art is (Speaking Portraits)–[Vol. I — v. 1.4]–

In his ongoing video art work of “speaking portraits,” artist/poet George Quasha puts an impossible, but unavoidable, question before artists of all kinds and in many places: what is art? In response artists let us in on their private space of art definition. This intimate view of speaking faces, each filling the screen, shows how different it is for artists to say what art is than for others (critics, historians, philosophers, viewers). For a particular artist, art may not only be an object, a thing historically defined, but something close to the core of one’s life, perhaps even a singular event. Here we gain unique access to its nature in the person speaking.

61 ARTISTS IN VOL. I:

Marina Abramovic, Mac Adams, William Anastasi, Kathleen Anderson, David Antin, Eleanor Antin, Alain Arias-Misson, Arman, Richard Artschwager, Conrad Atkinson, SoHyun Bae, Bill Beckley, Susan Bee, Caroline Bergvall, Xu Bing, Dove Bradshaw, Nyame Brown, Linda Cassidy, Evelyna Domnitch, Thomas Eller, Jonathan Feldschuh, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jill Godmilow, Mahmoud Hamadani, Ann Hamilton, Jan Harrison, Pablo Helguera, Gary Hill, Heather Hutchison, Dorothee Joachim, Eva Karczag, Alex Katz, Alison Knowles, Stephen Korns, Yayoi Kusama, Pat Lipsky, Larry Litt, Brian Maguire, Chris Mann, Anthony McCall, Ann Messner, Larry Miller, Meredith Monk, Mamta Murthy, Nobuho Nagasawa, Monica Narula, Martin Lam Nguyen, Dennis Oppenheim, Eiko Otake, Tom Phillips, Isabela Prado, Praxis, Raquel Rabinovich, Carter Ratcliff, Dorothea Rockburne, Tim Rollins, Andra Samelson, Carolee Schneemann, Linda Schrank, Willoughby Sharp, Carl Skelton, Steve Tomasula, Cecilia Vicuña, Linda Weintraub, Monika Weiss, Katarina Wong, Ellen Zweig