State of the Arts discusses entrepreneurship and art
Art is no longer a solely a product of higher truths, patronage and tradition. Today, it is experienced beyond the museum: Art is an active part of many Instagram feeds, plays a large role in product experiences and can be earned as a college degree.
On Friday evening, USC and Los Angeles’ creative community gathered at the University Religious Center’s Fishbowl for an evening open gallery and speaker panel to discuss the role that art plays today. State of the Arts kicked off at 4 p.m. with various exhibits set up in the outdoor hub. Visitors casually browsed the open gallery, conversing with exhibitors and each other over food and relaxing, ambient music.
Organized by Spark SC, State of the Arts was created to celebrate the intersectionality between art, technology and the spirit of creativity.
“By hosting an art exhibition dedicated to showing off how the USC and L.A. community is pursuing grassroots ventures with art, we wanted to empower artists to market their own work,” said Priscilla Pan, Spark SC board member and the event’s lead organizer. “Our goal was to showcase underexplored pockets of creativity and inspire attendees to produce and act on their own ideas,”
Among the exhibitors featured was Melisa Seah, a freshman majoring in business administration, with her clothing line, “Classic Revivals.” Seah curates clothing with the goal of sustainability, integrating the art of taste in fashion with eco-friendly and entrepreneurial intentions. Utilizing art for impact was a common theme in the exhibitions: Artist Laura Kg also uses a range of media forms, from digital to traditional, to communicate issues of social justice. Her work in the gallery utilized palm trees to discuss these personal and historical identities.
While some of the work on display opened up a conversation about social commentary, other exhibitors specifically explored the use of technology and its empowering capacity. Samir Ghosh, a projectionist and senior majoring in cognitive science, created a digital simulation of pollen floating in the wind for his exhibition. His work served as the event’s key digital piece, highlighting the role of tools in technology to create art. AIGA USC, the campus chapter of the professional association for designers, contributed a life-sized magazine cover photo backdrop to the exhibition.
The backdrop was modeled off Wired Magazine, but the title “Wired” was replaced with “Weird” to encourage creative, outside-of-the-box thinking. This piece served as a staple photo opportunity as well as the visual anthem for the whole event. As visitors directly interacted with the tech and culture magazine piece, they were reminded that the “state of the arts” is key to every conversation from ventures to social commentary.
The evening wrapped up with an hour-long speaker panel to open a dialogue about art’s role in the community. With the onset of the digital age and a certain democratizing of technological resources, artistic creation is increasingly present — this was the overarching theme of the panel conversation.
Art is not only in movies and murals, but also in the visual and material design of restaurant experiences, as Armando De La Torre on the panel discussed. De La Torre is the co-founder of Guisados, a Mexican restaurant chain with three locations in Echo Park, Downtown and West Hollywood. De La Torre was joined by China Adams, a design professor in Roski, and Michael Chang, a senior majoring in fine arts, on the panel, and the discussion emphasized the overlapping nature of artistic production in every industry and mode of thinking.
“In the past, labor was more expensive than materials,” De La Torre said. “Today, though, materials are more expensive than labor, and so choosing the right paper for your menus and tiles for your walls becomes that much more crucial.”
Adams and Chang discussed the artistic process and its parallels to entrepreneurship, design and product decisions. Adams described the distinction between art and design, stating their different intentions.
“Art is more about the process, while design uses the word iteration instead,” Adams said.
Chang emphasized the parallels between the two, though, explaining that art and design were not mutually exclusive. He commented on his experience in designing for ventures, explaining how he now takes that ambitious, fast-paced “sprint” method to brainstorm, meditate on and create artwork.
In a last discussion of the utility of artwork for the community, all three speakers championed the importance of process in their respective realms of design, business and fine arts. Adams had the last word, though, and said her biggest inspirations are her students because of how they consistently find new ways to communicate their artistic process, especially digitally. Though arts education is necessary for context and history, the process of art and creativity is democratic.
As the panel concluded with this empowering sentiment, the intent of the event became even clearer. The artistic process is available to everyone. With the growing accessibility of resources comes this democracy of art: Today and tomorrow it will serve as a tool for crafting experiences through products, media and even restaurant wall tiles. Art is ever-transforming, ever-progressing and absolutely everywhere.