Culture was the question on everyone’s mind today at the Blouin Creative Leadership Summit, beginning with Yale School of Art dean Robert Storr, who kicked off the day with a keynote address that interrogated the very meaning of the term. “The use of the word ‘culture,’” he said, “sets off alarms.” He went on to postulate that culture was “not an additive, not the yeast you put in yogurt.” In a talk of wide-ranging scope, the famed scholar and curator went from addressing where to find culture on TV — he considers “Breaking Bad” superior to “Downton Abbey” — to explaining the importance of Felix Gonzalez-Torres's 1991 work “Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.),” a collection of candy that viewers are invited to take and eat. “To come to the museum to suck was a polemical gesture,” he concluded.
The conversation turned to Iranian culture pre- and post-revolution with “The Art of Iran,” a panel on Iranian art helmed by Leila Heller of the Leila Heller Gallery (which currently has a show “Calligraffiti,” of Iranian calligraphy paired with western street art, curated by Jeffrey Deitch), Melissa Chiu, museum director of the Asia Society (currently presenting the much-hyped show “Iran Modern”), and blogger-turned-newbie gallerist Taymour Grahne, alongside his artist Nicky Nodjoumi.
In one of the more amusing moments, Heller discussed the origin of the current show at her gallery, noting that she and Deitch originally put on another “Calligraffiti” show in 1984, when he was living in a one-bedroom apartment behind her gallery. “He said ‘there’s such a dialogue,’” Heller remembered, recalling Deitch’s reaction when he first saw the calligraphic work from Iran. At the opening of that show, “Basquiat, Warhol, and Haring were all there,” remembered Heller. Later in the discussion, when asked the difference between the reception of the original exhibition and her current one, Heller's response indicated how far perceptions have come: “At the first show, people bought Basquiat and Haring. Nobody bought the Iranian art. This time, they’re buying Iranian art.”
Tom Sachs, Natalie Jeremijenko, Elizabeth Streb, and Vik Muniz were on hand for the next panel, “Creativity: Processes and Practices.” In a fascinating discussion, there was plenty of insight into the origin of these artists' various ways of seeing the world. For instance, Muniz explained that his practice of working in chocolate syrup or sugar was simply a matter of convenience: “When you’re working from home, you can use paint, or you can use whatever you have.” Streb, a choreographer, discussed her early interest in using action to tell a story. A video showed the performance she organized during London’s 2012 Olympics, which had dancers performing extreme acrobatic feats off of buildings and a ferris wheel. “I think of myself as a movement anthropologist,” she said.
As for Sachs, he was characteristically puckish. “If cheetahs run 75 miles an hour,” he said, explaining his vision of creativity, “we are really great at digging ditches and building.” He introduced his work by showing a film called “Ten Bullets,” which he uses when indoctrinating new members into his Tom Sachs Studio. In the film, which had playfully fascist undertones, viewers were told that “Creativity is the Enemy.” While he didn’t completely explain what he meant by that provocative assertion, he did offer the following advice: “We live in a digital renaissance. Keep working, stay focused, and only innovate incrementally.”
Finally, the Architecture panel included such notables as Gisue Hariri, founder and principle of Hariri & Hariri, Nicholas Baume of the Public Art Fund, and Daniel Libeskind, master planner of the Ground Zero memorial. Perhaps the highlight was Libeskind offering some prescient insights about the changing nature of architectural work: “There are no jobs in the factories now. Everything is done robotically.” Perhaps sparked by the stimulating conversation, which touched on how 3-D printers and other similar technological innovations are putting designs in the hands of architects and non-architects alike, Libeskind offered his own Warholian prediction, “In the future, everybody will be an architect.”
