Dear Readers,
I am happy to be able to present the 5th incarnation of The Art Section. After the last issue, many thought we had become a vehicle solely for sound art and its critique! However, that is only one dimension and range we desire for this magazine.
In this issue, we have three articles that focus on different aspects of the idea of a personal perspective on art. The personal approach is certainly not fashionable in these globally platformed times, but perhaps that’s all the more reason to address it. I have always wondered why some art appeals more to one individual than another, and the roles played by taste, education, experience, and politics in our aesthetic choices.
Also, in reading art criticism, it is important to know who is doing the writing and from what vantage point.
So, in this issue we have Cinqué Hicks, founder of the online magazine Code Z, writing about the need for a publication whose focus is on “Black Visual Culture Now.” Hicks’s passion and conviction make clear the need for this discourse. Next up to the plate is architect, former portrait painter, and documentary filmmaker George Hornbein who gives us his view on Harry Callahan’s “Eleanor,” an extraordinary exhibition of 150 photographs ranging from the 1940s to the 1980s that opened recently at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Here, we have Harry Callahan‘s view of his wife, partner, muse, and model and Hornbein’s experience of the visual documentation of that relationship. I cannot help but think Horbein’s reading of this show was shaped by his experience as a portraitist. Moving from the visual side of the brain to the auditory faculty, we have composer Giuseppe Gavazza’s perspective on, and hearing of, the Sandretto Foundation’s “Silence,” curated by Francesco Bonami, known for his conceptually based exhibitions. In the 4th issue, we addressed a tiny tip of the iceberg of sound/art, and five of Gavazza’s works can be heard and seen there. Do go to the Archives if you missed this issue.
As for me, I hope this magazine will continue to be about not just what I like and think, but the intersection and juxtaposition of the many aspects of art at this moment, and how our writers and artists experience and couch these ideas for your perusal.
As an artist, I am always interested in how others perceive my work. Reproduced here is my photograph of photographer Mike Jensen, who has often photographed my work, examining my installation “Retracings” at the High Museum. This is my perspective on his looking at the way I see.
Thank you.
Deanna
Deanna Sirlin
Editor-in-Chief
