Berlin Studio Conversations
Edited by Stephanie Buhmann BErlin Studio convErSationS twEnty womEn talk aBout art introduction It was humbling and pleasantly surprising when upon its release in March 2016, the first volume of this ongoing interview series, New York Studio Conversations – Seventeen Women Talk About Art, received enthusiastic, widespread support. That initial book not only inspired three different exhibitions and accompanying panel discussions at the Shirley Fiterman Art Center at the Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York (2015), the Macy Art Gallery at Teachers College at Columbia University, New York (2016), and the Indiana University of Art and Design in Columbus, Indiana (2017), but it subsequently entered the collections of numerous international research libraries. Within a few months, a second printing was announced. All of this encouraging feedback has helped to spark this second volume. At the urging of my Berlin-based publisher The Green Box, I eagerly shifted my focus to artists based in this dynamic city. My gratitude goes out to Anja Lutz for offering invaluable insight into the overall selection of interviewees. As with the prior volume, Berlin Studio Conversations – Twenty Women Talk About Art aims to provide an intimate look at a vast range of artistic practices. Here, philosophies and intent vary as much as the choices of medium, which span painting, sculpture, drawing, multi-media installation, video, photography, and sound-based work. Certainly, not everything can be covered, and yet what the reader of this book will be able to gather is that there are myriad ways to make or think about art today. As we are forced to maneuver through globally challenging times, art can be both outspoken and referential to current events; it can examine social structures and the human condition at large; it 3 Berlin Studio Conversations introduction can be focused on the everyday or on transformative events; it a temperature.
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