Creative Time will realize its most ambitious project yet this fall, with its third annual summit and the opening of Living As Form, a show by 25 curators surveying more than 350 socially engaged projects. The size of Living As Form alone will make it a landmark show, and judging solely by the list of participants, it will present a representative cross-section of socially engaged cultural production – as Creative Time is proud to mention, the roster includes both “art world luminaries” and the “purposefully obscure.”
Artists, writers, critics, and curators will gather at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, NYU, on September 23rd, 2011 for a day-long series of presentations on the political implications of socially engaged art. Expected presenters include: Alternate ROOTS, Appalshop, Common Room, Cybermohalla Ensemble, Decolonizing Architecture, Jeremy Deller, Darren O’Donnell, Laura Flanders, Theaster Gates, Hou Hanru, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Shannon Jackson, Long March Project, Alan W. Moore, My Barbarian, Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK), Ted Purves, Gerald Raunig, Navin Rawanchaikul, Katerina Šedá, Chemi Rosado Seijo, Andreas Siekmann, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Ultra-red, United Indian Health Services, Urban Bush Women, Voina, Dan S. Wang, WochenKlausur, and Women on Waves. Tickets to the Creative Time Summit are still available, and attendees will get a preview of Living As Form, which opens to the public the following day.
The chosen site for Living As Form is the 15,000 square-foot Essex Street Market building in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and the building will serve as a base for the three-week long show. The archival exhibition will be housed here, as well as the artists in residence. Creative Time is commissioning nine new works by Bik Van der Pol, Carolina Caycedo, MadeIn Company presented by the Long March Project, Megawords, OurGoods, Surasi Kusolwong, Superflex, Temporary Services, and Time/Bank (Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle). These commissions range from performances to public interventions and installations, not all of which will be on site at the Essex Street Market building. The projects will explore topics including public shrines and ceremonies, mind/body consciousness, the dynamics of power, vertical development and air rights, and alternative economies. Some participating artists also served as curatorial advisors.
Living As Form culminates with a book, published by Creative Time Books and distributed by MIT Press, due out in January of 2012. Contributors include Brian Holmes, Claire Bishop, and several other theorists offering context to the key examples of works, methodologies, conditions, and variations within the attempt to bring cultural skills to the arena of social change.
Join Groundswell at the Creative Time Summit this September!
