This week, an author with the Atlantic posed the question, “Does ‘American Art’ Exist Anymore?” Lisa Freiman, the director of VCU’s Institute for Contemporary Art, was highlighted for her work at the 2011 Venice Biennale, while Sonya Clark, chair of Craft/Material Studies at VCUarts, and her work “Unraveling” was included alongside artists like Sarah Sze, Allora + Caldazilla, Joan Jonas and Jeffrey Gibson.
But is something lost when the art world defines American art so broadly? Have American art institutions abandoned their core purpose if artists need only some appreciable connection to the United States? Or has art outgrown nationality, the way art movements of the 1960s—Minimalism, Fluxus, and Conceptual Art—pushed cultural boundaries forward? The fairly lax interpretation at the Biennale is evidence of a country that doesn’t attempt to control or politicize the production of art. Still, when any label becomes too broad, it risks losing its meaning.
Food for thought.
Read the full article on the Atlantic’s website.
Photo: Gloria (Track and Field) (Allora & Calzadilla), Lisa Freiman worked with Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla on their series of installations for the 2011 Biennale.
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