An interesting article in the Wall Street Journal this week about a “pop-up” gallery in Brooklyn:

“…after going unrented for three years, a restaurant space around the corner, at 552 Flatbush Ave., is currently housing a two-part pop-up gallery show. The first part, “Between Neighbors” is a one-man show of oils by artist Brian Fernandes-Halloran that will be on display through Monday.

“The Neighborhood Show,” a presentation of work from a variety of local artists in a variety of mediums, will then take its place between Oct. 30 and Nov. 13.”

The show is sponsored by PLG Arts, a non-profit group encouraging collaboration between artists in the neighborhood. If you’re familiar with that area of Brooklyn, it certainly isn’t known for its vibrant artistic community.

“Until last week, the 552 Flatbush storefront had remained empty since Mike’s International Restaurant closed its doors in August 2008. According to Dynishal Gross, secretary of the Prospect Lefferts Gardens Neighborhood Association, local retail property owners needed to be persuaded that arranging a temporary, reduced-rate rental was better than leaving the 2,244-square-foot space locked.”

The article goes on to mention that it was not easy to convince rental agents to help them find a place to launch their “pop-up” gallery — actually, they were flat out ignored. Only with a little pressure from community organizations and the help of a local senator did they finally end up where they are now.

So how beneficial is a “pop-up” gallery? How long does it need to be up to be useful?

We would love to hear about other examples in your city, or your general thoughts on this new trend in art exhibition.

An intelligently written piece in Arbitrage Magazine tackles the starving artist myth:

Does financial comfort breed less artistic passion and does the thought of attaining it influence the process of transforming deep emotions into visual forms of representation? If it does, do we respect them less as artists, as truth tellers? Somehow, because of this starving artist myth, money and art have always been perceived as rivals. But maybe they shouldn’t be, at least viagrat anymore.

The writer, Anna Marszalek, pushes for a view of art in a different context, no different than any other profession. But her ideas about “amateur” and “professional” artists, as well as respectability, are troublesome:

…passionate artists who can generate income are likely to gain more respect than artists who cannot make a decent living from their art, but are equally passionate. If a passionate artist manages to reach financial success, then he or she surpasses the status of the romantic starving artist, becoming what Rory Dean labels as a “professional romantic artist.”

This is a tricky subject, but Marszalek is right about one thing. Money is important. I think most artists fall back on the starving artist myth because their options are dwindling: the traditional models of success are falling apart for artists. That’s why you see more artists opening their own galleries, or sidestepping dealers and selling their own work. More collaboration is happening, more direct contact with lovers of art, and artists are figuring out way to survive without starving.

Read the entire article here.

A great interview over at ARTINFO with artist and curator Deborah Brown, who co-directs the Storefront Gallery in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. Bushwick seems to be where all the attention is these days, and this interview is a great primer on the local scene, filled with ideas that are in line with what we do here at Creative Contact:

Now, I think the Bushwick attitude is all about collaboration: working with other people to make exhibition spaces, to show each others’ work, to put on collective performances and events like Bushwick Open Studios. The Manhattan environment I experienced as an artist coming up in the 80′s was cutthroat and competitive. Artists were intent on getting gallery representation and promoting themselves, often denigrating others’ work in the process. In Bushwick, artists help other artists and, by doing so, they help themselves. To me, Bushwick is not an aesthetic so much as it is an attitude.

To read the entire interview, click here.

At the Huffington Post, John M. Eger riffs on a recent study conducted by the National Arts Alumni Project:

Art leaders, educators and policymakers need to better understand that the status quo for arts education is missing a few things; specifically, the importance of business savvy and the increasing demand for arts trained executives.

The piece expands on ideas from the study about the role of the artist in society. Eger seems to believe the role of the artist is a crucial, if not the most crucial, position in the “future of America.” In the article, he goes on to expand on the growing arts programs focusing on art and business:

Something else is happening in business and engineering schools alike, i.e., they are integrating arts and sciences to create a more well rounded curriculum but also, laying the foundation for the workforce most corporate executives say will be most in demand in the so-called new economy. The U.S. based Conference Board, a global research organization representing businesses worldwide, found that “U.S. employers rate creativity and innovation among the top five skills that will increase in importance over the next five years, and stimulating innovation and creativity and enabling entrepreneurship is among the top 10 challenges of U.S. CEOs.”

Eger is a professor of Communications and Public Policy at San Diego State University, but we’re interested in what artists think about these numbers. Are they accurate? Do you see a demand for your artistic skills outside the traditional circles? Do artists lack business-savvy?

Here at Creative Contact, we feel the entrepreneurial spirit is crucial to surviving as an artist. Eger is on the same page, leading his piece with the oft-repeated, “The myth of the starving artist is just that, a myth.”

We would love to hear from some actual artists on the subject.

An exciting event has come to our attention in Boston area. It’s called Resonate! A Synthesis in Sight & Sound, a multidisciplinary collaborative performance taking place on September 28 at the Oberon in Cambridge.

We spoke to the creator of the event, Leah Hennessy, about its origins and importance of collaboration.

What are the origins of Resonate?

I am currently a master’s student at New England Conservatory of Music and I have been living and working in the Boston area for five-or-six years now, and prior to coming back to school was working as an event coordinator for a theater company, so I developed a set of skills for booking halls and staffing shows. In coming back to school I wanted to find a way to create a show that all of my create friends here in Boston could share a part in. In thinking about that, I thought about ways to get non-musician friends in, filmmaker friends, artists, and it kind of grew into this project that is now part art exhibition, part film screening, and part concert.

What is the plan for the performance? Who will be involved?

The show opens at 7:30pm, and it starts with the art sale. We’ll have some music provided by a DJ, as well as a couple of local artists including people like Karen Snyder and Liz Grammaticas; just local artists, photographers, painters. The music will begin around 8:00pm, and Mia Friedman will be doing a solo set with banjo and fiddle. My own band, Talk Listen Door, will be performing some original songs and improvisations – we’re all students at New England Conservatory right now. The last band to play will be Cuddle Magic and they have come out of the Boston area, and now live in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, and they have their own brand of folk-pop compositions, lush instrumentation; they will close out the night. Between band sets we’ll have films – one from a collective in Cambridge called The Future Machine, one from Talia Krohmal, who is a friend of mine. We’re actually collaborating on a film that will play during our band’s set, so we’ll have something where a film is screened and live music is provided for that film on the spot.

Why do you think collaboration is important, and why make a whole event based around it?

I think that the way the arts are thriving these days are through the involvement of the artist’s themselves, and like really getting out to support other people’s shows and getting involved in projects that provide a new experience for the audience member. Something that is more than your average night out at a bar is going to engage people a do something that’s memorable to them, something they might want to come back to again and again. To touch back on my first point, by having more and varied artists involved, you expand your audience base – by having a photographer collaborate with a musician, or a filmmaker collaborate with a musician, you end up with double your audience. It’s exciting for me, because I get to be audience and performer and producer at the event. I like the idea of the many different roles of the artist in today’s society.

Do you plan on doing more shows after this, or is this a one-time thing?

No, I certainly hope so. I’m having such a great time doing all the promotion and planning for the event that I’m hoping this is a successful start for me and that I can build upon the connection that I’m making. I started by recruiting all my friends to help me with this show, and in the process have met several more people who are involved; I’m hoping it keeps leading to more connections and more contacts, and more shows.

So where can people find more info about the show?

Our website is www.resonatecambridge.com. The tickets in advance are only available through the Oberon website, which is the Oberon Theater in Cambridge. It’s right there on their page, you can buy tickets directly from them, and we’ll have tickets the day of the show. We’re also on Facebook and Twitter, people can find us that way.