We were intrigued by "Forest" from the first Facebook'd glance. An art show in a library? And a folksy, anyone-can-do-it open-call for submission? Paired with a blog detailing fairly theoretical motivations behind the show? You've got our attention. But when our initial inquiries into the show turned up an anonymous collective of organizers, we were obsessed and had to find out more.
In his ArtLurker write-up for the event, Thomas Hollingsworth asserts that "this show, although it touches upon authorship, is not about the notion that 'anyone can be an artist...'". It seems like with all of the anonymity involved with the show and the open nature of the invitation, that there would be an element of democratization involved. What is the exhibit's relationship to authorship? We'd like to point out that our concerns are multifaceted. While we were eager to explore the notion that the public consumes art typically through reproductions via the Internet and books and rarely from the original or real works via galleries and museums, there is definitely an element of democratizing art, if only from the fact that anyone willing to make a painting was invited to participate. Often contemporary art is a conversation between artists, curators and critics exclusively, our interest is in opening up the dialogue for a public at large. This is our humble attempt at pointing out that typically art is made, shown, and sold as a commodity within a very small circle. Why a tree (and/or a forest?) as inspiration? We were looking for an iconic image that would appeal to a child as well as adults. We were also playing around with language.We thought it was a great symbol relation, the individual tree/artist and a plural extension with the collective/forest.
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