I've been thinking carefully about what the future holds for the luxury economy and the sustainability of the art world. Art is a luxury on one level but also a need and a good. So perhaps luxury and sustainability ought to merge.
The Experience of 'beauty' is arguably a human need, and in ideal circumstances it can also encourage us to contemplate philosophical, ethical and material questions. In short, humans need art to conceive new utopias, new possibilities or alternative ways to view the world. Art, is a complicated multifaceted experience. It is vexing at times, often hypocritical and occasionally if you are lucky--a revelation.
In collaboration with a curator called Dana, I designed and built a sustainable "Gallerykit" that requires virtually no overhead to fund and only needs a compact space to stage exhibits for the public. It's an experimental operational model. But so far, it has actually worked as planned and has delivered a few surprises that surpassed any expectations.
The current exhibit "Jimma!" is a portrait of Jimmy Carter by an artist in LA called Jay Lizo. (Picture links over the flip) and for this exhibit I rigged up a solar powered unit to power the gallery lighting system. I hope that the design serves as an inspiration for other designs to improve upon.
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