in new ways.

The night was an overwhelming success with close to 2000 people in attendance.

Read the review of the event in The Oregonian: http://www.oregonlive.com/art/index.ssf/2009/09/shine_a_light_lights_up_the_po.html (9/21)

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