CMU School of Drama


Friday, March 11, 2016

Flex Your Creative Muscles at the Art Gym

The Creators Project: As a public art effort to explore new and unique approaches to art making, and put “creativity at the heart of the gallery,” The Tate Collective Liverpool, along with Turner Prize winners, Assemble, have staged a creative take over of the Tate Liverpool gallery. Together, Assemble and the collective worked with local youths on a series of so-called ‘ransom notes,’ a list of demands for workshops and events they wanted to see the gallery take on. This theoretical kidnapping ultimately gave way to the three-week art program, workspace, and de facto artwork, Art Gym.

1 comment:

Lucy Scherrer said...

This kind of project fits right in with the backdrop of the meteoric rise of adult coloring books and articles about how creativity increases productivity. Creativity-- particularly in the visual arts-- is starting to be seen as a commodity and an asset, especially in adults who may have been told to ignore it earlier in their lives. Something that struck me about this project, however, is how bare and minimalistic the rooms seemed to be. Maybe it's getting too into the semantics of it, but when I read the article I imagined something that piqued your curiosity and engaged potential users. The space itself seems to be anything but; the extreme stylization of the space looks cold and, ironically, not conducive to creativity. That might be a nitpicky critique though-- the idea itself seems fine enough. I do think it definitely reeks of the self-indulgent, hipster mindset that art can set us all free and that making a misshapen origami boat will help me be a better person-- but again, I'm probably being too nitpicky.