November 25, 2014

Location: Brooklyn Brush Studios

Moderator: Pia Coronel

Contributors:


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  • Is there such a thing as creation without meaning?
  • Is meaning the same as purpose?
  • As a creator, how important is it for others to get the same meaning from the work ?

The conversation begins with Isa Freeling describing a story of her travels abroad, realizing the vast difference in cultural points of view. She explains how the experience made her question ideas of freedom and fairness and ultimately that meaning is created when your ideas are challenged. Jeff Koons makes his inevitable return back into our conversation as a symbol of extraordinary influence with seemingly little meaning. Nicole Brydson tells a story about an exhibition where she hears echos of "what is the meaning of this room?" throughout the space, contributing that the meaning was the search for meaning. We discuss how we are in search of and question meaning. The topic of Koons oftens receives a lot of upheaval because of his inflamed celebrity status while many do not empathize with his work. The conversation begins to focus on Kara Walker's recent sugar sphinx public installation at the Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn. Rain Embuscado emphasizes how many people were taking photographs with the sculpture and posting to social media. The visitors of the show did not realize that Walker was documenting them and would later create a work about that phenomenon. He states that there can be a gap between the work and the artist's intention. He says that the work and the artist statement could be two very different things. Raphael Zollinger describes Walker's work as a visual language that she adopts with a subject matter to really  develop a concept. Through Koons and Walker's work, we talk about ideas of branding. Luis Martin suggests that the idea of branding evolved from the realization that history brands artists and now we are able to take that process into our own hands. We also cover post-internet work that exists only in the virtual realm and looks convincingly more interesting there than in real life.