Welcome to the Point8 Blog — a joint venture of Creative Loafing and Point8 Forum. It will be a weekly open forum for artists to discuss everything related to the arts. And we use the term “artist” in its broadest sense — as anyone who is involved in, or care about, any kind of creative venture.
Like the Point8 forums, the Pecha Kucha series, and other such “real” activities we have done over the years, we hope to develop this into a virtual venue for the open exchange of ideas, sharing of work, and objective critique. And as always, we hope to remain a grassroots initiative, where the participants decide the topics, as well as the course of the discussions.
We are what you want us to be; however, as we start off, we would also like to differentiate ourselves from what is often considered the norm:
We are not about punditry.
We are not a group of media experts/professional critics passing judgment, deciding what is important, and what is not worth talking about.
We are not about ratings/hits/pageviews.
The ratings driven, cover-what-sells approach of most conventional media has ended up eliminating almost all discussions about arts/culture. We would like to stick to our belief that what really matters cannot be judged by the number of hits or comments on an article, and not let popularity be the main determinant for what we choose to discuss.
We are not about dumbing down.
Whenever the local media covers anything artistic/cultural, the general assumption appears to be that the audience is totally ignorant about the medium, and so the discussion needs to be at the most rudimentary level. That approach also ensures that the level of discussion never rises beyond the basics. We would like to start by respecting the knowledge and intelligence of our audience.
We are not about issues/controversies
Unfortunately, much of the debate about the arts in Charlotte is driven by people who don’t really care about the arts. Politicians/talking heads raise some hot button issue for political purposes, immediately prompting everyone to split into opposing camps. A shouting match ensues, drowning out all possibilities for a real discussion or critique. We are not interested in provoking or perpetuating that kind of a “dialogue”.
The contributors:
To start off, the blog will be led by me, Barbara Schreiber, and Jeff Jackson. Barbara will provide her unique commentary on the goings on in the visual art scene, and Jeff will keep us updated about the movie/music/literature scenes, drawing attentions to events/issues not covered or discussed otherwise. We hope to grow the team as we go forward.
Our thanks to Carlton Hargro and the CL team for giving us the opportunity, and moreover, for being infinitely patient while we got our act together.
And as always, our thanks to you — the creative individuals of Charlotte and this region — who helped build and sustain Point8. Make this blog yours. It is time artists led the discussion about arts in this town. Help us make it happen — by joining the conversation, by contributing and commenting.
— Manoj P Kesavan
This article appears in Aug 11-18, 2009.
Great initiative Manoj, Barbara and Jeff! Thanks!
I’m not sure about one of your definitions, though . .
You say “We are not about issues/controversies.”
When artists, architects and urban designers work in the public realm, almost always their work IS controversial simply because it is viewed by many different people from many different backgrounds with many different agendas. Every urban design project for which I have won some sort of professional award has at some point been vilified by opponents.
Every time a piece of public art goes up, a chorus of criticism arises . . . every time an urban design master plan is approved by a municipality, some sections of the community and certain politicians vociferously oppose it despite the best efforts of professional designers to be inclusive . .
I think talking about issues and controversies is inevitable . . .
Anyway, great job! Cheers.
David
I am definitely not an “artist” (even in the broadest sense), but look forward to be an occasional visitor to your blog. Wishing you all good luck on trying to stay away from controversies.
Subodh
Wonderful-I’m looking forward to the posts! This is much needed.
Ahhhhhh … Conversation and Controversy. Sign me up. Break Charlotte free and let it soar high over the pinnacles of the mediocre. Dare and explore, question and wonder. And live out the possible. The richnesses are to be had.
I am ready to dance Manoj, Barbara, and Jeff. Whatever, I already am. Thanks to you all.
First off, I would like to thank you for getting the forum going. Charlotte definitely needs more proactive discussions regarding what many consider the lack of quality Arts within this emerging city. This area is a bit esoteric, as “Quality of Arts” takes some effort to find in the current Charlotte condition. We are lacking in Fine Art, Alternative, Jazz and Blues music venues and various modalities of performance art.
On the good side, we have a couple progressive and quality galleries and a few good music venues. Charlotte is proud to have the Mint Museum – which brings some of the best works into our city. Public Art is limited mostly to Uptown, however, it is mostly of high standards.
What I would love to see in Charlotte is a collective interest in the arts, such as seen in NY, SF, LA, Chicago, Miami or Atlanta. A real Art Area is needed. NODA has potential, and perhaps the economy has set back the growth in that area measurably – yet, as far as Art Walks in an Artistic Area / Scene – the turn out and venues are quite limited. Even Chattanooga has us at a disadvantage. They actively encourage new Artists, the Art Scene, and Art in Public Places. Let’s face it, much of the Arts in Charlotte is sleep provoking. Time to step it up and take things to another notch. Time to bring in Gottfried Helnwein, James Rosenquist, H.R. Giger, Starck, John Galliano, Keith Haring, Eliot Noyes, Chuck Close, Olafur Eliasson, Paul Kos, Julian Beever (and other chalk and pavement artists), The best of Jazz, Fusion and dance…
David, Subodh, Sharon, Toby, “Minifail” & Mark:
Thank you for the kind words, well wishes and thoughtful comments. They really mean a lot to us.
Please keep reading and adding your thoughts and opinions to the future posts too
And like now, I will be trying to respond to your comments on all my posts.
David, I agree with you – controversy is often inevitable, especially when any work in the public realm is unconventional. And I didn’t mean that we will be avoiding them at any cost. All I meant was that most “discussion” about art/design in this town is driven by controversies which are (more often than not) politically motivated, and that we don’t want to add to the din by adding our voices to those.
However, we would definitely like this to be a venue for the objective and civil discussion of the merits and demerits of specific ideas/projects – without instinctually taking sides, or without over-simplifying or reducing them to ideological stances – whenever that is possible.
“Minimum Failure”, I am not sure that I understand your question. Of course both creativity and critique are not possible without the exercise of judgment (conscious or not). My point there was that we too are practitioners of some kind of creative work – just like the artists that we will be writing about – and not professional critics or pundits. So our hope is that, when we write critically about any work, it would be without the pretense of being the “experts” passing judgment on it for the sake of the ignorant masses, but rather as the initiation of an objective discussion about that work – something that would be helpful to the creator, and informative (and open) to the audience.
Mark, you raise many interesting points – esp. about the quality of art here, and bringing in artists who do more adventurous work – and we hope to address those in more detail in upcoming posts. Through this blog, we also hope to identify and encourage what is really original and exciting here (however rare it is – and we would like to start off with the faith that it isn’t really that rare, but is just hidden/unrecognized), by bringing more attention to it.
And Toby, brother, please don’t start the dance without us!
I’m cautiously optimistic about Elder Gallery’s ‘Carolinas got art’ competition (entries due by Sept. 1). It’s inspired by the long defunct Springs Mills chaotic democratic ‘salon’ that many area artists remember fondly. This is not quite the same thing- everybody gets judged, but not hung- but it could still be a great forum for regional artists. Or not.