Narrative Fieldwork
By Saul Appelbaum
Narrative Fieldwork is a multimedial, multivocal, and multichannel series. It explores how art, narrative, desire, and communication move between personal experience and public life. Drawing on more than fifteen years of commercial, editorial, and digital-first experience through his studio The Pioneers, and thirty years of art experimentation, the series brings expertise in research, writing, photography, film, and publishing to the arts. Most articles are produced as pro bono contributions to artists, cultural organizations, and the broader arts community, while select projects are undertaken as paid commissions. We follow the relationships through which a subject becomes meaningful: who makes it, what surrounds it, what it carries from the past, and whom it might reach. Each encounter generates original material and opens further connections between people, images, histories, and ideas.
Contributor, Los Angeles
Saul Appelbaum is a Los Angeles-based artist, director, writer, independent curator, producer, and digital strategist whose practice begins with painting and extends into film, publishing, architecture, and cultural exchange. He is the Founding Director of The Pioneers, where he develops Agile Cinema®, an experimental approach combining scripted and unscripted encounters, fiction, documentary, and participatory media.
His projects have involved institutions and organizations including The Broad, Serpentine Galleries, Marian Goodman Gallery, Petzel Gallery, New Museum, Singapore Art Museum, and Perry Ellis. His exhibitions include Slow Grief I: Foundations, Agile Cinema®, and We Breathe the Same Air at Rusha & Co. in Los Angeles, alongside presentations in Los Angeles Bangkok, Chicago, Ithaca, and New York. Films and performances have been presented at TRANSFER Gallery, Et al. Books, and Cornell University.
Appelbaum has curated exhibitions at Rusha & Co. and developed Working Frameworks across multiple academic institutions. His artworks are held in collections including the ASU FIDM Museum. His research contributions include publications on modern architecture and the art of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson.
He holds degrees from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago, maintaining an international artistic and cultural presence.
