Kester Response -Tanner Polednak

  Kester Reading

Jocelyn Dimaya/ Aesthetic Evangelism

Jocelyn Dimaya

19 April 2016

Evelyn Serrano

Arts and Community Engagement

This essay will analyze and reflect on Grant Kester's "Aesthetic Evangelism", a look at New Public Art. Aesthetic Evangelism addressed many of the potential issues associated with community involved work. It had me recalling many of the issues I faced in my own community involved art practices. While there will be discussion of some of the challenges that inevitably come with New Public Art, or community based art " it seems clear that most of these projects do provide positive benefits for their various constituencies and that any single project will undoubtedly have both successful and less successful components."(Kester)

One of the first points Kester makes is in regards to the representational politics and the relationship between the community involved and the artist. While doing community based art work, acknowledging the position you hold in relation to the community is just as important as making sure the members of the community are involved in a significant portion of the decisionmaking. Kester explained it well when he said, "This is an "exchange," in which the artist, by surrendering some degree of their creative autonomy in negotiations with a given group over the production of a project is understood to have gained in return some authority to speak from the group's position or on their behalf." It is a collaboration and it can be easy for these types of projects to start being referred to as work by "so and so renowned artist and people of such and such community." It can be a dangerous zone if artists are being put on a pedestal above the community when the work could not in fact have been accomplished without the work of community members. There is a line that distinguishes between collaboration with a community and exploitation of a community.

Aside from the final exhibition of the art, in this work there is a substantial emphasis on the process. When this type of work is conceived, it is typically inspired by an artist discovering a social issue that needs to be attended to. Kester compares artists to social workers saying, "I would contend that the function of the community artist can, in at least some respects, be productively compared with that of the reformer or social worker. Both the community artist and the social worker possess a set of skills (bureaucratic, diagnostic, aesthetic/expressive, and so forth) and have access to public and private funding (through grants writing, official status, and institutional sponsorship) with the goal of bringing about some transformation in the condition of individuals who are presumed to be in need," While I agree with this comparison, I find it very tricky to find the proper vocabulary to articulate thoughts about this artist-community relationship without putting forth any implications of superiority or inferiority. If a "community" is defined as "individuals in need", it is hard to not associate that with the idea that the artist is intervening in order to "save" said community. I do not think that there is any "saving" that necessarily has to be done. And in many cases, artists who go into this type of work need the communities more than the communities need the artist. In fact, the communities do not need the artist at all. If there was no interaction, the community would continue on and the artist would not be doing any work. Kester puts it this way, "Community art is typically centered around an exchange between an "artist" (who is understood to be "empowered," creatively, intellectually, symbolically, expressively, financially, institutionally, or otherwise), and a given subject who is defined a priori as "in need of" empowerment, access to creative/expressive skills, etc. Thus, the "community" in "community art" often, although clearly not always, refers to individuals marked as culturally, economically, or socially different either from the artist him or her self, or from the audience for the particular project."

CRIS R HERNANDEZ - HW #9 - Advancing Benchmarks

Seeking Human Kindness

I've completed the identity for our event (attached variations).
I went with something modest and gentle, a monotype called Lettera.

Sophia and Tanner spoke about including a rainbow so I have created a minimal 3 stroke rainbow that was given a similar treatment as the logo to match the rest of the type.

The logo also has an underlined version to strengthen hierarchy and differentiate itself from other content when used. The rainbow can also be used alone.

Our next steps now are to apply the identity to the rest of our material (poster, pamphlet, signage, emails, etc.) I will also be moving forward on our final color palette. 

JOSH RIVAS - AESTHETIC EVANGELISTS

Joshua Rivas

Evelyn Serrano

Art and Community Engagement

4/18/16

 Grant Kester

 Public art; Community Art is created in hopes to engage a community or art that is created with an engaged community to help further the community in specific ways.

I. The Politically Coherent Community 

There is the Political Representation and the Symbolic Representation. Now when I first read about these separate ways of representation I clung to Political Representation being the most appropriate form in which artists should abide by, when engaging in communities that are

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foreign to them. But I found myself wondering, "Does this mean the artist must wait to be 'elected' and what does this process entail and what if part of the problem, is this community that

​need ​

to be spoken up for does not even have the ability to speak up and elect an artist or
representative." These two different types of representation, however, still confused me. What exactly made each type different. So I looked at an artist, I admire, and tried to understand where he would

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tand in this categorizing. JR is the type of artist who sees a struggle and offers his service as to the community in hopes to give them a voice. I am not entirely familiar with his process but hypothetically it seems that JR goes into a community and hears their stories and gives these people a voice. I have seen him do work in Cuba where he explains to people what he

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was hoping to accomplish and that he would like to photograph the people, he was speaking with, to add to his art. This to me seems like symbolic representation. He is somewhat taking advantage of a community and appropriating. However, he does it in a way that does not offend the community in which he engages unlike Jaar and his unfortunate piece of art entitled "One or Two Things I Know About Them". JR may take the role of the representative without asking, but

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he is the representative he is clear with his goals and allows people to determine whether or not they want to be involved. JR walks a very complex line because when JR travels to other communities he is faced with thousands of micro communities that live within the community JR is representing and he must be unafraid of offending these other communities when representing a specific group of people.

II. Malleable subjects and Moral Pedagogy

 I am glad Kester explains how conservatives were a root of many problems.I think Kester made his point clear in using this example. Community Artists can sometimes get in their head; "(1) that the individual is morally or emotionally flawed, (2) that this flaw bears a causal relation to their current (economically, emotionally, socially, or creatively) "disempowered" status, and (3) that the artist is in a position to remedy this flaw, and to provide the subject with what George F. Will would call the "social capital Necessary for civilized living"(Kester); And forget to address the root of a problem and instead solve the problem. So like the 3rd point leaves off we as artists sometimes have an urge to fix communities. Usually we come in with privileges and feel obligated to use those privileges to help. I would like to look at my trip to Cuba. The first few days I was in Cuba I experienced something very interesting. I noticed some of the students felt an obligation to our Cuban Collaborators. An obligation that came from our privilege, but also this idea that they are suffering in a way because of the laws of their government. I find that through discussions there was a sense of, 'we must save them, we must fight for them'. I think that last concept was what made me realize something. We, as artists, cannot ever win someone else's fight for them. Communities must fight for themselves and when we, as artists, come into a community and engage we must be aware that we are not there to fight them, but rather lend our talents as artists in a way that lacks ego. There is a sense of

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emotionlessness that must come with the job. I find that this allows the most impact because when an artist comes into a community with their own agenda, for how a battle must be won, it backfires. Just look to Jaar's art piece again and how the women were not pleased with the

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esults of his art work because he attempted to win a battle that was not his in the first place. To me I find this similar to the concepts of cultural appropriation. An artist inserts themselves into the fray of a battle that does not belong to them and use their pain or crisis as a muse to help

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reate potent and strong art. We as artists understand that hardship can lead to strong art and that
may attract artists to seek out hardship and make it their own for the purpose of creating potent

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art. I appreciate Kester Writing this article in hopes to inform me and my fellow artists to ask ourselves of our intention because it is clear that a strong and healthy intention allows room for

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trong and potent art.

 Bibliography

Kester, Grant. "Aesthetic Evangelists: Conversion and Empowerment in Contemporary

 Community Art1." (n.d.): n. pag. Web. <http://media.wix.com/ugd/

 87d3d4_35804c76fa104e138eb44fbd2c2f979e.pdf>.

"Standing March Collaboration with Darren Aronofsky in Paris." JR. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Apr.

2016. <http://www.jr-art.net/>.

"Alfredo Jaar." Alfredo Jaar. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2016. <http://www.alfredojaar.net/>.

SERINA BERNSTEIN—AESTHETIC EVANGELISTS ANALYSIS

Serina Bernstein

4/17/16

Art & Community Engagement

 

 

"Aesthetic Evangelists" Analysis

 

In Aesthetic Evangelists, Grant Kester tears apart community art. In the introduction he uses the word "analyze" and "investigate" to describe what he is going to do in the paper. He does not use the word "criticize", despite how ruthless he is in calling the community artists out on what is wrong with their practice. In the end, he justifies himself by saying:

If I have focused on the less successful aspects it is in part because of my sense that most of the critical dialogue around this work has been characterized by a certain circularity—rather than testing, evaluating, or closely examining the claims made for these works critics have by and large been content to simply promulgate them.

As opposed to creating a balanced argument in his own paper, Kester balances out the general discourse. His paper is a part of a greater whole, and less a whole in itself. However, this method of structuring assumes that the reader is aware of the other, more positive discourses surrounding community art, (which in this case, I am somewhat) but for other readers, the paper could discourage their potential tendencies towards a practice of community art. In his other writings, Kester is more supportive of community artists. In Conversation Pieces, which was published after this article, Kester allows the artist group WochenKlausur to come to their own defense.

In response to those who would equate their practice with social work or activism, Zinggl is insistent that it be defined in terms of art. 'Localized between social work and politics, between media work and management,' as Zinggl writes, 'interventions are nonetheless based on ideas from the discourse of art.' These ideas would include, first the capacity to think critically and creatively across disciplinary boundaries. (Kester 101)

This is very different from how he treats Dawn Dedeaux who created the piece "Soul Shadows: Urban Warrior Myths", in "Aesthetic Evangelists". He uses Dedaux's own words against her.

In fact, Dedeaux explicitly states that she considers questions such as these to be beyond the proper domain of the artist. As the installation flyer from Rochester notes, […] I think it is notable that for Dedeaux the artists' proper "function" stops at precisely that point at which their work might raise troubling questions of "politics" and "policy". Community artists are "qualified" to diagnose the emotional maladies of the incarcerated, and to unthinkingly reiterate the most problematic commonplaces of conservative ideology, but when it comes to diagnosing the structural features of the urban economy they suddenly find themselves out of their depth.

In the previous examples, Kester is critical of Dedeaux's words, where as in the case of WochenKlausur, he was not. This is evidence that his style of critique is not always as hard-edged as it is in "Aesthetic Evangelists".

In addition to the case study of "Soul Shadows: Urban Warrior Myths", Kester also spends text emphasizing two main points of critique, which appear before the case study. The first of these main points challenges the artist's authority in defining a given community and proposes that it would be better if the artist would work with politically coherent communities instead.

A very different kind of "collaboration" would arise out of a project produced with a politically-coherent community. In this case the collaboration would be characterized by a more equitable process of exchange and mutual education, with the artist learning from the community and having his or her own presuppositions (about the community, specific social, cultural, and political issues, etc.) challenged and expanded.

This quote makes it seem like Kester is arguing for a more hands-off approach on the part of the artist. But how can marginalized, degraded individuals struggling with fulfilling basic needs be able surmount that and have the imagination, will power and energy to form a politically coherent community? Especially in a culture where hierarchical capitalist structures encourage the deferment to external authority, but not the reclaiming of personal initiative/intuitive wisdom? If the politically coherent community was able to form, found art to be a useful strategy to further their goals, and were empowered and clear on how they wanted to communicate through the art, then the artist becomes commoditized, A tool for this group, marginal as they may be, to further their agenda.

A second point that Kester makes in the article is that community artists have taken the form of social service providers and that this furthers conservative aims of privatized philanthropy which supports Victorian bourgeois ideas around this. The community artist operates from a comfortable position, and in doing so, ignores how their comfort indirectly comes at the expense of the disempowered due to the social structures and norms.

Within this system "others," (and for Victorian reform this would include slaves, "fallen women," the poor, heathens, etc.) become the necessary vehicles for the bourgeois subject's own spiritual evolution. This transcendence can only occur so long as any troubling causal or structural relationship between the philanthropist and the "other" is suppressed and replaced with a rhetoric of individual and spontaneous charity.

Kester's description led me to wonder what this structural relationship is? What is a specific example of it? Kester uses the phrase "systematic forms of oppression" at another point in the paper as well. These phrases vaguely step around a grandiose overwhelming issue without explaining it. To combat this problem, I looked into further explanations of systematic inequality and found one structured around the creation of interior and exterior categories of social mediation in Durable Inequality.

Matching interior with exterior categories reinforces inequality inside the organization that does the matching. The creation of a well-marked interior boundary itself facilitates exploitation and opportunity hoarding by providing explanations, justifications, and practical routines for unequal distribution of rewards. But matching such an interior boundary with an exterior categorical pair such as white/black or citizen/foreigner imports already established understandings, practices, and relations that lower the cost of maintaining the boundary. It borrows potent scripts and common knowledge. Emulation thereby reinforces exploitation and opportunity hoarding. The labels "interior" and "exterior" do not identify the content or members of a categorical pair; rather, they indicate the relation of the categories to the organization at hand. (Tilly 77)

According to Tilly, systematic inequality is reinforced in the correspondence between internal and external definitions and categorization. The categories within the structure (i.e. the hierarchy in a business) are attached to external categories based on difference (i.e. men and women). This can be an example of what a bourgeois philanthropist is party to. Perhaps they are in the position of categorizing people in such a way in their hiring practices. In this position, they hold up and perpetuate a skewed system that is exclusive. Some demographic is always left with the short end of the stick. They see their spontaneous acts of charity not as way to make amends for their position, but as a selfless act of giving.

            Kester is consistent in the direction of his critical stance throughout his paper, except for at the end where he throws the readers a bone, and offers a few consoling words. This style of writing is different from this essay, where I am not consistently critical of Kester's points and strategies. Sometimes I am, sometimes I support them, and sometimes I seek merely to understand his techniques better. Though Kester's criticism of community artists in the paper is harsh and for the most part unrelenting, it's still valid. The eye of the critic should escape no one regardless of their benevolent aims—And treat all equally. However, I wonder how useful this criticism is to community artists. Perhaps it moves them forward by motivating them to make new art that aims to correct whatever was problematic in their last piece. And yet, how Sisyphean this seems! No matter how many times they change their tactics, their works will never be perfect and free from the critic's attacking words.

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Kester, Grant. "Aesthetic Evangelists: Conversion and Empowerment in Contemporary Community Art." Afterimage 22 (January 1995) 22 (1995): n. pag. Web. 17 Apr. 2016.

Kester, Grant H. Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art. Berkeley: U of California, 2004. Print.

Tilly, Charles. Durable Inequality. Berkeley: U of California, 1998. 1998. Web. 17 Apr. 2016.

 

 

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RE: Aesthetic Evangelists assignment

Madeline  Quint 

Aesthetic Evangelists  reflection 

4/4/16

In Grant H. Kester's essay he chooses to analyze new public art and "the emerging institutional and idealogical identity of the public artist." He will cover the changes in the system of "arts patronage," the "moral economy" of capitalism, and the "historical development of urban reform in the U.S. Kester quotes that new public art is a "new genre" that takes the "interactive form" of community based projects that are brought on by social issues. In this "new" philosophy of work the artists aren't as worried about producing objects as they are about the process and collaborating. According to Hester, production of work involves the artist in many negotiations involving the social and cultural boundaries. And these negotiations lead to methodological questions concerning community-based art. But,  If a delegate stands for an absent community who really controls what he or she chooses to stand for or represent in the community? Thus, coalition should be considered in this process; ctb.ku.edu quotes…

"coalition is a group of individuals and/or organizations with a common interest who agree to work together toward a common goal."

Furthermore, the common goal could also be as narrow or broad as you make it but either way as ctb.ku.edu quotes once again, 

"nearly every segment of the community can be included" 

After having discussed some of the methodological questions raised by community-based public art, Kester then chose to examine the "general ideological climate in which work is being produced." He believed that to examine the work you must first begin with an understanding of the moral economy of capitalism, and the "history of liberal reform." Kester states that the readers should start by looking at conservative arguments about poverty, social and cultural inequality, and disenfranchisement. But what does he only say to look at the conservative arguments? I believe that is wrong to say, if you're going to look at one side, you should look at both to be even more informed and not have a bias opinion…especially when dealing with a community. Kester continues to go on and about what the conservatives think and want, but what about the liberals? He continues to "insult" the conservatives but never goes into great detail about the liberals and their views. 

Also, throughout the rest of this essay Kester expresses his concern about those who are committed to a progressive cultural practice that then, thus inadvertently may support features of the conservative position. Since, this paper is a reflection based off of the essay we are required to read I must be honest…coming from a point of view that is neither liberal or conservative (meaning I am independent) I feel that Kester has a very high viewpoint of himself and thus the energy in the essay bothers me. INFORMATION FLUENCY states that…

"A statement is biased if it reflects a partiality, preference, or prejudice for or against a person, object, or idea. Much of what you read and hear expresses a bias."

Overall, this essay was quite difficult for me to continue to read and I found myself stopping in disbelief of what he said or how he chose to word his "ideas or beliefs." Therefore, I was not too impressed and wish he would have wrote about both point of views in this essay, or at least examined these points of views through an unbiased eye. 

Bibliography 

"Section 5. Coalition Building I: Starting a Coalition." Chapter 5. Choosing Strategies to Promote Community Health and Development. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2016.

"Information Fluency." Bias. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2016"

RE: Aesthetic Evangelist Madeline Quint

The fine line between activism and exploitation- Noga Yechieli

Today many artists believe in engaging with communities, minorities and basing their art on sensitive or taboo subjects. Even though art in its origin has always been on the cutting edge of society, raising questions that no one dares to answer, only in recent years has the type of work shifted in its construct. Nowadays we see much more the motivation of artists to create work with communities and minorities and not only about them. However this shift is loaded with many different sensitive aspects and the line between creating work with communities and exploiting them has gotten slightly blurred. In his essay "Aesthetic Evangelists: Conversion and Empowerment in Contemporary Community Art" Grant Kester makes the differentiation and explains in what way artists are often exploiting or embezzling work even when they do not mean any harm.

First in order to understand how this exploitation can even occur there needs to be an understanding of the system of oppression, the way it is perpetuated by neoliberalist social constructs. In an evangelist capitalist system of power, the reason for poverty, social gaps between classes or incarceration are not due to a systematic flaw but rather the personal character traits of individuals. As Kester says:

"the "bad" subject (characterized by moral depravity, defective family structures, and lack of identification with bourgeois norms) must be transformed into a "good" subject (characterized by respect for the transcendent authority of property, identification with an individualistic ethos, etc.)(p.17)"

Meaning the solution for this social flaw lies in fixing the behavior of certain individuals, and helping to empower specific people. Thus the poor are to be blamed for their poverty, and the solution is to help them case by case, looking at them as individuals and not as part of a larger system that sustains these social divides.

On the other hand artists often come from more privileged educated backgrounds, where they had the opportunity to receive a degree in their craft, but are interested in bringing their knowledge to less privileged communities, and help improve their lives. But because of their privilege they often do not realize that they are perpetuating that same systematic oppression with their mindset and approach. Often artists working with communities have established a specific opinion on the community, its struggle, its narrative and the solution that it needs prior to meeting with that community. These artists want to use the voices of the community to amplify a narrative that they established without the community's consent. In doing so, the artist is benefiting and advancing their own creative portfolio, while the community isn't benefiting, since the artist hasn't truly addressed the issues that are relevant to that community as its real struggles and experiences are often very different than what the artist assumed. Additionally the community is also capable of voicing its own thoughts and advocating for itself and doesn't need the artist in order to establish itself. Mohanti in her famous essay "Under Western Eyes" explains "The hegemony of neoliberalism, alongside the naturalization of capitalist values, influences the ability to make choices on one's own behalf in the daily lives of economically marginalized as well as economically privileged communities around the globe"(p.229). Even though there is a loss of power to the government Mohanti describes how lack of privilege actually gives an advantage in analysis of social issues.The less privileged may have less opportunities, but by being pushed to the back they have gained their own perspective as well as seeing all the layers of privilege above them. In contrast the more privileged cannot see what lies beneath them, hence have less perspective and ability to analyze the social structures. Mohanti concludes through this that the less privilege have a better ability to understand their needs and the ways to better their lives on a systematic level, and do not need a privileged voice to provide them with these answers.  

However artists often see themselves as the ones who can provide solutions and as the privileged and empowered activists while the community is "in need to be empowered". With this presumption a certain hierarchy of activists is implied as well,  in which activists who are white/men/upper middle class/ educated are considered "valuable" in helping a community. However someone from the community itself, who might have more knowledge to improve the problem but doesn't have the same resources as the privileged activist, will be considered less valuable.  Wu Tsang who created the documentary "Wildness" based on the bar "The Silver Platter" and founded community organizing for transgender people found themselves in a similar struggle with the hierarchies of privilege. They formed a small organization that helped transgender people with their civil rights and lawsuits. The volunteers consisted of trans folk whose responsibility was to voice the community's needs and a few cisgender lawyers as well who came in pro-bono to meet with community members and provide their law services. But because of the service the lawyers provided a hierarchy was formed that the trans volunteers struggled with "We all felt pressure that their (the lawyers) presence was a gift not to be wasted, as opposed to the other way around. Weren't they supposed to be there to support us?" (297).

Even though the lawyers were helping, they were perpetuating a system that insisted that the underprivileged need to be "saved" by the privileged, and because of their education their time was more valuable than the trans voices that provided explanations to the problems in the first place. This behavior results in a silencing of the voices that these communities do have, and forces them to "lean" on external support, which provides assistance but doesn't tackle the system of oppression.

In conclusion artists often try to engage work with communities to better their lives, trying to tackle a specific problem the community is dealing with and exposing it to the general public. But in this way of working they are looking at the micro and not the macro. They are providing a lens that depicts the community's specific problems without linking it to governmental responsibility, institutional discrimination, capitalist and neoliberalist governmental constructs. Without this link they are inadvertently blaming the community for its problem and localizing it, rather than setting it on a global or national scale and returning the responsibility to the government.  

Bibliography

Kester, Grant H. "Aesthetic Evangelists: Conversion and Empowerment in Contemporary Community Art." Afterimage 22 (1995): n. pag. Web.

Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. "Chapter 9 "Under Western Eyes"" Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham: Duke UP, 2003. 221-71. Print.

Tsang, Wu. "Wildness Artist's Statement." Whitney, 2012. Web.

Josh Lowenstein - Aesthetic Evangelists Paper

Josh Lowenstein

Serrano

Arts and Community Engagement

April 5, 2016

Aesthetic Evangelists Paper

Community engagement plays a very important role in the creation of art. In fact, in recent years, many works of art have been created by members of communities rather than a city council or public agency. Grant H. Kester, a professor of art history discusses the transformative practices of community-engaged art in "Aesthetic Evangelists: Conversion and Empowerment in Contemporary Community Art."

Kester introduces the idea of "community" and what this word means in creating art. He says that community is not necessarily solely members of the community creating art. Furthermore, a community arts project more often involves collaboration between members of a community and one "artist" working with that community. The goal of the two working together is usually for the artist to represent the community they are working with. Kester explains this relationship by referring to Pierre Bourdieu who describes the relationship, stating that the artist represents the community almost like in the voting purpose of the United States congress. In congress, there are members of the House and Senate who represent their state's constituents and are supposed to vote based on the values that their state believes in.

However, Kester argues that this lead artist is often not chosen based on how popular they are, but they simply decide to do an art piece displaying the community. This phenomenon means that the artist really is not working with community, but instead making the community their art piece.  

The key for community arts to work effectively is the ability to achieve a balance between the community represented and the aspirations of the artist. In addition, the artist should not be helping out a community if they are only trying to gain something from this work. Instead, the artist should be working with the community to truly help represent the community members beliefs and ideals for the project.

Kester continues to talk about a certain case of artist Dawn Dedeaux, who worked in a prison with inmates to help them develop creative outlets. She had a difficult time with receiving respect, but she eventually gained the trust of one of the inmates and it began to rub off on the others. Her final product of this work, titled "Soul Shadows" included video footage of her working on art projects with the inmates to show how these individuals really have changed and improved. Unfortunately, in reality, her piece does less to display how these people in the prison have changed through the usage of art and creative pathways, and it tries harder to display how great Dedeaux is because of her ability to break social barriers and exemplify an artist who can work with a community.

Kester is definitely one of the most cynical critics of community arts, but he definitely provides legitimate evidence to explain his cynicism. Community artists seem to make a habit of using a community engaged project for their own benefit when the whole point of community arts is to help the community. It is very important to take Kester's research into consideration so that artists make sure they are orienting their motives towards helping the communities with whom they are working.

Works Cited:

Bourdieu, Pierre. "Thesis Eleven: Delegation and Political Fetishism." (Pg 203). February 1985.

Dedeaux, Dawn. "Soul Shadows: Urban Warrior Myths" Fleet Bank - "Montage '93," Rochester, New York, May 1993.

Kessler, Grant. "Aesthetic Evangelists: Conversion and Empowerment in Contemporary Community Art." University of California San Diego, California 2004.

Alejandro Aguilar - Aesthetic Evangelist Reflection

Alejandro Aguilar

E. Serrano

April 2016

The main issues that were prevalent to me in Grant's article on communities and the effects and roles artists take in many cultural layers, where the ways in which a community is defined under Grant's terminology. I enjoyed how he framed the interactions between any group or domain of particular interest or social imbalance. Discussing what a community artist is in relation to public artists, delegation and avocations for a group dialogue between artist and community where eye opening in the sense that the place of power between a single or a few skilled individuals can be transferred onto  a group via the medium of art.

The challenge though is the current fight between conservative change or dialogue between communities engaged, such as the youngsters in prison viewing the Hardy boys, then the prisons adaptation to the Hall of Judgement , they only truly affected change and transformation within the individuals, not the community within or outside affecting the actual placement of these kids. A lot of pedagogy is run by politics and higher ups that grant space for discourse, which is where a lot of power lies for community artists. In many ways they have access to those public spaces, grants, and levels of entry or dialogue at a larger scale to involve themselves with funded projects or specific communities.

It's confusing because it's easy to critique and face many imperfect or trade-off oriented projects such as the project with the  women being misrepresented by the photos taken of them, which where accurate, but with nasty captions that didn't reflect their thoughts at all. Artists may target the wrong community, or enter with the wrong frame of mind or concept that sends a warbled exchange between the artist's catalyst for awakening within the public community. 

The good side of this is there is still a response from a group, meaning if listened to, change can be applied. Too bad for Alfredo Jaar's, not changing the racist or sexist tags in his project "One or Two Things I Know About Them," but instead opting to close down the exhibit. In that case, maybe missing the mark so hard on Jaar's big attempt made sense to not further that shambled discourse by staying silent.

One of the ways Alfredo has followed up to those events was to exhibit images of famine in "Sound of Silence" to cover his imbalance towards his reliance on words to supplement a story, so he has taken this in stride to further improve his communication between himself and communities.

Being aware of the political and world effects as to challenge right wing ideologies (Which tie in to Victorian principles and duties of the empowered) helped paint a broader understanding of the repeated patterns of history from which we cycle today. Empowering those that may not need empowering or shunting a community in a lower position of power when someone intervenes to 'help' or 'awaken' someone makes the power focus on the art and artist more than communities being boosted on a higher pedestal to speak. Lowering the ego of the artist involved is difficult. Figuring out how invisible or prominent an artist should be during a community engagement changes the dynamics a lot in the form of any art piece. By having a target person of focus to blame or claim the catalyst for change in perception with their art, it makes the artist easily viewed as the individual who must change themselves for the world to receive the artist's message properly. 

One man whom I feel achieved a balance between presenting his works in the open with near transparency and invisibility would be Krzysztof Wodiczko's Homeless Vehicle Project. Wodiczko's use of engineering, design, to create a feasible living experience for those devoid of one is incredible. Wodiczko illustrates to me how a tool can open up so many questions within the borders of comfort over our daily lives, and how a successful, affordable intervention can empower and enrich even those that are seen but not heard. His transforming vehicle that allows for private bathroom use, sleep, portable storage, speaks volumes for itself. Most importantly I feel it forces a community change instead of individual reflection, for building a tool that is engaging in so many ways in and of itself.

In that sense, this critique Grant offers is in many ways valid, lasting change must go outside of the individual, but dealing with groups can make depersonalizing easy. Change does usually start from within. Creating action from inaction is perplexing, complex, and fascinating. Working and challenging the community of artists engaged in other projects or social services is super interesting to me how meta we are going within our own self awareness to spread out our messages with greater balance and structure towards positive change. There are many venues to walk towards his trains of thought in terms of my role as an artist, and it makes me question how far I can push myself to find platforms in which different groups or communities can change.

Viewing all of the projects degrees of success and responses helped widen my perspective to the levels of challenges opened up from success. I want to dive deeper in a project involving social work than the surface level of "what is it that I'm really doing for these people?" Grant did a fine job expanding my perception in regards to my role as an artist now, and how I view or categorize groups of people.

Works Cited

Kester, Grant H. "Aesthetic Evangelists:." Afterimage 22 (1995): 1-39. Slought. Web. 

Hebdidge, Dick "The Machine Is Unheimlich: Krzysztof Wodiczko's Homeless Vehicle Project" Walker (2012). Web

Wei, Lilly "Alfredo Jaar: interview" Studio International (2014). Web.

Aesthetic Evangelists

Jaron Crespi

Evelyn Serrano

Arts and Community Engagement

4/4/16

The Influence of Your Personal Sphere

The artist has great influence upon their personal sphere of influence. Through community-based art, a society can be transformed from the inside out through the power of the artist. In Grant Kester's essay Aesthetic Evangelists: Conversion and Empowerment in Contemporary Community Art, he warns the artist creating community-based works of failed processes that have exploited communities and the danger of a priori "solutions." He explains these obstacles by bringing to light the, "...Representational politics of community art… the current ideological and cultural context within which community-based public art must operate, as well as its historical antecedents… and a short case study of a particular project [Dawn Dedeaux's, "Soul Shadows: Urban Warrior Myths]," (Kester).

Within the representational politics of community art Kester introduces two interrelated meanings of the term "representation." The first of the two, "...Refers to the act of political representation - a process by which the community, through its own electoral procedures, selects an individual subject to speak its collective will in political debates, etc." (Kester). The second mode of representation (symbolic representation), "...Occurs when the delegate confirms and legitimates his or her political power through the act of literally re-presenting or exhibiting the community itself, in the form of demonstrations and other political performances," (Kester). There is a problem which Kester points out with the latter of the two which is the artist's ability or inability to "exhibit" a specific community, and the authority to declare a position that is sanctioned by that group's social experience. Kester points this out with an extreme example quoting Alice Walker, in regards to being identifying with African women who undergo genital mutilation, saying, as she describes it, "...She received her own 'patriarchal wound' when she was shot in the eye with a pellet gun by her brother when she was seven years old," (Kester). The artist is warned to not claim somebody else's suffering as their own, and then to create an art piece out of it apart from an acceptance and recognition of a certain community who has delegated that priviledge to them, if it isn't the artist's experience to begin with in the first place. It is crucial for the artist to approach a politically coherent community with a spirit of humility, not knowing-it-all but with a teachable attitude and willing to surrender their pre-supposed lenses in exchange for understanding through being taught by the community.

Historically our culture has approached poor and homeless people as a deformed and morally flawed society, whose distorted morality bears relation to their economic, emotional, social, and creative "disempowered" status. The primary focus of our society concerning the poor and homeless has been on their moral regeneration as opposed to any systematic changes in the surrounding society. Kester states that, "At the center of this model is a matrix of personal transformation derived originally from evangelism, due in part to the fact that many of the most influential charity agencies and social reform movements of the late 18th and early 19th centuries were sponsored by evangelicals and evangelical denominations," (Kester). Not only has the church been partially responsible for the cultural focus on moral regeneration rather than a systematic tweak in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but there is a lack of a societal change and activism within the church body today. In the late 60's and early 70's christian artist Keith Green wrote songs provoking the church make lifestyle changes that would image the compassionate, servant-hearted, humble Jesus they so boldly proclaimed to follow. He wrote songs that say, "Go to the hungry ones and fill them with his bread… Is your house open to let strangers enter there? Give to the least of them, show them someone cares," (Go To The Hungry Ones - Keith Green). Through his message during that time many homes began to open up to people in need of food and shelter. Communities were totally transformed through Keith Green's direct influence on the christian community during that time. The work of Keith Green did not demand obedience to a moral law. His art changed his immediate social system and mode of thinking to help provide for the real needs of people. Keith Green exemplifies how an artist can directly influence his or her direct personal sphere of influence and witness the transformation of a community starting with their life and then spreading outwards and beyond.

Aesthetic Evangelists Reflection- Sophia Pietrkowski

Sophia Pietrkowski

4/5/16

Arts and Community Engagement

 

Aesthetic Evangelists: Reflection

 

            Community Engagement is a sufficient platform for social change. It starts with artists engaging in a social issue with a specific group of people. Grant Kester's Aesthetic Evangelists defines a community in relation to "special or institutional boundaries." Another note is that community is in relation to "specific issues" or "in connection to specific identities." The term of community is broad, however, the term itself carries a lot of weight. When one thinks of a community, it is thought of as a group of people that identify themselves in relation to each other, it is empowering to be part of a larger association. Group engagement collectively relates members of a community together in the direction of a common interest. So how do artists go into a community and use their privilege to artistically morph social issues into an art piece?

            The real question to explore is what is an artist's relationship to these communities?  Grant brings up that an "artist is distanced from the community as a catalyst." So what gives artists a right to speak on behalf of people that they have no relationship with? Artist's hold a "representational relationship of speaking 'for,' 'through,' 'with,' 'about,' or 'on behalf of' other subjects." These "other subjects" are usually what unites a specific community together in the first place. The artist's role is not to identify what already unites these people. The artist's role is to start a conversation of empowerment for the people.

            However, the line is blurred between empowering a community versus empowering oneself for personal gain. This is what Bourdieu says is "embezzlement, in which the [artist] claims the authority to speak for the community." This is a charged issue. The line that is blurred is when an artist is doing this work "in order to empower [themselves] politically, professionally, and morally." Politically and professionally are two areas that are somewhat self-explanatory. However how do artists empower themselves morally? If their work is purely for moral gain, does this idea play into their development professionally, or is it the ignorance of thinking they are doing the right thing? Is personal moral empowerment a bad thing? I believe it is if it is at the cost of not communicating with the community that is supposed to be engaged by an array of artwork.

             Kester's work discusses John Malpede's work on Skid Row. I believe that this work is an exemplary form of community and moral engagement. According to the Los Angeles Poverty Department journal Making the Case for Skid Row, LAPD states the case that "for many years, a host of public and private agencies directed the poor—and services for them—to [Skid Row] and away from other areas." This group of homeless people created a grass roots community. John Malpede is the artistic director and founder of this theater company involving people that are homeless and formerly homeless since 1985. Malpede takes credit and stands by his work while keeping in mind personal and communal morality in the community engaged work. In an interview that I conducted he said that: "the most important piece of [his] work is in building relationships." Malpede is a leader in work with the homeless and has provided opportunities for personal growth, passions to emerge, and giving the people of the community a chance to be heard. The key thing here is to realize that the art is for the community. According to Doug Borwick's article, Engaging Matters, "Community engagement is focused on developing partnerships, deep ones; its end result is trust and understanding from which expanded reach can be pursued" (artsjournal.com). Being informed and building conscious relationships with the community is key to successful social change through community-engaged partnerships with artists.

Works Cited

"Aesthetic Evangelists" Grant Kessler. 1. Afterimage 22 (January 1995) (n.d.): n. pag.

"Audience Engagement-Community Engagement." Engaging Matters. N.p., 13 May 2012. Web. 05 Apr. 2016. <http://www.artsjournal.com/engage/2012/05/audience-engagement-community-engagement/>.

 

Introduction. MAKING THE CASE FOR SKID ROW CULTURE Findings from a Collaborative Inquiry by the Los Angeles Poverty Department and the Urban Institute (n.d.): n. pag. Web.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aesthetic Evangelists Reflection- Sophia Pietrkowski

Jonathan Bangs Reflection Essay

Jonathan Bangs

E. Serrano

April 2016

 

            In the beginning my intention was to read Grant H. Kester's highly eloquent essay until I reached the bibliography section. Implementing this nonstop task as my objective had its pros as well as its cons; after reading Grant Kester's work it was apparent that Kester is an intellectual man that possess the gift of keeping the reader emphatically attentive however he as the ability to ramble historical facts to the point of boredom as well.

            March of last year I started the process for a community engaging play titled Shelter; the story centers around seven kids from Central America and their horrendous and hopeful journey to the United States of America. The journey in terms of the show process for which has also been long and arduous but doesn't hold a candle to the trek these thirteen and fourteen year old children go through for the opportunity to receive a pinch of the American Dream; at twenty two years old and have been acting for sixteen of those years, never before have I been in a show that resonates fibers of being I've never felt before. During the twelve/ thirteen-month process a myriad of the Shelter cast and crew have often participated in workshops with East LA kids who've taken the dreadful voyage themselves. Orchestrated by Martin Acosta, Marissa Chibas and the CalArts Center for New Performance, Shelter will be premiering in the heart of East LA with the engagement of the Latino community April 8^th- 17 at Lincoln Park.

            I was a fan of Kester's essay mostly at times in which he would deeply detail examples of community engagement processes and the reception that each artwork garnered.  Grant Kester says in his thirty plus page essay:    

             "The community in community based public art often, although clearly not always, refers to the individuals marked as culturally, economically, or socially different either from the artist or from the audience for the particular project."

            I found the quote above to be somewhat of the helm or motif in a plethora of concepts embedded in this writing. I also found the dichotomy of a "rightfully done" art making project versus a not so consciously acted art work amusing for the reader; Kester's introduction of Alfredo Jaar and his exhibit "One or Two Things I Know About Them" was one of the strongest sections in the essay. Jaar was invited to stage his site-specific work he constructed in Bangladesh at the Whitechapel Gallery in London 1992. Jaar compiled photographs of many young Bangladeshi women to be hung in the gallery but what lead to the pour of outrage were the sexist and racist captions scribed on the images. The ending result of the gallery staff ultimately taking down the images altogether is what I perceive to be a community involved artwork not properly engaging the community.

            In short, I found Grant Kester's writing highly informative and coincidental with the timing of the community engaging art project Shelter. A few days away from my first performance for a site-specific audience or tailored demographic; reading Kester praising Dawn Dedeaux's art installation "Soul Shadows: Urban Warrior Myths" and its impact has consequently given me anxiety about communal reception destined for Shelter.

 

                                                Works Cited

1)    http://arthurrogergallery.com/artists/dawn-dedeaux/

2)    https://www.artsy.net/artist/alfredo-jaar

3)    Aesthetic Evangelists: Conversion and Empowerment in Contemporary Community Art Kester, H. Grant