Art Share
The Soil Factory is a space where artists from all walks of life encounter. Here, we meet with practicing artists who are exhibiting in galleries and museums as much as we meet with artists who explore art-making in their free time or artists who tap into the knowledge produced in the art worlds to develop scientific or social projects that expand or break with academic and disciplinary rules. Regardless of the context in which one devotes oneself to art-making, sharing our artworks with other artists (whether in the process or finalized) can revitalize the creative practice, redirect necessary adjustments, and demystify the grandeur of challenging feelings like fear, shame, or confusion. More than that, with Art Share, we recognize that our creativity is a shared endeavor and that the artist’s work happens before and beyond the finalized artwork.
Art Share started as the continuation of the group of artists that began in April 2024 under the title De/Critique. Throughout five meetings of De/Critique, we discussed the background structure of a “critique” and how artists can use the notion of autotheory to establish a theoretical framework that sustains their practice. Debora Faccion Grodzki was leading this group using her research on Latin American art with a focus on creativity and decolonial thinking as a guideline to establish the tone and ideals of the conversations. As the group evolved in knowing each other and experiencing the meetings, it became clear that a new structure was necessary.
With Art Share, we aimed to divest entirely from the spirit of “critique,” starting from the generous trust and openness we can assume between artists. An artist is someone who inevitably is creating transformation by sharing themselves. In other words, artists actively engage their capacities (imaginative, deep emotion, intellectual, fun, sarcastic, innovative, etc) to change the world (be it their immediate world or the world at large). In any case, one can expect a sensibility and pre-disposition of care and appreciation while showing their work in person to a group of artists who are not engaged in hierarchical or binary dynamics (for example, the professor/students, the curator/artist, the institution/artist, or the critic/artwork). At the Soil Factory, we can all meet on the same ground, regardless of our role in the various art worlds.
At Art Share, we sustain the value of sharing artworks of all kinds to cultivate a cultural environment that supports social transformation.
The first format of the Art Share group happened according to these parameters: Debora guided the group to begin with a 10-minute activation to situate everyone within the group of artists. Then, up to three artists showed their work, each for 30 minutes. Each artist bringing their work could request the group for specific kinds of feedback or use their time to present what they are doing and notice everyone’s reactions. It was entirely up to each artist to decide how they exhibited their work -- artists were encouraged to bring work they were engaging with at that present moment, regardless of how finished it was. In the end, we discussed the synchronicities and connections between the works we saw and proposed any ideas or projects we would like to pursue together.
Debora took pictures of the artists and works exhibited, wrote a short text describing the themes and ideas shared in each meeting, and gathered these in short PDF documents. This gesture honored the encounter of those unique artists and artworks in this specific space and time and disrupted the art world exhibition format, which privileges the “finalized” art object or project isolated within an art institution.
Nowadays, the first Art Share group meets every third Monday of the month from 5-7 PM and has a self-organizing principle, without leaders or hierarchy. Other groups can be created to meet at different times, as the model works best for small groups. Other temporary or long-term projects centering art-making can fall under the umbrella of “Art Share” if that’s helpful for local artists.
Contact [email protected] if you want to join or form an Art Share group.