Thursday, August 6, 2015

Thursday's Three on Art

Today, Thursday's Three highlights a trio of Websites where you'll find talks or interviews with, the perspectives of, or a range of useful information about artists. All three are excellent resources. 

✦ Seeing and experiencing art through artists' own eyes are the objectives of The Artist Project of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Beginning in March 2015, the museum began inviting artists (local, national, international) to select and discuss individual artworks in the Met's collections or Met galleries. The artist for each video feature describes what he or she finds inspiring about the art and what he or she sees when viewing the art. 

The project is now in its second season. Among the 20 artists for Season 1 are Nick Cave, who describes his fascination with Kuba cloths; Natalie Frank, who talks about Kathe Kollwitz; and Lisa Yuskavage, who looks at Edouard Villard's The Green Interior. Some of the artists who have participated in Season 2 are Roz Chast, who speaks about Italian Renaissance painting; Teresita Fernandez, who discusses pre-Colombian gold; Spencer Finch, who looks at William Michael Harnett's The Artist's Letter Rack; Pat Seir, who draws inspiration from the Kongo Power Figure; and Sarah Sze, who addresses the Tomb of Perneb. The Met plans to continue The Artist Project for five seasons; by the project's conclusion, 100 artists will have participated.

✦ The Artists' Organization (TAO), Columbus, Ohio, maintains a site titled Artists on Art to address "a paucity of information about Ohio's artists." For each featured artist, the site offers an interview, approximately 60 minutes long, with an art historian or artist-colleague; a photo, and approximately a dozen images considered representative of the artist's oeuvre. The interviewer is identified and both sound and text are provided. In addition, there is biographical information, an artist statement, bibliography (if appropriate), and links to other relevant sites (e.g., museums). The paper documents, photographs, video clips, and audiotapes gathered to create each feature are archived by the Manuscript and Audiovisual Department in the Archives of the Library of the Ohio Historical Society.

There are three ways to navigate the site: alphabetically, by clicking on the word "Artists" on the homepage; alphabetically, via the alpha ribbon or bar, which narrows a search to a list of last names under each letter of the alphabet; and via the General Index or Subject Index (medium or media, geographic location, birth decade, or other identifying clues). 

It is possible to nominate artists for inclusion. See "Nominating an Artist" for details. Also see "Information for Curators and Artists".

✦ The Video Data Bank of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago maintains the significant online collection On Art and Artists, which dates from 1974 to the present. Founded by Lyn Blumenthal and Kate Horsfield, On Art and Artists presents interviews with contemporary artists, architects, theorists, and critics. It may be browsed alphabetically by Artist/Title

The interviews, which vary in length, are acquired and produced by VDB, Blumenthal and Horsfield, independent producers, and such organizations as Artists Television Network, Long Beach Museum of Art, and University of Colorado Visiting Artist Program. Some of the subjects addressed are artists' processes and techniques, outsider art, feminist art, art history, art criticism, and studio spaces. Some experimental documentaries and profiles also are found in the collection.

The Video Art Gallery contains clips that may be selected by New Releases, Featured Videos, Most-Viewed Videos, and Random Picks. Also see the Curated Compilations, described as multiple titles organized by subject or theme, and the Single Artist Compilations, which are surveys of an individual artist's moving-image work.

Video Data Bank on FaceBook and Twitter

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