December 2024

Dear Readers,

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When I began to think about the shape the three texts in this issue of TAS form together, I realized that there are moments within each of these articles that connect to other texts in TAS.

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One of the first presentations of poetry in The Art Section was from poet Thomas Lux who was the first Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech.  In 2012, Thomas generously gave The Art Section five poems from his new volume (at the time) with recorded readings that one can still hear on TAS. TAS has continued since that time to present poets reading their poems and in dialogue with other writers and poets. In this issue, poet Lauren K. Watel is in dialogue with Victoria Chang, the current Boerne Chair of Poetry at Georgia Tech. Chang’s book, With My Back to the World, a volume of ekphrastic poems that nod to Agnes Martin, Watel writes “For Chang, extended experiments in ekphrasis acted as exorcists of sorts, exposing painful experiences as they were happening, expressing feelings she wasn’t aware she was feeling.” 

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I first met Fritz Horstman when I was installing a public artwork in Connecticut outside of New Haven. After a day of installing, I made a trip up the road to Bethany, Connecticut to the Albers Foundation, where Fritz is the Education Director. Fritz gave me a tour of the Foundation, where I not only saw the Art of both Anni and Josef Albers, but also the trove of Josef’s paints. I was enamored with all the tubes of each color, slightly different by brand and hue. Later, in New York City, I got to see Fritz’s work and his journey as an artist. In 2017, he wrote for TAS about his artist’s residency and the underwater photographs he took while sailing round the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. In 2018, Fritz curated a project for TAS, On Hearing Water.  This collection is a delight to visit on the TAS site. And most recently, Fritz wrote here about Albers' Pedagogy: The Preliminary Course and the Matière. It is a pleasure to host this dialogue between two artists, Fritz Horstman and Michael Beggs, who share interests in color and education on the publication of Fritz’s Interacting with Color  by Yale University Press. This book is not only a practical guide to Albers’s seminal book Interaction with Color; it also provides insight into the “how to” of understanding color theory.

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Phil Auslander often writes about topics that catch his interest for one reason or another.  In this issue, the relationship between art and virtual reality technology. It is interesting to think about how a medium can change art and the way we as viewers perceive it. As the medium improves with the technology it will be fascinating to experience these immersive experiences not as games or entertainment but as works of art. At the Venice Biennale in 2022, the Georgia Pavillion featured a virtual reality work, I Pity the Garden by Tbilisi-based artist duo Mariam Natroshvili and Detu Jincharadze. This work is described on their Facebook page as “an immersive artwork about a premonition of the end. Through large-scale video installation and VR experience, the viewer is led into a realm of magical realism within the Anthropocene epoch.” It did not work so well technically (my headset kept shutting off), but I think that this kind of work is in its infancy. I do hope artists will see where this technology can lead the viewer. 

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Wishing all a Happy Solstice, a Joyful Holiday, and a Wonderful New Year.

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All my best,
Deanna

Deanna Sirlin

Editor-in-Chief 

The Art Section