Sarah Conley Odenkirk
ARTSBLOG
For Arts Professionals in the Know
May 14, 2010
On May Day, I watched for the first time the high energy starting ceremony of the American Visionary Art Museum’s 2010 Kinetic Sculpture Race. The teams that work for months to create outlandish amphibious vessels are known as much for their quirky themes and costumes as they are for their uncanny endurance skills. The community-based event is just one example of Baltimore’s interest in ephemeral public art. Contemporary art enters urban space in other ways, too—during the Transmodern Festival (April), the Evergreen Sculpture series (May) and Baltimore’s three-day Artscape festival (July) that features a midway with DIY artists’ projects.
MAP (Maryland Art Place)—the state’s oldest nonprofit contemporary art center—is only a 10-minute walk from the 2010 AFTA conference site. We’d like for the world to take note of Baltimore’s contemporary art scene. That’s why we’re launching a series of public art initiatives, beginning this summer with our first-ever project outside MAP’s galleries. At 6pm on June 23, MAP presents Everybody Suz-ercise! with Miami-based artist Susan Lee-Chun and a team of Suz-ercisers for the PAN Pre-Conference opening event.
The performance begins on the plaza at Market Place, just outside the doors of MAP, and proceeds to the edge of the Harbor where high mode team will finesse a choreographed routine on the green space across from the Aquarium. You can check out the faux fitness program created by The Suz @ www.TheSuzItsFauxReal.com.
Read MoreIn her green paper on community development in the arts, Maryo grounds her tips in the idea that the past helps give context to the present and future. However, an equally important way to contextualize one’s individual project is within the collective body of community arts work being done currently. Unfortunately, getting a handle on the amorphous blob that is “The Field of Community Development in the Arts” is an ever- increasing challenge, particularly given the rapid changes in the way that we store and share information.
Now, I know that as a young professional, I’m supposed to embrace technologies of all kinds and thank the online world for providing 24-hour, instantaneous information. But, sometimes (just sometimes) combing through 29+ pages of Google search results makes me a little bit nostalgic for the days when the definitive publications on subject W were X, Y, and Z.
That was it.
No thousands of web pages, each containing a kernel of pertinent or significant information. No following trails of links to “x marks the spot” (i.e. that document that’s exactly what you were looking for), only to see the eternally-helpful “Page Not Found!” flash across your computer screen where the jackpot should have been buried.
Alas, those days of old-book smell and the whisper of (paper) pages under fingertips are dwindling and the challenge of finding substantive, legitimate information continues to grow.
Are you ready for slightly-embarrassing confession #2?
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