5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Suzanne Lacy

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Suzanne Lacy

Thom Donovan interviews Suzanne Lacy, an artist, educator and activist whose career spans multiple decades and several major movements in contemporary art history.

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Doug Ashford

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Doug Ashford

Thom Donovan interviews Doug Ashford, who is widely known for his work with Group Material during the period 1983-1996.

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Zoe Beloff

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Zoe Beloff

Thom Donovan talks to Zoe Beloff, whose most recent project takes up Brecht’s learning play “Days of the Commune” within the context of OWS.

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice | Melanie Gilligan

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice | Melanie Gilligan

Melanie Gilligan discusses “Popular Unrest” and other video and film works that address the global financial crisis.

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice | (It’s the Political Economy, Stupid)

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice | (It’s the Political Economy, Stupid)

Thom Donovan looks at Oliver Ressler and Gregory Sholette’s exhibition at the Austrian Cultural Forum, which foregrounds aesthetic responses to the ongoing financial crisis.

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Andrea Geyer

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Andrea Geyer

Thom Donovan talks with Andrea Geyer, whose 10-channel video installation “9 Scripts from a Nation at War” is currently on view at MoMA.

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Claire Pentecost

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Claire Pentecost

By taking on the role of “public amateur,” artist Claire Pentecost models an alternative approach to the way that Western cultures typically produce knowledge.

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Sreshta Rit Premnath

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Sreshta Rit Premnath

Indian artist Premnath talks about the discourses of art, politics, and philosophy, and how they intersect—or don’t—in his works.

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Ben Kinmont

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Ben Kinmont

  This past month, I encountered Ben Kinmont’s work for the first time, appropriately enough at the Fales special collection in New York University’s Bobst library. Walking through the double …

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Maureen Connor

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Maureen Connor

In the past decade the visual arts have seen a retreat from traditional locations of meaning making and power. This retreat can be partially attributed to the increasing disparity between …

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice With Gregory Sholette

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice With Gregory Sholette

Artist, scholar, organizer, and professor, Gregory Sholette embodies multiple ways that artists can interrogate history, politics, and public discourse. Through his initial work with the group REPOhistory (1989-2000) (as in, “repossessing …

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Sanford Biggers

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Sanford Biggers

Images from popular culture abound in Sanford Biggers’s work, and particularly from hip-hop, East Asian Buddhism, and the Antebellum and Afro-Futurist African-American. Two images that have become particularly emblematic for …

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Carlos Motta

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Carlos Motta

While Carlos Motta’s work exists through a number of different media, I think of it primarily as putting forth a series of socially and politically committed archives. These archives are …

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions (for Contemporary Practice) with Not An Alternative

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions (for Contemporary Practice) with Not An Alternative

I encountered the art group Not An Alternative for the first time about a month ago in Corona, Queens, where Tania Bruguera (featured last month in 5 Questions) had assembled …

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions (for Contemporary Practice) with Tania Bruguera

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions (for Contemporary Practice) with Tania Bruguera

Tania Bruguera’s long and various career as an artist starts with a series of works made after, but mainly through, the Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta. I say “through,” because in …

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions with Colectivo Situaciones

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions with Colectivo Situaciones

* This interview has been translated and co-edited by Brian Whitener. I first heard about Colectivo Situaciones about a year ago, when I received a publication in the mail titled …

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions (for Contemporary Practice) with Amy Balkin

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions (for Contemporary Practice) with Amy Balkin

For the past couple years, I have been teaching Bay Area-based artist Amy Balkin’s work within a curriculum about environmental art and “land expropriation.” I teach her work besides Karl …

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions (for Contemporary Practice) with Rigo 23

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions (for Contemporary Practice) with Rigo 23

I first encountered Rigo 23’s work this past summer staying with friends in San Francisco’s Mission, where Rigo 23 partially got his start as an artist through his engagement with …

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions (for Contemporary Practice) with Nato Thompson

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions (for Contemporary Practice) with Nato Thompson

I am a bit late coming to the curatorial work of Nato Thompson, which first became recognizable to me at this past October’s second annual Creative Time Summit, a gathering …

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions with Carin Kuoni of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions with Carin Kuoni of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics

For six years, Carin Kuoni has been director of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School in New York City. I wanted to pose my …

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions with Temporary Services

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions with Temporary Services

Art21 is pleased to announce our latest column: 5 Questions (for Contemporary Practice), written by guest blog alum Thom Donovan (bio here). 5 Questions showcases the work of contemporary practitioners …