If two works of art could talk to each other, what would they say? The Fisher Landau Center for Arts in Long Island City explores this idea in their current show called “Visual Conversations.” In it, free-standing sculpture is placed next to works hung on walls to create conversations between each pair of artworks.
The show intentionally invites viewers to draw their own connections and to think about how the meaning of each piece is affected by the one next to it. Active and creative viewer participation seems to be key to the experience of this exhibition.
Joe Fusaro writes in Art:21 about how he’s using this exhibit with his art students.
He’s asking them to think about questions like “Can works of art ‘speak’ to the viewer or have ‘conversations’ with other works?” and then to create their own works of art that talk back to one of the paired pieces they saw in the show.
At Slow Art Day, we are all about encouraging museum goers to look slowly, experience and “talk back” to the art. If you get a chance, visit the Landau Center for this exhibit’s last week or check back online to see if Joe Fusaro shares what his students created in conversation with this show.
– Naomi Kuo, Slow Art Day Intern; edited by Phil Terry, Slow Art Day Founder
I agree, maybe the works could be misinterpreted – although is there ever really “misinterpretation”? Perhaps just reading something against the artist’s intention, which isn’t necessarily taboo.
This is really cool- are the sculptures all made by one artist (and the text by another?) It would be interesting to see the parallels between the artists of each work paired together- to see if there is any connection ,or conversation there as well. I like the idea of works speaking to each other, though my one fear is that one work could be misinterpreted as ‘speaking’ for another- without close, slow viewing of course!
Great concept for exhibition!