“(un)Common: Art & Technology” Exhibition

Weill Art Gallery/ 92nd Y

This event has ended.

92nd Street Y (92Y) announced its collaboration with Meural—a pathbreaking art/technology startup with the goal of democratizing art—to present (un)Common: Art & Technology an exhibition of remixed and reimagined public domain art. The exhibition will showcase pieces by five artists, showing works that remix and reconfigure art held in the public domain aka “the commons”. (un)Common explores what happens when paint becomes pixels—and then something else entirely—raising questions in the process about the lines between ownership and originality, creator and consumer, inspiration and imitation.

The group show features new work commissioned by Meural from artists Eric Corriel, Bill Domonkos, David Galbraith and Joaquin Trujillo,as well as intricate collages from artist Sally Gil. The work included spans collage, audio encoding, photographic fusion and digital manipulation.

Using digital technology to open the artist’s process, this exhibition explores context and the creative journey. And it prompts such questions as: How does one’s aesthetic experience change if the artist’s creative process can be traced? How does this knowledge change our response to the exhibited work? And what does democratization and open accessibility mean for the future of art?

Allison Valchuis, 92Y Art Center Director says, “Our collaboration with Meural reinforces the mission of the 92Y to engage, educate and reach new audiences through art. Artists have always found inspiration in the work of those who came before them and this exhibit embodies that spirit.” The exhibition in 92Y’s Weill Art Gallery will run from January 12 through February 9, 2018, and is free and open to the public. Visit www.92Y.org/ArtGallery for viewing hours.

On February 9, Art and the Internet Age: Mapping the Effect of the Digital World on Our Cultural Past and Present, a Gallery Talk, moderated by Meural’s Head of Curation, Poppy Simpson, will explore how the digital world is shaping contemporary visual culture and challenging our understanding of art, the artist, originality and ownership. The panel will include leading digital theorist Dr. Lev Manovich, New York Public Library Chief Technology Officer Tony Ageh, and artist Eric Corriel. For tickets, please visit: https://www.92y.org/event/art-and-the-internet-age

Meural uses proprietary technology to present a new model for discovering and experiencing art. By uniting a new physical channel for art viewing—the Meural Canvas—with an expansive art library licensed from the archives of cultural institutions and contemporary artists, Meural provides living artists with a platform to engage with new audiences, and institutions the power to bring their digitized holdings to more viewers across the world.

“Our art library encompasses everything from Renaissance paintings to the experimental digital works of today. One of the aims of our platform is to bring new life to works from the public domain, by re-contextualizing them for audiences in the digital age,” says Poppy Simpson, Head of Curation at Meural. “We’ve joined with the 92Y Art Center to present an in-person exploration of what happens when the past and future of art converge, and when new voices apply interventions to the public domain works that belong to us all.”