And adding a few more responses...

Hi all,

I'm back again to add a few more responses to those I posted earlier.

-Stephanie

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Q: How do you describe your curatorial style?

A: I try to create projects that are both rigorous and generous. I hope the shows that I curate are serious and layered but still accessible to people who aren't already deeply invested in contemporary art.

Over the past nine years my curatorial practice has been, in part, a site-specific response to the Smart Museum and the intellectual energy of the University of Chicago. At their best, university art museums like the Smart offer platforms for experimentation and for quite special kinds of collaborations. So I think about how to make the best use of this platform. I ask whether a project can do something useful within this context, in this place, at this moment. I think about sustainability in relation to mission: is this an idea that is responsible for the Smart to pursue, one that makes the best possible use of resources (materials and energy but also money, time, passion)? All of these parameters are incredibly useful. In the case of Beyond Green, the show is one of a series of thematic exhibitions that have explored living artists' responses to pressing social issues, so it has a strong context in the Smart's program. Still, when I started working on it seriously in 2003, "green" and "sustainable" weren't really at the tips of any tongues so the idea could have been easily dismissed. I'm grateful that the Smart took the risk of launching the project and that iCI collaborated with us to make the tour possible.

In terms of style, my process tends to be open and collaborative and a bit messy. Most of the shows start when I notice resonances among strong works of art that suggest a theme. If the theme seems timely, a strategic fit for the Smart, and something that I'm personally excited about, I'll take it further. I usually go big at the beginning, playing around with the myriad ways that a project might take shape and the many artists and other partners who might be involved. I'll look into other work that might amplify or extend or challenge the theme—work that is aesthetically rich as well as conceptually appropriate. Then I hone. It's an oscillation between hypothesis and evidence, intermixed with all the other pragmatic, logistical wrangling that's such a huge (and usually very enjoyable) part of putting together an exhibition.

Q: What have you seen in the field that captures your attention post work on Beyond Green?

A: I have pretty catholic tastes, so there's a lot that I'm paying attention to now. Here I'll stick with a few examples that connect to sustainability and also to some of my post-BG work. In Detroit, I love the projects of Design 99 and the Detroit Tree of Heaven Woodshop. In New Orleans, Marjetica Potrc did a terrific post-Katrina case study project, and I'm just starting to learn about the work of Transforma Projects. (Transforma builds on Rick Lowe's endlessly inspiring prior work with Project Row Houses in Houston.) These projects link back to the question Tom posed for my last post: place matters to this work. The artists are responding to the particular qualities of New Orleans and Detroit, but rather than merely romancing the ruins of these cities' former glory they're using the challenging conditions of the present as catalysts for new ways of working. The particular characteristics of these cities—symbolic as well as actual—offer rich terrain for new thinking about how culture can provide a safe zone for meaningful experiments, and how art can contribute to sustainable communities. I think of this as "making the world you want to live in."

Q: The After Nature show at the New Museum in New York is very apocalyptic. Beyond Green is very optimistic and solution-oriented. Is there still a role for the very angry artist?

A: I wouldn't characterize the sensibility of After Nature as angry. Apocalyptic, though, yes, and melancholy. But in any case, yes of course there's room for anger. There's a lot to be angry about these days, if you're wired that way. But hope's crucial too. Within art, the question always is whether anger or optimism or any other mood is expressed within the work in a necessary and convincing form.

Q: What does it say that major museums and institutions are following these issues?

A: On one level it's great since this is a reflection of a positive cultural shift. Portland's understood the importance of sustainable living for a long time, but now more people in other parts of the country are catching up. It's great that museums are putting on exhibitions that respond to this shift as well as to the merits of the art itself. But ... there's a lot more to do. It could come off as simply trendy. It could reinforce an unfortunate tendency for "sustainable" to be equated with "environmentally friendly" rather than understood in a broader sense that includes both environmental and social justice. So, as I've written elsewhere, we should do our best to bring sustainable thinking into our daily practices as artists, cultural workers, institutions. We need to get to the point where sustainability—in its broadest sense—is lived and breathed as a core institutional value. We could also do more to support long-term interaction among artists and thinkers in other disciplines who are also grappling with these questions. I'm starting to talk with some European colleagues about a post-BG project that would explore this bigger set of issues.

Q: How many green artists does it take to screw in a light bulb? (This is a trick question.)

A: Thanks for the warning, Tom. One green artist would, I suppose, be able to handle the task of replacing a conventional bulb with a compact fluorescent one. A sustainable artist, on the other hand would...what, let's see...might start by questioning whether that particular light is really necessary...and then might consider whether it might be more entertaining and efficient to craft a new lamp using the oil left after frying up a batch of organic, locally-grown heirloom potatoes....oh, it's getting late in Chicago and I'm reverting to stereotypes. I need help... Anyone?