Introduction to TAS August 2019

 

Dear Readers,

 

Time and place have always been significant factors in how writers, critics, artists and viewers perceive and appreciate the objects of their perception. In this edition of The Art Section, three of our writers have addressed architecture, an art movement, and an artist respectively. Each has written about what they experienced through a perspective informed by when and how they encountered the artwork.

 

This is what sets The Art Section apart from other online magazines. From the very beginning, twelve years ago, we decided not to publish reviews, but to ask our writers to give us their viewpoints on art and culture. As Editor,

I try to give some insight into the way each article relates to the concept for the issue, and how their juxtaposition enhances and speaks to ideas of contemporary culture and art.

 

Helen Teede is painter from Zimbabwe who is currently living and working in Venice, Italy. I met Helen at the Biennale and we shared our views on several exhibitions. For TAS Helen writes about the work in the Lithuanian Pavilion by artists Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė and Lina Lapelytė. The work, Sun and See (Marina) which won the Golden Lion, is a performance in a warehouse near the Arsenale. If you travel to Venice before October 31, you can apply to become part of the performance. The public can be viewers and watch the performance from a balcony. Or you can apply to be vacationers under the artificial sun, children and pets welcome! They are providing good reading light and wifi!

 

Opal Moore is a poet and writer who lives in Atlanta. Opal has written For The Art Section about Fahamu Pecou and his exhibition DO or DIE: Affect, Ritual, Resistance in relation to the Egungun mask ceremony. I found this content from both the artist and the writer to be significant; it enables the viewer to find new meaning in the work of Fahumu Pecou with this context.

 

Nicolette Reim, a poet, writer, and painter, writes about a new book of the writings of Dick Higgins, the important Fluxus artist and one of the founders of the movement. Being an artist who straddles many disciplines in her artistic life gives Nicolette a strong perspective from which to understand and appreciate intensely this significant collection of essays by a writer and thinker who also transcended disciplinary boundaries.

 

All three writers bring their respective points of view, which derive from which their own experiences as writers, artists, poets, and painters to their readings of the works they discuss. Artists reading and writing about the work of other artists in this way represents The Art Section at its best.

 

Many thanks to our writers,

Deanna

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Deanna Sirlin 

Editor-in-Chief

The Art Section