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Arts In - Arts In: Erin Blankenship

Arts In: Erin Blankenship

07/21/19 • 21 min

Arts In
Erin Blankenship is the Curator of Exhibitions & Collections at the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg. The Museum is more special than most people realize - it’s a historical museum that maintains a vital collection of contemporary art. Erin’s seen first-hand how visual art offers another path to understanding the challenging reality of genocide. The Museum’s permanent collection includes work in a range of mediums, created by artists in concentration camps and Holocaust survivors - along with work by “empathizers,” artists who may or may not be Jewish, but are moved to respond to acts of genocide. She explains the powerful role artists shoulder, telling stories that need to be told. And she shares memories of beloved artist William Pachner, an internationally-known Abstract Expressionist and a longtime, vivid presence in Tampa Bay. In one of the highlights of her curatorial career to date, Erin organized an exhibition where collectors of Pachner’s beautiful and colorful abstractions discovered that his paintings were inspired by the loss of his entire family in the Holocaust - forcing people to rethink their perception of what ‘Holocaust art’ looks like. Find out more about the Florida Holocaust Museum’s exhibitions and programming at https://www.flholocaustmuseum.org/. Read a Tampa Bay Times review of the exhibit of William Pachner’s work that Erin talks about - https://www.tampabay.com/things-to-do/visualarts/art-review-william-pachners-powerful-response-to-holocaust-still-resonates/2230372. A detailed look at the life and work of William Pachner published in Tablet, with a quote from Erin - https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/250423/painter-william-pachner-obit. - Arts In is produced by Sheila Cowley. Executive Producer, Barbara St. Clair.
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Erin Blankenship is the Curator of Exhibitions & Collections at the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg. The Museum is more special than most people realize - it’s a historical museum that maintains a vital collection of contemporary art. Erin’s seen first-hand how visual art offers another path to understanding the challenging reality of genocide. The Museum’s permanent collection includes work in a range of mediums, created by artists in concentration camps and Holocaust survivors - along with work by “empathizers,” artists who may or may not be Jewish, but are moved to respond to acts of genocide. She explains the powerful role artists shoulder, telling stories that need to be told. And she shares memories of beloved artist William Pachner, an internationally-known Abstract Expressionist and a longtime, vivid presence in Tampa Bay. In one of the highlights of her curatorial career to date, Erin organized an exhibition where collectors of Pachner’s beautiful and colorful abstractions discovered that his paintings were inspired by the loss of his entire family in the Holocaust - forcing people to rethink their perception of what ‘Holocaust art’ looks like. Find out more about the Florida Holocaust Museum’s exhibitions and programming at https://www.flholocaustmuseum.org/. Read a Tampa Bay Times review of the exhibit of William Pachner’s work that Erin talks about - https://www.tampabay.com/things-to-do/visualarts/art-review-william-pachners-powerful-response-to-holocaust-still-resonates/2230372. A detailed look at the life and work of William Pachner published in Tablet, with a quote from Erin - https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/250423/painter-william-pachner-obit. - Arts In is produced by Sheila Cowley. Executive Producer, Barbara St. Clair.

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undefined - Arts In: Katherine Pill

Arts In: Katherine Pill

Katherine Pill is the Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in downtown St. Petersburg. In this conversation with Barbara St. Clair, Katherine shares her duties as curator of the growing collection of contemporary art at this classic museum - from exploring cutting-edge new digital works to collaborating with public artists Carol Mickett and Robert Stackhouse on community engagement with their work. Find out more about the Museum of Fine Arts at mfastpete.org. . . . Images 1-2 are from Mickett-Stackhouse’s Irma Reflections at the MFA. Find out more about this participatory installation at mfastpete.org/event/mickett-stackhouse-irma-reflections/all. Image 3 is by Christian Marclay, a still from Telephones, 1995, video, running time 7:30 minutes. © Christian Marclay. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. Find out more about this pioneering artist at tate.org.uk/art/artists/christian-marclay.

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undefined - Arts In: Jason Hackenwerth

Arts In: Jason Hackenwerth

Jason Hackenwerth is an adventurous abstract sculptor who’s medium is thousands of latex balloons. His enormous sculptural inventions can fill a towering museum atrium, or mall. His sculptures are enormous, and the vivid pictures on his website are only an echo of the overwhelming power of experiencing them up close. Jason Hackenwerth teaches at St. Pete’s Eckerd College and works all over the world. To his knowledge, he’s the only artist right now doing serious, curated art with balloons. He talks about the challenges of validating a new kind of art when you don’t have a community of artists working in that style. In this conversation with Barbara St. Clair, Jason shares the moving and “terrifying” story of his early experiments, and how his first big installation went so badly wrong. And how he turned that failure into a new way of working that got him a year-long gig building a sculpture a day on a stage inside FAO Schwarz, and traveling the world creating giant balloon sculptures. Jason explains his passion for the ephemeral nature of his artistic practice - and his ongoing artistic quest to push this unique medium constantly further. And the challenges of creating artwork that curators expect to look like a birthday party. Find out more about Jason Hackenwerth’s work at http://www.jasonhackenwerth.com/. Time-lapse footage of the installation of Pisces at the National Museum of Scotland - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtqPxtSMK9E. An interview with Jason during the unveiling of Corona at the Abu Dhabi Science Festival - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHv9PMl-Ki8. The video he mentions of a year of impromptu sculptures created while people watched him at FAO Schwarz - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg3aE1zytnI

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