EVENT DETAILS

Sundaram Tagore - will offer introductory remarks on the seismic shift that globalization has created in the art world. Ten years ago, New York was the center of the art world in terms of galleries, museum shows, and the market. A handful of arts institutions, curators, gallerists, and critics dictated the terms of any critical discussion about art. Today, cities around the world have their own developing and thriving markets. The age where a few artists commanded worldwide recognition is over and today, each country is developing its own artistic movements and stars. In the absence of a central authority how does one go about distinguishing what`s relevant? This introduction will be followed by a question-and-answer conversation with Mr. Tagore. Following the discussion with Sundaram Tagore, Eric Shiner and Bruce Porter will discuss how technology is continuing to lead to new methods and new media for art.

Technology is continuing to lead to new methods and new machines to support man in his ambitions and pursuits. Technology does this in part by specializing in the intermediary function between man and his environment, wherever that environment might be. For more than a decade, high tech companies and technology developers, aware of the fact that better technology is that which can be intuitively used by the end-user for as-yet-to-be-determined purposes, have spent millions in research into the creative process and specifically that process which involves man using principally his hands to interact with the environment.

Artists are peculiarly specialized in thinking with their hands and, while their knowledge of craft plays a crucial role in the creative process, artists also trust their intuition. Intuition (or brain) can be understood as a complex system of partially conscious and partially unconscious thoughts, urges or drives, which are knowledge/experience-based.

This cutting-edge presentation will focus on:

• the importance of manipulation as a process of self-argumentation; and some basic considerations in context with the importance of interaction, manual handling in human functioning; and
• the creative process of artists, including aspects of technology.
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Both points will be presented with reference to slide images, including some insight into the complexity of site specific and large scale sculptural projects (manipulation requiring great effort) often a collaboration of the artist with engineers and computer specialists, and very often challenging the limits of current technological capabilities for enlarged production.

SPEAKERS:

Eric C. Shiner - is an independent curator and art administrator based in New York City. Prior to completing his Master`s degree in the History of Art at Yale University in 2004, Shiner lived in Yokohama, Japan and worked as an Assistant Curator for YOKOHAMA 2001: International Triennale of Contemporary Art. Prior to this, he completed his first Master`s degree, also in the History of Art, at Osaka University under the auspices of the Japanese government`s Monbusho Scholarship program. Shiner is interested in the representation of bodily transformation in Post-1945 Japanese art and photography and is currently completing a chapter on the influence of popular culture on the Japanese art of the 1980s and 1990s for a new textbook on modern and contemporary Japanese art.

Bruce Porter - his work addresses epic and mythological themes and juxtaposes these themes with recognizable pop and cartoon elements. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Whitney Museum (NY), the San Diego Museum as well as galleries such as Marian Goodman, Leo Castelli and Tibor de Nagy. Porter has written several books about critical thinking and teaches at Hunter College.