Thursday, January 30, 2014

A reading and discussion group on Contemporary Art at the Chatham Public Library

So...why create a reading and discussion group on the subject of Contemporary Art? I want to use the subject of art to prompt an interesting conversation with a diverse group of people from various generations and levels of art experience.  I want you to feel like an insider in the art world.  And I want us to find a way to connect this feeling with what happens right here in Chatham, both in the arts and in how we see ourselves in the community.  I also want to develop an audience for contemporary art, right here where we live.

And what can you expect as a participant?   Like all of my projects, this is a bit of an experiment; I don’t know exactly what the outcome will be.  There is one quote I remember (though not verbatim) from my high school english teacher “No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader,” by Robert Frost.  This phrase runs through my head every time I start a new project which I take to mean if I know exactly what will happen, why bother doing it?  Because Contemporary Art is such a large subject, we can’t possibly cover everything. I have some specific ideas to present and then I will be open to what the majority is interested in. 

Everyone will be encouraged to offer their thoughts and opinions, either during the meetings or as written comments on this blog.  I would like to keep the structure of our meetings relaxed and maybe even a little unconventional.  We might use a modified system of penalty cards (notion borrowed from soccer) to use when the conversation becomes too filled with art/artist references that are unknown.  And we might find some other uses for these cards including evaluating art works.


This reading/discussion group is a kind of art project in itself.  How could that be, you might ask?  Come, bring your questions and comments and we’ll figure it out.