Video: 5 ways art is changing the world

A powerful movement among contemporary artists is affecting people’s lives far beyond the rarefied world of the artist’s studio and art gallery. Dr Susan Fisher Sterling, Director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in the United States and a speaker at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2014, looks at five artists in the US and explains the profound effects of their work.

Here are some quotes from the video. You can watch the full version at the top of this page.

On the power of contemporary art

Contemporary art has within itself the possibility to effect powerful change – that’s not something you hear every day.

On the US artist Mel Chin

Mel calls himself a ‘recovering conceptual artist’ – it’s kind of like a recovering alcoholic.

On tackling the toxic levels of lead in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

There was no money for this lead remediation from the clean-up from Katrina because the lead was in the soil before the disaster occurred, and so there was zero, zip, null, none. Nothing could be done for this. So, what Chin decided is that he would be the instigator for change, so that this lead remediation project could take place.

On the art of Natalie Jeremijenko

She calls herself an artist-engineer. Her cultural resource is science. And in 2011 she was named by Fast Company as one of the most influential women in technology. That’s not what you usually think of as art-world credentials.  What is also true, and is even more outside the box, is that she traces her interest in art – her artistic practice, if you will – to her time as one of the co-founders of Australia’s Livid arts festival.

She says that through Livid, ‘my art moved from making things to making things happen’.

Much of what she does is to provide new ways of looking at technology and how it can help us with environmental concerns.

As you can see, if she has a field office in the East River that’s based on pontoons made out of throw-away bottles, or she stands in the middle of a roundabout in Belgium and sees her ‘im-patients’ (her civic-minded people who don’t want to wait for governmental change) she has a different view of what her practice is all about.

On one of artist Theaster Gates’s projects

What he does is he takes library books, or books from a defunct book store, and 60,000 glass slides from the University of Chicago slide library, and he repurposes them in these cultural centres. He takes these things into his various studios and he creates meeting places – and he takes things that are considered throw-away culture and uses them to tremendous advantage.

The current Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, has named Theaster Gates as the unofficial renewal commissioner for the south side of Chicago.

On the street artist Caledonia Curry

She believes in off-grid, barter-based cultures and communities of sharing … She feels that in ethical living, part of that is also making sure you are constantly in a state of renewal.

On the need for new champions

This is a movement, the art of social practice, that for all the different people I’ve mentioned who have helped these artists, there is a need for new champions for this movement, and my hope is that the National Museum of Women in the Arts, through its programming, will help it on its way.

Author: Dr Susan Fisher Sterling, Director, National Museum of Women in the Arts, USA

Image: Visitors walk on a creation by French artist Daniel Buren as part of his exhibition “Defini Fini Infini, Travaux in situ” at the MaMo art center in Marseille September 12, 2014. REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier