Last week, I attended my first TED event, TEDx ABQ Salon Art, held at the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History to a sold out audience. Speakers from a wide range of backgrounds, education and art experience pondered the question, “Why Art?” They toyed with, tackled and confronted its function, importance, purpose, and place in the world using videos, slides, and performance art.
John Grassham, the Executive Director at Creative ABQ, and Carlos Contreras, an award-winning performance poet, were the event organizers. They set the stage with original artwork created by Cloud Face, one of the original founders of Foundations of Freedom, a collective involving a number of rising stars in the street art, dance and music fields. Together they created an intellectually stimulating evening featuring the following speakers:
- Andrew Connors - Curator of Art, Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, who shared that “good artists give us the freedom to make connections. They have a sincere interest in telling a story through symbolism. We have to allow ourselves to be taken by an artist and to let go of who we think we are. In doing so, it will transform our lives!”
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| http://cloudface.wix.com/love |
- Sherri Brueggemann - Art Administrator, ABQ Public Art Program, whose response to the question, Why Public Art? stated, “because it’s a law in Albuquerque.” She urged a crowdsourcing of ideas to make more art for “them” and “us.”
- Rene J. Palomares II - Master Art Teacher at Bosque School, rephrased the question Why Art? to “Why Not Art?” He encourages procreativity, not pro-art. He inspires others to bring “excellence” to their artwork.
- Diahndra Grill - Artist, Activist, Educator and CoFounder of JustWrite, a performance project for prison inmates, responded that “art empowers us. We must look for art in unexpected places. What’s poetic? I challenged you to be poetic.”
- Zack Freeman - a performance artist, known universally as a one-man musical group using only a sampler, used his voice to make his colorful lyrics come to life as he discussed the “art of peacemaking (a listening artist), culinary art, physical art, martial arts and the art of family - how art can make a family courageous, spiritual and inspirational.” He posed the question, “Can art change the world?”
Cloud Face, the artist, performed a live painting of a bird on canvas from start to finish in just two hours. The painting was auctioned off at the end of the evening with proceeds going to a local charity.
Richard Saul Warren is best known for having created and chaired the TED conferences from 1984 thru 2002, bringing together various thinkers in the fields of Technology, Entertainment and Design. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience, where x = independently organized TED event. TEDx ABQ was formed by Tim Nisly in 2010. For more information visit: http://tedxabq.com/
