Corcoran School of Art and Design Joins National Gallery of Art to Host Three-Year Artist Residency | GW Today | George Washington University

The partnership announced last year between George Washington University’s Corcoran School of Arts and Design, formerly Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, and the National Gallery of Art is entering a new phase this year with the start of the three residences in For. Freedoms, an artist-led group dedicated to the potential of art to promote social engagement.

A series of community events will mark the start of the settlement early next month.

For Freedoms began with a question about the role artists can play in society, according to Eric Gottesman, who founded the organization in 2016 with a group of artists including Hank Willis Thomas, Wyatt Gallery and Michelle Woo. He said the question was part of a series of other questions.

“What is the role of art in politics? And how do these two kingdoms come together? These were all questions that, independently and collectively, we found important in the work we did,” said Gottesman. As a result, we formed an association.

The team was inspired to name itself by a series of paintings by Norman Rockwell depicting ideas from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s World War II address. The president spoke of the “four freedoms”—freedom of speech, worship, want and fear. For Freedoms was originally organized as a super PAC, but it did not advocate for specific people in political races.

“We were advocating for a set of values ​​that included an anti-partisan vision of what society could look like,” Gottesman said. “We invited artists to express their views on contemporary issues and politics by inviting them into the public space through billboards, public art installations, exhibitions and various events. And the goal of this effort was really to inject political, artistic and critical discussion into the public discourse. ”

Hundreds of artists have been associated with For Freedoms, including Shepard Fairey, Guerrilla Girls, Jenny Holzer, Rashid Johnson, Christine Sun Kim, Carrie Mae Weems and Ai Weiwei. These artists and many others have created boards designed to spark conversation and encourage people to participate in community life. Their work has been exhibited in every state of the union as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.

Some of the boards have generated some surprising comments. For example, Jamila El Sahili, a Lebanese artist, who grew up in Germany and now lives in New York, created a billboard showing white Arabic letters on a black background, which in English translates to “man .” When it was shown in Michigan, which has a large Arab-American population, some people questioned whether the sign had anything to do with terrorism. Gottesman said that asking questions and stimulating different interpretations is part of his group’s mission.

“There is only a certain amount that artists can control the interpretation of their work,” Gottesman said. “I find that the best works of art allow the viewer to create their own meaning. I truly believe that creativity is the way to create the society we want. We all know that in every movement of beauty in the history of the world “Yes, the arts have been leading the way. We may not be able to measure that, but I strongly believe that creative thinking is important to our shared future.”

An interdisciplinary lab

The idea of ​​a shared future is central to the For Freedoms residence, which will be underpinned by the theme of interdependence. The residence will provide a multidisciplinary laboratory where students, academics and emerging artists can create and interpret art. A series of events will be offered, including a series of “gallery performances” at the Corcoran and at the National Gallery. Experimental methods of art and community participation will be emphasized, encouraging students and the community to consider new ways of thinking and co-creating.

Lauren Onkey, Corcoran director and professor of history and culture, sees the For Freedoms residency as an exciting next step in the school’s partnership with the National Gallery of Art. Having artists in residence, he said, accessible to students and faculty at GW while making an impact at the National Gallery of Art, was a priority in the partnership.

“We are very happy about this,” Onkey said, “because it will be a kind of engine for us to think in new ways about how we create and present our work. We will be thinking about the way art permeates the world and our understanding of identity and politics. And those are the questions that really inspire our students.”

For Freedoms artists may work with a specific group or faculty member on a project, and collaborate with National Gallery staff on other projects, Onkey added.

Kate Haw, chief program officer, exhibitions and audience engagement at the National Gallery of Art, shared Onkey’s enthusiasm.

“The For Freedoms residency represents the next phase of our partnership with the Corcoran, providing a unique opportunity for experimental learning and innovation across our community, and supporting the work that continues hola of the National Gallery and living artists,” Haw said.

Gottesman will also be the William Wilson Corcoran Visiting Professor this year, teaching one course per semester in which he asks students to think about art and social engagement.

Busy weekends in October

The first weekend of October will be packed with events to kick off the For Freedoms residency, both at the National Gallery and the Corcoran. Several billboards will be placed inside the Flagg Building. Three public hearings are planned, each with a different panel of three presenters—one from For Freedoms, one from the National Gallery and one from from Corcoran. They will discuss questions intended to stimulate further research throughout the three-year residency. Also at the Flagg Building, there will be an interactive art session led by artists where people will be encouraged to make their own boards, kites or flags.

Other events will be held at the National Gallery of Art. In Oct. 4, For Freedoms artist Helina Metaferia and Smithsonian historian Jon Grinspan will participate in a conversation about the Wide Awakes, the revolutionary movement that aimed to elect Abraham Lincoln to the White House in 1860, and the contemporary Wide Awakes, artists of artists working on. bring joy back to politics.

On October 5, Nekisha Durrett, Hank Willis Thomas and Gottesman will interview Philip Brookman, curator of photography at the National Gallery of Art, about the upcoming book, “Where Do We Come From?” (Registration is required for this event.)

But you don’t have to wait until October to see the boards created by For Freedoms artists. One of the group’s projects, Body Freedom for Everyone(Body), a traveling exhibition of paintings on the subject of bodily independence, will be in Washington, DC, for three days starting on Thursday, Sept 12, when it will be GW. A display in a truck with Barbara Kruger’s outdoor artwork. (The next day, it will move to another location.) The truck is traveling the country as one of 25 traveling projects sponsored by For Freedoms.

Throughout the weekend, Corcoran students and faculty will partner with the National Gallery and For Freedoms for discussions that will launch new projects and conversations. Key topics include “Bodies and Performance Spaces,” “Archives & Artifacts,” and “Labor & the Creative Workforce.”

A forthcoming monograph

More than 500 billboards, created by more than 350 artists, are collected in the upcoming exhibition “For Freedoms: Where Do We Go From?” The book will be published on Oct. 15 by Monacelli Press. Billboards represent a wide variety of styles and techniques.

Featured billboards include the work of Hank Willis Thomas in Nashville, Tenn., featuring the words “Love Transcends Laws” in white letters against a red background; book by the Guerrilla Girls in Oklahoma City, Okla., with the words “Dear Boss: Your big houses and fancy things cost a lot of money! No wonder you don’t pay us a living wage!” placed on top of a mountain of neatly folded stacks of money; and Shinique Smith’s “Portrait of Shinique as a Bundle on Rodeo Beach (3 Months Before the Cosco Oil Catch), 2007.” Smith’s billboard, displayed at a bus stop in Baltimore, is a photo of a woman with several bags on her body on a beach in Marin County, Calif., near where the Cosco Busan tanker spilled more than 53,000 of heavy oil. to San Francisco Bay. The message in the upper right hand corner reads “Don’t Touch Anything” in white letters above the word “Vote” in red.

Some of the billboards have many explanations; some seem straightforward, but ultimately prove to be insidious, which is the team’s goal.

“That’s what we want,” Gottesman said. “Usually, advertisers want you to buy something or think about something or vote for something. We wanted people to ask questions and think critically.”

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The For Freedoms residency is the first major public program produced by the renewed Corcoran School-National Gallery partnership, which began. 40 educational events since it began in fall 2023. Since GW acquired the Corcoran School and the Flagg Building in 2014, the Corcoran has hosted more than 50 exhibitions and more than 500 performances, lectures and other events, reaching 50,000 students and visitors. For more information, please visit corcoran.gwu.edu/national-gallery or RSVP for October events.