About Art Heidi Zuckerman

American artist Charles Gaines’ body of work engages formulas and systems that interrogate relationships between the objective and the subjective realms. In his drawings, works on paper and photographs he investigates how rule-based processes and systems construct the experiences of aesthetics, politics, and language. By employing multi-layered practices, including images, texts, and grids, as well as working in a serial character, Gaines examines image structures while critically questioning forms of representation.

 

He recently retired from the CalArts School of Art, where he was on faculty for over 30 years and established a fellowship to provide critical scholarship support for Black students in the M.F.A. program. His work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions in the United States and around the world, most notably at Dia:Beacon, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Studio Museum, Harlem NY, and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles CA. His work has also been presented at the 1975 Whitney Biennial and the Venice Biennale in 2007 and 2015. In addition to his artistic practice, Gaines has published several essays on contemporary art, including Theater of Refusal: Black Art and Mainstream Criticism (University of California, Irvine, 1993) and The New Cosmopolitanism (California State University, Fullerton, 2008). In 2019, Gaines received the 60th Edward MacDowell Medal. He was inducted into the National Academy of Design’s 2020 class of National Academicians and the American Academy of Arts and Letters in May 2022. In 2023, he received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.



He and I spoke about legacy, continuous learning, creating context and systems, paradoxes of perception, feeling versus intellectual exercises in art, the language of art and what is possible, tantric Buddhist art, chance as a method, philosophy of aesthetics, trees, and AI!

Nicholas Baume is the Artistic & Executive Director at Public Art Fund in New York City since 2009. A native of Australia, his career began in Sydney with Kaldor Public Art Projects and later the Museum of Contemporary Art. He was Contemporary Curator at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, before moving to Boston to join the Institute of Contemporary Art as Chief Curator.



He and I discuss being artist centric, the American museum industry, the moment his eyes opened to contemporary art, how art can catalyze feelings you don’t know you have, creating moments of access, sharing art with the world and serving the public, what defines success, what public art needs, authentic experiences, fundamental values, civic scale projects, the importance of diplomacy, and risk taking!

Bjorn Geldhof is Director of the PinchukArtCentre. Founded in September 2006 by businessman and philanthropist Victor Pinchuk, the PinchukArtCentre is an international hub for contemporary art committed to developing the Ukrainian art scene while generating critical public discourse as a whole. Since war broke out in Ukraine in 2022 they have held important exhibitions including When Faith Moves Mountains, a major group exhibition with over 45 artists opening 143 days after the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, focused on Ukraine as a country open to the world and celebrating its deep roots and relation to Europe. The PinchukArtCentre invests in the next generation though the Future Generation Art Prize and the PinchukArtCentre Prize, awards for young contemporary artists aged 35 or younger. Their collateral Venice Biennale project this year, Daring to Dream in a World of Constant Fear, will be held at the Palazzo Contarini Polignac from April 20th until August 1st, 2024. The exhibition weaves a tapestry of stories and dreams gathered from artists affected by war globally.He and Zuckerman discuss sharing risk, how art saves lives, art not as leisure but also essential part of living life, cultivating a next generation of artists, changing the way people think, the urgency of making art, offering the opportunity to speak, think and feel, knowing that today can be your last day, the urgency of having great thoughts, the role of hope, and the opportunity to dare to dream!

Digital content creator Amanda McCreight specializes in digital storytelling, utilizing photography and filmmaking as her medium to challenge conventional norms, guide discourse, and foster meaningful connections. McCreight started the brand Aytuhzee noting that she “wanted to create a persona around feeling free to try everything from A to Z. Aytuhzee is many things…the Full Expression of whatever medium I’m feeling called to!” Additionally, she is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of All Day Running Co. where she collaborates with entrepreneur Jesse Itzler to curate immersive wellness and running experiences. Together they craft unforgettable events that leave participants not only with memories, but also with a newfound sense of empowerment. McCreight is a self-described lover, dreamer, and existential thinker dedicated to living the full spectrum of life’s color and emotions in art and in business.She and Zuckerman discuss course correcting your life, saying yes, living a life full of color, finding middle ground, creating brands, giving things your all, flow state, balancing consumption and creation, what we deserve, a vision board coming to life, the first yes, speaking things into existence, public pitching ideas, practicing looking, and why art matters!

Since the early 1990’s, Charles Long has explored the possibilities of sculpture through a rich vocabulary of materials, colors, images and shapes. Incorporating references to art history, popular culture, nature and his own experiences, Long’s work embraces modernist convention as a means of connecting inner and outer realities, forming pathways between one’s mental and bodily experiences and the surrounding environment. Through his many bodies of work over the years, the artist has consistently confronted formal parameters associated with sculpture as obstacles to push beyond, seeing modernism’s trajectory as unfinished and full of possibility.He and Zuckerman spoke about metaphysical research, why things are happening, the secret of teaching, refinding art on his own terms, psychedelics, Donald D. Hoffman of UC Irvine, “wisdoms of the masters” and access to pure being, what it’s like to die, what he has to offer, wanting everything he makes to be sacred, not finishing anything, and making art that you don’t have to talk about!

New York-based writer LJ Rader is the person behind the social media account ArtButMakeItSports, which features images of sports compared to fine art. He works full-time in the sports world as a Director of Product at a sports data and technology company.He and Zuckerman discuss his curatorial choices, unique moments, a sports related lens, sports equality, feedback he gets, his favorite artists, his image filing system, feelings on AI, meme fuel, the legacy of art, and of course why art matters!