Taking as its point of departure several themes explored in Dana Schutz’s exhibition The Island, the second publication in our Conversations series examines the role and cultural significance of the artist’s studio. Acclaimed writer and critic Martin Gayford considers the various meanings and functions of the artist’s studio. From a creative haven to a site of communal exchange, from a social stage to a commercial enterprise, the studio has assumed many roles in the production of art. Rather than a fixed setting, the studio emerges as an ever-evolving space shaped by the artist’s practice, temperament and way of seeing. Drawing on his own experience as the subject of portraits by Lucian Freud and David Hockney, Gayford suggests that within the studio the making of art is inseparable from the acts of looking at and reflecting on art.
The publication also features a conversation with Alison Gingeras, in which she reflects on the learnings and limitations of first- and second-wave feminism as well as on the restricted scope of many women-only exhibitions. Discussing her recent transhistorical curatorial endeavor at the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Gingeras considers the history of women in art as one defined by continuity, agency and sustained artistic production. In recognition of gender as a social construct, yet beyond identity politics, Gingeras reframes the enduring “woman question” in today’s social and political landscape.
The public program is curated by Vassilios Doupas, in collaboration with Skarlet Smatana,
director of the George Economou Collection.