ASU has a found a way to link students, conceptual art and artists together through the new Future Arts Research, or FAR, program.
The newly established art program is based in downtown Phoenix and was the brainchild of Bruce W. Ferguson, who also works with the Herberger College of the Arts. The program brings artists from various places to Phoenix to showcase their art and relate it to the city.
“It was a way to study the relationship between the arts and the city,” Ferguson said. Ferguson developed the project after doing arts analysis for ASU President Michael Crow.
The program has been in the works for a year and half and is in its first semester.
“Lots of art institutions in Phoenix are doing great work,” Ferguson said. “We’re not doing anything different, just enhancing what already has been done.”
The program consists of 20 to 24 artists a year, who take up residency in Phoenix.
The artists were chosen to fit one of three elements: art and technology, arts with regard to justice and human rights, and desert aesthetic.
The artists will live in Phoenix for varying amounts of time and will do an art project, speaking, or both.
“Each artist will do one public thing, whether is it a lecture or speak in a class, to get involved with students,” Ferguson said.
The lectures and classes done by the artists are open to ASU students, as well as the public, and are given at ASU campuses, different libraries and museums, depending on the work done by the artist. Subhankar Banerjee, for example, is best known for his photography of migrating caribou, and will speak about art and environmentalism during the fall semester.
“I think it’s a great idea,” art history sophomore Samantha Baker said. “We should get art to the masses. Nobody makes art just to look at it for themselves. If it educates someone and broadens their horizons, then it’s great.”
FAR held its first lecture on Wednesday night at the Cronkite building on the Downtown Phoenix campus.
Guest speaker Richard Andrews, presented a lecture and slideshow on two artists, Maya Lin and James Turrell.
Andrews was the director of the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle and is currently the director of the Skystone Foundation, which is funding one of Turrell’s expansive art projects, “Roden Crater” near Flagstaff.
The lecture included slides of various art pieces from Lin, who designed the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C. and other pieces of artwork, that are “bringing landscape into architectural space,” as described by Andrews.
Andrews also talked about Turrell, an artist who works with light, and his project “Roden Crater.”
Other ways students will be able to see these artists is through performances, exhibitions, and even fashion shows, as done by artist Joanna Berzowska who married the ideas of technology and fashion into light-filled clothes.
“[What students can expect] depends on the artists,” Ferguson said. “I think in some cases, the artist will show their art in relevance to here.”
Reach the reporter at erica.m.rodriguez@asu.edu.
