Volumes of People | Places | Things are incuded in the exhibition The World as Text at the Center for Book and Paper Arts, Columbia College Chicago (16 Jun – 12 Aug 2011).

The installation functions as a temporary summer reading room designed under the direction of John Preus to ‘amplify connections between the activity of reading and performance.’

Thank you to little berlin for sharing our publication. More information: the world as text tumblr.

People | Places | Things worked as an exercise in the analysis and documentation of art. Find Think Write attempts to shorten this process by directing focus towards the singular object. Both publications document the space between the activities of viewing, reflection and writing – all of which typically occur in isolation. We feel gracious to have participated in last summer’s Open Studio exhibition at the ICA because it presented the entirety of the zine-publishing process out into the open and shared among contributors. It may have been the closest thing to performance that art historians can get.

Also, Find Think Write is (still) stewing. Keep in touch.

The Art Workers Resource Group is assigning you homework: Go out and find a work of art that interests you. It could be hanging in a museum or a friend’s studio. Perhaps it is an exhibition, a book, a performance, or a brief exchange that sparked a moment of inspiration. Anything works so long as it makes you think.

With this done, write a short response that summarizes the subject you have chosen, making clear why it is notable and worth sharing. This is a small task, so keep your thoughts direct and focused. The point is to introduce your subject for a larger, yet-to-happen conversation. Aim for a length of 300 words and, if possible, insert a related image alongside your text.

Submissions can be emailed to workers@artworkersphiladelphia.com. All submissions will be read with consideration for future inclusion in free collaborative publications, for which your text will be fully credited and reproduced in its original form. In submitting your text, you acknowledge this possibility.  Submissions will be reviewed bimonthly, with the first deadline falling at the end of the calendar year.  Multiple submissions are allowed.

The Art Workers Resource Group thanks you for your participation and encourages you to share this announcement with your friends and colleagues. Download a copy of this announcement here.

Join the AWRG on Friday, July 16, from 6-8pm for a reading group discussion at the ICA Philadelphia. The event is part of the “Summer Studio with Anthony Campuzano” programing. Guests will participate by reading three short essays on art, pedagogy, and documentation, and then sharing their ideas and responses to create a special edition of the People/Places/Things zine. All are welcome; no preparation, prior knowledge, or special materials needed.

AWRG announces the publication of the third volume of People | Places | Things (vol 3).

A short update: we are currently working on preparing volume three of People/Places/Things for July 2010.

In the meanwhile, here are images of volume one displayed at Zines Mate shop at Vacant in Tokyo, Japan.

Zine's Mate, Japan Tokyo

Zine's Mate, Tokyo Japan

Our goal with the zine is to insert a little 8 1/2 x 7 inch booklet of critical thought into the Philadelphia art community. We have tailored our writing and publishing project to reflect what it is we feel as though we have to contribute: ideas that are individually motivating, hopefully more widely interesting, and locally relevant.

A couple of months ago I sent copies of P/P/T to Tokyo where the readership of english-language art writing is fairly limited and I suppose most have never been to Philadelphia. I wonder if anyone has taken a copy home.

Now that we have been publishing P/P/T for a few months, we have a more firm understanding of the time, energy and money that goes into even the littlest of projects. That said, AWRG is ready  to grow our publication over the coming months. We are unsure what that will mean and welcome your input.

AWRG announces the second volume of People | Places | Things (vol. 2).

Please be in touch if you would like a small stack for your arts organization or lunch time reading group. We also welcome exchanges.

Thank you everyone for the feedback on the first issue of People/Places/Things. For information on joining AWRG, or for questions regarding issues of P/P/T, please contact us at: workers@artworkersphiladelphia.com

We are pleased to debut the inaugural issue of People | Places | Things (vol. 1), a serial zine based out of Philadelphia.

As John outlines, this is a space for the contextualization of art.

I suggest that it become a space for the exploration of our profession, as well. In addition to asking, ‘What art is vital?’, we should also be asking, ‘Why do I think this is vital?’

Art historian Willibald Sauerlander states in a Brooklyn Rail (Feb 2010) interview:
“We have to ask ourselves what is looking? Is looking a strictly visual process or is it a deep, emotional process? We should test and totally absorb the emotional process in front of a work of art and then, as art historians, we should undergo the critical task of asking ourselves whether the emotional impact of the art is identical with the historical, or original, mission of the object. One must ask oneself what the tension between these two things is and then bring them together.”

Taking this into consideration, the AWRG encourages you to be in touch with your thoughts about art or the work of our group.

Another day, another blog.  There are countless out there.  Many of them concern the art world.  In Philadelphia, the artblog is one so well established and frequently read that to compete with it would be impractical.  So why the Art Workers Resource Group?

First, let us be clear about something.  This is not an art blog in the sense that it will always cover events or review recent openings. It is an outlet for writing about art with hindsight.  Sometimes that hindsight will be only a few days in the making.  Other times, our rearview mirrors will be trained on decades long past.

While that, in the format of a blog, might smack of obsolescence, it is more a matter of the shared background at AWRG.  We are art historians interested in larger trends as they existed and as they continue to develop.  If we see, read, or hear of something, our instinct is to contextualize it within the larger frameworks we have been taught or conceived of on our own.

In Philadelphia, that happens all the time.  Art is made.  Lectures are given. Performances are held. Whether something is good or bad, it likely has relevance.  It may connect to immediate matters in corresponding or reactionary ways.  It might be linked to some historical precedent.  Perhaps it reflects what is occurring contemporaneously in another discipline.

As the AWRG blog begins, maintaining its own relevance will be one principle guiding the writers.  Add to that an incorporation of material and ideas that are new and challenging.  We will inevitably get some things wrong, but the overall goals of enriching the dialogue about art in Philadelphia and of broadening the way Philadelphians think about art in general will hopefully be preserved.