Category Shifting Connections
Transversal Practices
A Shiite imam asks strategic questions of a Maronite Christian to determine the grounds for reciprocal discussion in Beirut; a priest in the villas miserias of Buenos Aires doubts his faith in the shadow of a popular liberation theologist assassinated during the Dirty War; Pastor Christine, a Congolese trader, mixes commerce with divine deliverance establishing temporary parishes among traveling merchants… These are snap shots from the extensive research project, Global Prayers, in which academics and artists through workshops and field research endeavored to learn over a number of years the mutual influence between religion and the functional spaces of modern cities. [Read More…]
TACTICS OF THE IMAGINATION
Dennis Adams’s Malraux’s Shoes (2012) and Alejandro Cesarco’s If In Time (2012) reveal a willing vulnerability on the part of the artist that is rare outside a more confessional, feminist practice. So encased are men in silence, self-assurance, purpose, and disinterest that opacity seems almost a birthright and issues belong to the one who questions. All the more interesting then when a character replete with the angst of aging, drink, power, and the flagrant display of ingenuity lets slip a small punctum of love’s memory. [Read More…]
KRZYSZTOF WODICZKO’s War Veteran Projection
Krzysztof Wodiczko believes in the power of art to heal, transform, and enlighten. For this artist, cultural practices provide the means to embolden voices muted through marginalization and alienation. To coincide with Veteran’s Day, fourteen soldiers and family members recuperate their stories and reconcile troubled pasts in testimonies projected onto Henry Kirke Brown’s statue of Abraham Lincoln, which has stood silent vigil in Union Square’s north end since 1870. Through digital proxy the veterans assume Lincoln’s authority as a statesman and orator to gain standing as viable public citizens. [Read more…]
Shifting Connections 