Welcome to Making & Meaning
What is contemporary art, or for that matter, what is art? This is a question I have wrestled with throughout my life as an artist, art historian, curator, college instructor, and academic. Making & Meaning is a place where I share my research and musings on this question and engage, with you as the reader, in a conversation about art and art making.
I am an independent art historian and researcher living in Canada. In addition to a studio art diploma, I hold a BA and an MA in art history, and an interdisciplinary PhD (art history and sociology) in Visual Art and Globalization (University of Alberta). For nearly twenty years I taught studio art and art history courses in post-secondary programs in Canada. During nine of those years, I also served as curator/director of a small public gallery and was privileged to work with many local and national artists.
Throughout my teaching and academic career I also wrote about art. My publications include reviews, interviews, and feature articles in journals such as Canadian Art, Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, and the Journal of Visual Art Practice. I am also the author of Dissidence: The Rise of Chinese Contemporary Art in the West (MIT Press, 2018), a book that explores the Western reception of Chinese contemporary art as it came to the fore in the 1990s.
All of these experiences – making art, studying, teaching, curating, and writing – were significant as they continually propelled my curiosity and shaped my understanding of how art is made and understood. Now my research continues to explore what I call the making and meaning of contemporary art – that is, how institutions, curatorial strategies, and art discourses identify and valorize objects as art. In other words, my interest lies in how and why certain objects become art and how the Art World, in all its manifestations, contributes to making these objects special as art. This means that I do not review exhibitions or interpret artworks or explain how one can paint a landscape. Rather, I consider the many social mechanisms that bring artists and artworks into being.
Making & Meaning is a forum for sharing my thoughts and research. As an independent scholar, I am not employed by an institution. This frees me from the obligation to publish in academic journals and allows me to adopt a writing style suited to my topics and my readers. The Making & Meaning topics vary according to my current research, travels, and readings. The posts also vary in length depending on the topic and density of the research. My aim in sharing my work is to initiate a free exchange of ideas that I hope will generate a vigorous conversation about the making and meaning of contemporary art.
Making & Meaning has three ways you can enjoy the content and participate in a conversation about the making and meaning of contemporary art:
1. Free Subscription: provides free access to my research and articles on the making and meaning of contemporary art. New articles are published every two weeks.
2. Making & Meaning Conversation Subscription: This paid subscription ($6.00 per month or $60 per year) gives you continued access to the free content as well as bi-monthly discussion topics and the opportunity to join an on-line Chat with me and other subscribers.
3. Making & Meaning Conversation Live: This subscription is $80.00 per year. This subscription is the same as Making & Meaning Conversation but also includes the opportunity to participate in a live one-hour on-line conversation with me and other subscribers every second and fourth Wednesday of each month at 10 a.m. (Pacific Time). Please note, this subscription is limited to fifteen participants. Please contact me at makingandmeaning@substack.com to reserve a place in this subscription.
Thanks again for subscribing. I look forward to sharing the conversation!
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