Encounter Artists and designers create work with the intention that their projects will be seen by other people. We call this an “encounter” with the finished project. The encounter might occur after months or years of preparation with the maker’s hopes that their desires to express truths, offer a vision, refine a craft, build community, or communicate without words is acknowledged. While some artists deny the importance of the site of encounter, by suggesting that their work is uninformed by context, Miwon Kwon reminds us that material and conceptual references in projects imply both a particular location and audience. Each site where work is encountered is mediated by institutions and social contexts and has norms and rules that govern the way the project is experienced and understood. Elite museums and galleries have been “conceived as place[s] free of context, where time and social space are thought to be excluded from the experience of artworks. It is only through the apparent neutrality of appearing outside of daily life and politics that the works within the white cube can appear to be self-contained—only by being freed from historical time can they attain their aura of timelessness”. People arrive at sites of encounter when they are open -- often only during normal business hours -- with expectations about whether or not they can touch the project, about how loud they can be, and about whether or not they can introduce themselves to other people in the space. Artists like Andrea Fraser demonstrate the social norms of galleries and museums by breaking them. In her performance, Little Frank and His Carp (2001) she rubs her body against the Guggenheim Bilbao Tino Sehgal, drawing from his background in theatre and dance, attempts to challenge conventional museum spectatorship through the use of actors who perform gestures that focus on lived experience rather material objects. Other artists are interested in addressing the histories and politics of “encounters” in museums and galleries. For example, Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Coco Fusco in the The Year of the White Bear and Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West (1992–1994), exhibited themselves in a cage in museums and at arts festivals. Performing as "authentic" Amerindians, their project recalled the history and practice of exhibiting human beings from Africa, Asia, and Latin America in theaters, and museums. Hans Haacke’s Shapolsky, et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, a Real Estate Holdings, a Real-Time Social System, as of May 1 1971, consisted of an installation of photographs of buildings, and diagrams with data about their ownership and assessed land value. The exhibition of this project was scheduled for the Guggenheim Museum but was cancelled a month and a half before its opening due to the speculation that members of the museum’s Board of Trustees were connected to the real estate group and their holdings. Fred Wilson, whose project Mining the Museum, (1992-3) involved reassembling the collection at the Maryland Historical Society to make visible the curatorial biases that under-played the role of colonization, slavery and abolition in the State’s history. Also, the Guerrilla Girls (1985-present) have focused on gender and racial inequalities in the arts through a series of postering campaigns that aim to alert people to who is un-encountered and underrepresented in museums and galleries. Linda Goode-Bryant speaking about racism in New York City’s art system in the 1970s, reminds us that no universal viewer exists. Artist-centric spaces in New York City like Just Above Midtown, Wow Cafe Theater and El Museo del Barrio were founded precisely because the art histories represented in elite museums and galleries predominantly excluded black, queer, and Puerto Rican artists. Community spaces, homes, work spaces, and other convivial sites of encounter are often chosen by artists for their capacity to embrace or create dialogue. Common Field, a visual arts organizing network, includes providing spaces and platforms for reception, and exchange. They also organize the semi-annual Hand in Glove conference to gather spaces with shared goals for artists. Artist’s exploring the boundaries between art and life often shift the terms of encounter through participatory, and dialogical practices that take place in “non” art designated sites. The sound collective Ultra-red often brings community groups together in their churches or community centers to facilitate listening practices that have no representational trace. Zoe Sheean Saldana’s No Boundaries Lace Trim Tank (White), 2004 and her shopdropping series placed handmade copies of Wal-Mart clothing back on the racks for customers to purchase. and the consortium Estar(SER) did a recent action (February 2016) at the Federal Plaza in New York City where Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc once resided. Dread Scott’s, performance Money to Burn (2010) took place on Wall Street where among traders and tourists he burned money while encouraging those present to join him with their own money. Other examples of projects with unconventional sites of encounter include the staged projections in public spaces of The collective The Illuminator and the travelling boat that anchors in International waters serving as an clinic for women who don’t have legal access to abortion and other reproductive services. Women on Waves, is an activist art organization founded by physician Rebecca Gomparts. Projects can be encountered at your home, a family or friend’s home or studio, at a community or collective’s site like a collective studio or a community space, at a business like a private museum or public site like a non-profit gallery, or at a commons like a fishery or GitHub.

See More

Census Report, You

… in which nothing can be finally paid off

Artists Report Back, Animated

Join the BFAMFAPhD mailing list