The Renaissance Society can always be counted on to organize some meaty talks and discussions around its current exhibitions. It’s last one, Gerard Byrne’s A Thing is a Hole in a Thing it is Not, was no exception. Among other programs, the Ren organized a panel discussion titled “Minimalism Now” that included sculptor Rachel Harrison, art historians Miwon Kwon, James Meyer, and David Raskin and moderator Hamza Walker. Each panelist gave a brief presentation which was followed up by a group discussion. I’m in the middle of listening to it right now, and It Is Good. The Ren has over thirty previous public lectures, talks and discussions archived on its Vimeo website (lectures and gallery talks by artists like Byrne, Katharina Grosse, Allen Sekula, Moshekwa Langa and Rebecca Warren among them)–a fact which isn’t prominently featured on the Ren’s website – a tiny little “Vimeo” icon provides the only portal, as far as I can tell. It’s a great archive, and as I’ve said numerous times here before, I’m always extremely happy when institutions videotape and make their public programs available via YouTube or Vimeo.

I’ve embedded both parts of the Minimalism panel for your easy access – dig down and enjoy.

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This week: Duncan and Shannon Stratton talk to artist Anne Wilson.

From Anne Wilson’s website:

“My work evolves in a conceptual space where social and political ideas encounter the material processes of handwork and industry, where the organization of fields and the objects they help generate is constantly subverted by the swarming, anarchic energy of the objects themselves. Extrapolating from personal subjective rituals to observations of larger systems within the built environment, I investigate the micro- and macrocosms of networks and matrices through stitch, crochet, knot, net, animation, and sound. Using pixilation and projection, I de-materialize and re-animate work that began on the border between drawing and object making, and remains liminal in whatever new medium it enters. My source materials – hair, linen, lace, pins, wire, and thread – are the props of both domestic culture and larger social systems. I join together the points where these systems overlap, and where issues of sexuality and decorum, vitality and death construct meaningful relationships, and find release.”

ALSO: Mike Benedetto and Guest reviewer Tony Fitzpatrick review The Dark Knight, and some naughty things are said! Read more