Readings

While the title of GIA’s 2012 Thought Leader Forum — Racial Equity in Arts and Culture Grantmaking — may have left something to be desired in the excitement department, the content of the discussions that took place was such that the two and a half days we spent together in June and two additional days we gathered in November revealed principles/approaches toward racial equity that I hope will have value to colleagues. The goals of the initial forum were as follows:

I am currently writing an essay for a university art gallery exhibition catalog about how the early nineteenth-century invention of photography marked a change in art and spiritual consciousness; and thus dwelling on the postindustrial trajectories of art and science. I have so many extra notions that I created this separate cloud of thought. Apologies if this musing seems too general. I present it here to excite dialogue and receive feedback through the GIA Reader.

Wonder

To my eye, nothing is quite as uplifting as the startling sculptures that erupt before you as you stroll through Socrates Sculpture Park, home to these stems of welded steel and stone, nestled among gritty iron foundries, masonry suppliers, and auto repair shops in Long Island City, Queens.

Every decade or two, the professions of architecture and city planning are captivated by a movement with a particularly catchy name. Currently, the popular term is placemaking — a fairly loose term that is running neck and neck with “sustainability.” Within the design professions, this movement — really more a philosophy — suggests that people’s lives can be made better by intentionally designing interior and exterior spaces to embrace a wide range of users, provide for safety, and create artful expressions that endure over time.

The cameraman eases his viewers into the glacial wild of Iceland as we breathe to collect ourselves from severe storm news coverage. Suddenly we are in freezing water wading barefoot between chunks of floating ice with the photographer James Balog. He must capture this hunk of ice transfused with light, as an ocean wave is giving it a spectacular spraying.

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