Problems and Provocations: Grand Arts 1995-2015 - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0692625534 ISBN 13: 9780692625538

Publisher: Grand Arts, 2016

Synopsis

Grand Arts, a contemporary art project space in Kansas City, Mo., quietly but radically tested the limits of institutional and artistic support for nearly two decades. In helping more than 120 national and international artists realize projects considered too difficult, provocative, or complex to attract funding and support otherwise, the gallery achieved insider fame and deepseated respect as a bastion of generosity and risk. Now, as its final endeavor, Grand Arts gamely interrogates its values, methods, outcomes and legacies in Problems and Provocations: Grand Arts 1995-2015―an indispensable source book on creativity, collaboration and what it takes to realize a major work of contemporary art.
The volume documents 30 key projects from Grand Arts' previously unexcavated history, by artists such as Alice Aycock, Patricia Cronin, Ellie Ga, Alfredo Jaar, Isaac Julien, Annie Lapin, Laurel Nakadate, Filip Noterdaeme, William Pope L., Tim Rollins & K.O.S., Emily Roysdon, Tavares Strachan and the Propeller Group. Recent annotations and previously untold stories by artists and collaborators complement an archival deep-dive of photographs, artist proposals, sketches, notes, internal documents and items of private correspondence. Essays by Pablo Helguera, Iain Kerr, Gean Moreno, Emily Roysdon and Rob Walker explore the models, practices ethics, and futures of art institutions, and a critical study conducted by the research studio RHEI identifies and describes Grand Arts' distinctive model of support.
Part retrospective, part how-to guide, Problems and Provocations actively leverages Grand Arts' past to engage problems of theoretical and practical interest to cultural producers moving forward―and serves as essential reading for today's artists, students, curators and all those interested in tales of unpredictable ventures in the world of contemporary art.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Alice Aycock
Anthony Baab 
Sanford Biggers 
Cody Critcheloe/SSION 
Patricia Cronin 
Jamex and Einar de la Torre 
Rosemarie Fiore 
Ellie Ga 
GALA Committee 
Pablo Helguera 
Alfredo Jaar 
Isaac Julien 
Stanya Kahn 
Glenn Kaino 
Annie Lapin 
Jim Leedy 
Michael Jones McKean 
Ryan Mosley 
Laurel Nakadate 
Filip Noterdaeme 
William Pope.L 
The Propeller Group 
Mariah Robertson 
Nadine Robertson 
Tim Rollins & K.O.S. 
Emily Roysdon 
John Salvest 
Spurse 
Tavares Strachan 
Sissel Tolaas

Review:

"Problems and Provocations ... celebrates the organization's mission and projects throughout its 20 years of operation in pages both commemorative and absurd. Given the unconventional, expansive nature of Grand Arts' work and the new book, a simple panel discussion just wouldn't be fitting." -Alina Cohen, Los Angeles Review of Books

"I didn't realize until I read this book how messy and blindly optimistic Grand Arts was to commission work as revolutionary as [Patricia] Cronin's Memorial and Sanford Biggers' Blossom ... [Problems and Provocations] offers a free-thinking model for artists and arts foundations -- one far beyond support money and/or space." -Jan Garden Castro, International Sculpture Center

"Grand Arts called it quits in 2015 ― but its bold mission lives on." -Scott Indrisek, Blouin ArtInfo

"Grand Arts, in Kansas City, Missouri, served as a critical laboratory for the arts in a coastally polarized scene ... More radical than many of its peers." -Kat Herriman, The Creators Project

About this edition

• Publisher: Grand Arts
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0692625534
• ISBN 13: 9780692625538
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 447
• Editor: Switzer Stacy, Fischer Annie