Elaboration about the HSAD, TAAS, and MGG EDU Programming
Curator, DGS: Playtime, The Pioneers: Co-Op
Marian Goodman EDU
The High School of Art & Design
The Alternative Art School
2025
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Saul Appelbaum: Alena and Andrew, will you give an introduction to what the workshop you did about Sol Lewitt’s artist books where the students made zines?
Alena Marchak: Marian Goodman, before she started the gallery, owned Multiples Inc. It was from the late '60s to the '90s. She produced small sculptural multiples, but also prints, and then artist books. She made a number of artist books with Sol LeWitt. For the workshop we looked specifically at his book Autobiography, which was an artist's book where he took black and white photos of his studio and home. They’re in a grid, of course. It’s these close-up shots of bits and pieces in his studio. But together, it tells a story about who he was, his interests, where he's been, and all these different things. That informed what the students ended up doing. We really wanted to do it because it was during COVID lockdown and they were stuck inside. We wanted to impart that art can be anything. You can look around your room and it can be whatever you want it to be. You do not need to have a huge studio, you do not need to work with marble, you do not need canvases, etc.
AM: We wanted them to feel empowered and creative with whatever they had at home.
SA: That stood out to me in your curriculum. There is something powerful and beautiful in that.
AM: Yeah, to see how the objects you choose to surround yourself, describe in some ways who you are, and they can create a portrait without for instance painting a portrait of yourself. Some of the students use music also.
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A lot of people don't think much about the heavy amount of conceptual and abstract development that goes in the early stages of quality design.
AB: Yes. They created a playlist of songs that they were listening to consistently. The songs that got them through the day.
SA: A lot of people don't think much about the heavy amount of conceptual and abstract development that goes in the early stages of quality design. Closely looking at and thinking about visual art helps with this so it’s great to give students a space to think about art, and to also do design projects derived from the art itself.
AB: With the zines and the multiples, Alena opened us up to other types of work like Lewitt’s photography with windows that he captured in his home and the book he created with a record of all his belongings. Another artist that the Marian Goodman Gallery represents is Gabriel Orozco. It was also fascinating that he's an artist who has no permanent studio. The studio is wherever he goes. I love bringing those kinds of mindsets into teaching and our workshop zines. So here we are in the middle of COVID lockdown seeing students in a video conferencing interface, and I'm just seeing a bunch of heads, but really, most of them were just a generic icon with their username on it. I didn't see half of my students. It was a little bit like when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. And in the end, we ended up making a lemon mustard pie and all these wonderful things. So when we’re trapped, we have to pivot and think fast.
AB: For the zines I would give them an abstract premise. The first one was wilderness. Imagine you're three inches tall and you just entered your bedroom that you've been confined to now for months, look at it from different eyes, and then record it. The next one was about windows. Think about and imagine what it means to look outside, maybe looking through beautiful windows in Italy. But now you're trapped inside, looking out, and trying to get to the outside world. There were challenges in this with students saying, ‘I have two windows in the apartment and they face a brick wall. And I respond with ok, so windows are about transparency, but also reflection. Can you get pictures of reflections? The final prompt was to ask who I am. I wanted them to record objects that were important to them. Then they were to bring all of this together to tell a narrative about this experience. They memorialized this horrible experience, and in the end, they ended up with some really beautiful zines that they may have forever, which is cool.
NT: I grew up with art, but I always hated it in high school because I thought it was bourgeois. I loved music culture like punk rock. Music was always my entry point to culture. I remember there's this book by Greil Marcus called Lipstick Traces that talked about situationism and punk rock. It was the first time that I recognized that art could be Punk? And then I saw a catalog by Paul Schimmel for the show Out of Actions, which was about all of this badass performance art from the '60s and '70s. Chris Bird’s art blew my mind. And I said, wait a minute. That's allowed to be art? A light went off in my head. It also didn't look expensive. It looked like something I could do in my living room. For kids, some worry that art's for adults that have money. I remember feeling tangibly there was a world out there that I was not invited to, and I put art in that category for a long time.
Erika Blumenfeld, Tracing Luminaries: Plate No. I6914 (Small Magellanic Cloud), 2022, intaglio print with starlight exposed cyanotype, chine collé, and 24k gold leaf on Hahnemuhle Copperplate, 17 x 14.75 inches, published by Island Press; Courtesy of the artist and Inman Gallery, Houston. Photo: Richard Sprengler
Erika Blumenfeld, Tracing Luminaries: Plate No. B20645 (Small Magellanic Cloud), 2022, intaglio print with starlight exposed cyanotype, chine collé, and 24k gold leaf on Hahnemuhle Copperplate, 17 x 14.75 inches, published by Island Press; Courtesy of the artist and Inman Gallery, Houston. Photo: Richard Sprengler
NT: There’s a lot of people in our school that are in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. It blew my mind about what continuing education can be. The idea that you stop being educated in your life feels too limiting. Students usually go to college in their 20s when many don’t want to be taught anything. You’re much more available later in life. The art schools crank out a lot of students. Many aren’t able to get jobs in the arts, but they do get jobs. They piece together their life. They take care of kids. They take care of their parents. They put food on the table. And through that all, art means magical things to them. And they come up with a practice that fits in the spaces of life. And I was so struck by how profound that is and how many people are like this. It’s been amazing to ask the question what if education got a revamp.
What if education is an ongoing life practice? What if art is a thing you integrate in a daily way that fits within our busy lives? I wanted something where we all paid in to something that had an economy that allowed it to work or is self-sustaining, like a co-op.
We recently launched the app for the school. Today, literally at noon, we had an artist walk us through his opening in Tehran on his phone.
How dope is that? The school is membership-driven. We have classes, we have world-renowned artists. Tania Bruguera taught a class from police lockdown in Havana from her phone. This thing [holds up phone], the thing you love to hate. But it's powerful.
The best part of the arts is not just making art. It's being part of a global art community and being inspired and connected to people that have complex feelings about their government, about religion, about family, about love, that they're living life. And why not be a part of that world? So the school is a connector. We have partnerships in New Delhi, Johannesburg, Dakar, Istanbul, Bogotá. And those artists join the school for free. We have them subsidized by middle class people in Seattle, Des Moines, New York, Chicago, etc. That’s an important part of our financial model. […]
[…] NT: It's my nature to share in the joy of art with people. I went to this thing called California Summer School of the Arts. I grew up in California. They had a summer school program at CalArts. And I can definitively say that changed my life because I got to be around other artists. And I felt like it was the only time that I thought adults might be cooler than kids. Everything else was boring, but art was exciting. Andrew, in your work, do you see that light go off with the people you work with? They see a completely different way the world could be?
AB: Absolutely. I think that's one of the advantages, as I mentioned, when my students are with me for three years straight. By the end, aside from the camaraderie and the connection that I have with my students, which continues with a lot of them. I got invited to one of my student’s weddings. She graduated in 2012. She's now a senior art director at Buck Agency. Many of the students surpass anything I’ve done in the graphic design field. It's a joy to see that.
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A collaborative project bringing together Alena Marchak, Andrew Bencsko, Nato Thompson, and students from the High School of Art and Design to explore the role of arts education in shaping lives, building community, and cultivating creative practice.
Produced and Moderated by Saul Applebaum
Marian Goodman Edu
The High School of Art & Design
The Alternative Art School
Luna and Irene