Art Practical

October 20, 2011. In her conversation with Constance Lewallen, recounted in the curator’s catalogue essay for the exhibition, State of Mind: New California Art circa 1970, and excerpted in this issue, the artist Martha Rosler described her time as a student at the University of California, San Diego. “We might as well make big demands; why not do what we wanted. Either the market or the institutions were going to change or we would ignore them and make new ones.” It is interesting to consider this statement in comparison to Matt Stromberg’s review of We Bought the Seagram Building, in which he notes that the artist Lucas Soi “reflects his disillusionment with the dreams of modernism and globalization, making transparent the often-hidden history of finance underlying culture.” If institutions define and reify while art resists and confounds, what role does art play in this moment of occupation that refuses sound bites while demanding recognition, each person according to its own? - PM