Private and Public. Political and Poetic.

During my time at WAAS, I have been thinking of how experiencing art in a gallery differs from a museum...what is the opposite from a museum? 

Current installation titled Cocoon by Shamsy in one of the galleries on the second floor.

Is it all a matter of Private vs. Public? Communal vs. personal? What I want to think further about is how public spaces are private and how private spaces can be public. As a way to create a contrasting example, the DMA in this example is considered as a Public “private” space. Private, because although it is accessible to the Public, it only serves a private agenda. WAAS on the other side, is a Private space but it aims to serve a public agenda. It seeks to provide a de-politicized “safe space” for art, giving me an un-institutionalized blank slate to work from. WAAS will be an active member of the Dallas community for 8 years this September, funded in 2011. 

As an art historian and curator, WAAS is an institutional tabula rasa in a sense. Unlike the DMA, it has no institutional historical context (apart from the physical building which is from the 1800s I think...) which connects me to Colonial forms of representing culture. I do not have to worry about not being political enough or being too political. I feel as if I can breathe and exercise my cultural agency without being choked by political forms of power. 

With that in mind, I pitched to Brandy, the owner/curator of the space an addition to her summer programming which I have been researching and planning and I am excited to share about as soon as I wrap up and finalize things this week!