Jul 11, 2021
This is about art, activism and social media
«I knew the power of representation and tried to leverage the image in a way that felt authentic. (…) How would everyday people invite visitors into an art experience? How might that gesture be performed digitally? Social media could be so cold, and I wanted to make it warmer for our prospective guests.» — Kimberly Drew
Kimberly Drew published, in 2020, This is what I know about art. A sixty-three page book, part of the Pocket Change Collective collection, where Penguin Random House brought together nine titles featuring different activists.
In This is… Kimberly talks about her personal approach to art and activism in the black community. In addition to her work on social networks to expand the audiences of art galleries.
She also invites you to meet artists, particularly those she has discovered since he began his first internship at the Studio Museum. Glenn Ligon, Jamel Shabazz, Lorna Simpson, are some.
These three artists, for example, have in common being recognized on the 1980s scene in New York. Recognized thereafter, although the art galleries approach to the black community was frustrating. This is one of the most remarkable definition that Kimberly makes in the book, because it can be interpreted as the axis of her biographical narration, in her own experience, of close people and of her context in relation to art. Likewise, is the impulse of that struggle results from which the author realizes how important it will be to bring her activism together with her daily work, to contribute to social change.
«Idon’t want to make art just for people who can read Fredric Jameson sitting upright on a Mackintosh chair. I want to make art for people who watch The Golden Girls and sit in a big, brown La-Z-Boy chair. They’re part of my public too, I hope.» — Félix González-Torres
The question that runs through the book, then, is about access to the circuit of works. Because both the representation of artists and the composition of the public are two aspects that will converge in making the scene more or less hermetic.
