A Symposium Of Art + Ideas

By C.S. Gilbert

It’s a game-changer, national reputation-builder, something new. It’s Currents and Confluences: A Symposium of Art + Ideas, coming to The Studios of Key West on Thursday and Friday March 3 and 4, with an extra workshop Thursday and the opening of the event’s free, public exhibition set for Thursday evening.

The 6 p.m. till 8 p.m. show will feature three major, nationally-known artists who will also be presenters at the symposium: Aurora Robson, Frederick Brosen and Edgar Heap of Birds.

“Three artists consider how we imprint ourselves on the landscape with the weight of culture, economy and memory,” according to the schedule. “Also opening separately, landscape photographs by Wougim Heap of Birds of Oklahoma’s Cheyenne Arapaho reservation.” Wougim is Edgar’s son.

“This puts us in a different kind of intellectual conversation, nationally,” said TSKW Executive Director Jed Dodds. “We’re not just bringing artists to Key West but critics and art historians to talk about how art shapes the way we see the world and possibly even changes the world.”

Friday’s schedule begins with coffee at 8:30 a.m., followed at 9 by a keynote address delivered by art historian, professor, author and editor Katherine Manthorne of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

The rest of the two-day program is rather like a Chinese menu: participants choose one from column A, two from column B, with a trio of possibilities for each time slot. There are, however, three very specific categories of experience available in each slot: 1) the academic presentation, sometimes with a demonstration; 2) a hands-on experiential workshop or 3) field trips to nearby arts and history-related sites.

For example: at 10 a.m. following Friday’s keynote address is Artists in Conversation, an dialogue betweeen symposium curator James Lancel McElhinney and watercolorist Frederick Brosen. McIlhinney is also curator of the Art Students League of New York, TSKW’s partner in the event. This mode continues at 11 a.m. with a lecture by Heap of Birds the younger. Simultaneously, from 10 a.m. till noon, are scheduled both Robson’s participatory Debris Art and a field trip to Boca Chica, a “frequent landing-place for migrants, human and animal,” which repeats Friday afternoon.

Concluding each day is a 4:30-6:30 Cinematheque.

“This is our inaugural symposium and we hope it will be the first of many,” said Dodds. Two-day tickets are $225, $200 for members. Other admissions are available. Details: tskw.org or (305) 296-0458.

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