We, Deborah and Glenn (DOEprojekts Art Collaborative), were delighted to have the opportunity to meet artist and SAIC educator Nick Cave in December 2022. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) hosted a holiday party for SAIC alumni at Bacall's Restaurant in Manhattan, and afterward, we were invited to hear Nick Cave speak about his newest installation connecting two of Manhattan's Subway Portals (Times Square 42nd Street and Bryant Park). Cave's mosaic and video installation is titled "Each One, Every One, Equal All." [(Above L to R): Artists Julia Schmidt Healy, Glenn N. Doering, Nick Cave, Deborah Adams Doering.]
Nick Cave (b. 1959) has had a long and distinguished art career. He spoke to SAIC alums about his "sound suits," which combine dance and sculpture, and how these works became the basis for his mosaic and video installation in the subway tunnel. He described some of the challenges of working with Mayer of Munich, the atelier that produced the mosaics. His collaborative process and attention to detail inspired us.
We were also inspired by the recent Broadway play "The Collaboration." This theater production imagined the dialog between Andy Warhol (performed by Paul Bettany) and Jean-Michel Basquiat (Jeremy Pope). In the play, the two artists are introduced by art dealer and collector Bruno Bischofberger (Erik Jensen) during a tumultuous time in the New York art world -- the 1980s. At that time, Warhol was losing some of his world-wide popularity and Basquiat's fame was rising. Bischofberger encouraged Warhol to collaborate with the younger artist for a number of reasons, one of them being that Basquiat's drug use was becoming an impediment (some might say otherwise) to his artistic output.
The play highlights the tensions between two artists who ostensibly have very different viewpoints on the role of visual art. Through playwright Anthony McCarton's script, Warhol and Basquiat debate "big life questions" such as identity, commerce, culture, faith, and death. The play is both entertaining and thought-provoking, and prompted dialog and reflection by our DOEprojekts Art Collaborative.
On a somewhat less "public" scale than subway installations or Broadway plays, our DOEprojekts collaboration drew and cut a pair of Yupo stencils in February. These stencil works continue our investigation of circular shapes using our "Coreforms."
We decided to use primary colors Yellow and Blue (the colors of the Ukrainian flag) and the primary color Red (associated with bloodshed and war) as a base for our stencil prints. Our hearts ache for the people of the Ukraine as they enter the second year of war with Russian leader Putin. Several of our prints on these primary colors included gold. Gold has many associations, including victory and compassion.
As we continue our visual explorations, we contemplate the title "Each One, Every One, Equal All" (from Cave's installation). We interpret that title to mean that each contribution to creativity, made by everyone, equals opportunity for growth in thoughts, feelings, actions.
We wish our blog readers creative months ahead!
Deborah and Glenn
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