Harrell Fletcher and Michael Rakowitz

One part of a series of artist to artist conversations, in book form.  These guys are art as social practice professors.

"Come Together" events: "I ask a set of people (sometimes ten, sometimes twenty or more) to each fine someone who does not see themselves as an artist but is knowledgeable about some topic and would be willing to discuss or demonstrate it publicly for ten minutes.  I organize it so that all of the presentations happen one after another...it really surprises the students to realiz that there are so many interesting people who go largely unnoticed around them all of the time." 22-3

"The notion that a sketchbook full of ideas is more important than the one you choose, or the collection of architectural models of buildings that were never built being more inspiring thanthe one that does, was an incredibly liberating notion..." 24

"I think there are undoubtedly people all over the world who have amazing "art" ideas but we never know about them because they aren't considered "artists" and don't have access to a means of producing and making the projects available to the public." 49

"I as an artist am raising questions about ethics, function and utility by submitting a project that simultaneously problem-solves and problem-makes." 54

"The residual idea exists as a pragmatic metaphor, a statement demanding a culture capable of enabling its existence, a poetic critique of reality." 67

"It might be impossible...to change the world, (but it is) possible to change the dinner conversation." 75

Omar Rodriguez Lopez

Had the great fortune of putting together some collaborative album art a few days ago, and this fellow came across the radar as inspiration for that, and a new dream project that's germinating.

Textiles, Maps, and Microbes

Looking at Leah Evans' artwork, an interesting juxtaposition of micro and macro, natural and man-made, and also a beautiful aerial abstraction and textural medium that creates a magic that is purely decorative, purely pleasurable.

" I have decided that maps create more questions than they answer."