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Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Mary Jane Jacob Convocation


The Convocation today at Lawrence University was given by Mary Jane Jacob, an art curator in museums and public art. After reading a handout about her thoughts on public art and curating then hearing her speak a few main aspects came to mind after the talk, reflecting upon the event.

First of all, her concepts with the connection to buddhist philosophy and contemporary art. The idea that we should have more in our minds the purpose for our actions to create art versus the overall goal is very moving to me. It makes sense, you want to be very aware and in the present moment for the pure creative process to develop but you also want to be open to other collaborators and inspirations to come in an evolve your work even more.
The other aspect of her speech that I was reflecting on after the convocation was her presentation itself. I thought many of her examples of her going into communities to do public art was interesting, but the way she presented it could have been a little bit more colorful. For instance, she used this diagram to explain the public art process with collaborating with other artists and individuals but I did not feel she fully explained this enough for the majority of the audience to really follow the steps she was taking. She brought up some really interesting theories, but skimmed over them to a point where if I had not read a small article she wrote where she talked about these theories some, I would have been completely lost and uninterested. Honestly, I think the information she was presenting was really cool, she just needed to consider her audience a little better and realize that the majority of spectators knew nothing of art curating and needed to see it from a little larger picture.


2 comments:

  1. There is no doubt that Mrs. Jacob was very lively to listen to and all the wonderful experiences through her collaborative process she had to tell and how it would benefit people considering to enter into the curatorial career but I will also agree with you that she did little justice some of her audiences who might be naive about curatorial practices.
    On the other hand I really liked the issues she present on how best to collaborate. That is through observation, co-generation, action and integration. These are big ideas that helps in achieving a successful collaboration.

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  2. Jacob's projects are exceedingly complicated (coordinating artists, communities, funding, et. al.) so are inherently difficult to convey in a short lecture. She was able to get across key points explaining her process though as Zena said.

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