Symposium

Examine the practice of contemporary artists who combine their everyday interests and passions with their artistic labor.

This symposium features artists Alison Knowles, Hope Ginsburg, and Tom Marioni, as well as Helen Molesworth, chief curator of exhibitions at the Wexner Center and curator of the Work Ethic exhibition. After their individual presentations, the speakers will open the discussion to the audience. PRESENTATIONS

Helen Molesworth begins the program by discussing the changing nature of artistic labor and how it radically altered the definitions of both art and life.

Alison Knowles talks about her passion for making paper: "Why did this natural flax change color? How did the air currents shape the pulp into such a torqued form?" She also describes her own learning process; "I learn from each project so many things; it is only a matter of paying attention, of folding into the next idea from that question by a sort of natural selection, an eagerness to try it out."

Hope Ginsburg relates how the Bearded Lady project began with her lifelong love of bees and, through an apprenticeship with a beekeeper, developed into a performance in which a swarm of bees forms a phalanx or "beard" on the face of the performer.

Tom Marioni discusses his philosophy of life as an artist interested in social art.